Morrowind is just a plain bad game

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Seeing as how this is a forum I was assuming its function was not to lay down the plenary of opinion.

Apparently, you almost liked Morrowind, but...

Which begs the question : but hurt much ?

I'm curious LoPan, what kind of a response would satisfy you on the topic of "auxiliary fiction in games"? Do you have something against this supporting text being there, or simply do not like the idea of Morrowind being called a good game in general?

You do realise that no one is saying that the game is fun exclusively due to the background lore? I assume you see no redeeming qualities in the game for you to have that stance?


If you want to really get into a substantial discussion about it, how about listing the things that Morrowind needs to be considered a good game in your opinion? Surely you can define your own criteria if you expect others to be giving you arguments that satisfy those criteria?

All aspects of Morrowind besides exploration were thoroughly debased by its own fanciers. I then enquired about the definitions of exploration and it was presented as the exploration of the lore, and the lore is entirely 'explored' through reading it and looking at buildings. No other quality of Morrowind was brought forth and the value of a game the sole appeal of which lies in reading about lore that you cannot experience beyond architectural sights seems to have little value as a game to me.

As many times as I must repeat this, I am not engaging in what has become either a tirade or a harangue to be satisfied, but to read and understand the arguments and perspectives of the people who so dearly enjoy and value something I cannot for the life of me do. It is hard not to be frustrated when this intention is met with generic, qualifying phrases, gibe and the plenary powers of opinion over arguments and analysis. Nothing I have brought forth has been argued, it has been negated by 'because I like it' commentary that has failed to evolve from its fatuous assertation no matter my effort to prod it. An effort which was hardly valiant but frightfully difficult and rather degrading to uphold when the basis of it is someone's opinion--a shallow-brained's substitution of the word 'belief'.

At this point the last thing I would ever desire would be to see substantiated this farce of a reasoned discussion.

Oh god, this Elder Scrolls level limit got to me again!

I painstakingly found my way to Direnni in the Direnni Tower, after Prince Lhotun told me to meet her. Direnni Tower is probably the second most complicatedly large place after Shedungent in Daggerfall.

Direnni tells me to get lost and come back to her after I am more experienced.

And once I leave the place, the dungeon map will again go back to unrevealed, fog of war mode.

And all the liches and ancient vampires that I killed will reset themselves.

Why? Oh god, why? The easiest thing to do is use my Running skill - a Primary attribute - to level quickly until I reach Level 8. Screw these level limits for the main quest. Screw them!

Oh, great, you're going to snarkbitch again. You and your fucking stupid idea of analysis.

Let's do it then, fucker.

First post of the thread: Boils down to the "If only these theories were obviously true then the TES would probably be a lot more interesting." Given that you're on a site that talks about TES lore and posting in a thread filled with discussion of TES lore, let's assume you mean "to you." As in, "TES bores me, maybe it would be better if it were more cut and dry." I don't really know how to respond to that, given that it's an unsubstantiated claim that appeals only to your own taste as its highest criterion. Oh, wait, I forgot that we need to argue you into liking this game.

Second post of the thread: First, actual point about Morrowind combat. Too bad it amounts to "ARPGs with 3D rendered combat shouldn't rely on stats instead of player skill too heavily." Great! You completely agree with the Codex!

More to the issue at hand, "there is hardly anything to see in Morrowind, or find, or experience; point is, don't get what part of the notion of exploration could be satisfied by Morrowind." Excellent. We have something concrete to work with. You'll understand why I enjoy Morrowind if I can talk about what there is to explore!

DamnedRegistrations: Pardon the paraphrasing, but "I explored random caves, I got phat lewt, I had adventures, it was great."

Third post of the thread: Paraphrasing again, feel free to point out if I'm mischaracterizing you, but your post amounts to 1) I saw in the first four hours more or less everything there was to see in the game, 2) later things, like magic items, were just variations on the familiar, and 3) exploration requires mystery, familiarity kills it, 4) fuck you, DamnedRegistrations, you don't know what you're talking about.

My response: It's not about graphics or loot--you're right, they are, respectively, kind of ugly and minor variations on simple themes--it's about the world itself. The exploration is adding to your knowledge and experience of the world. Interaction consists of finding background about the world, anticipating the shape of the world based on knowledge of the world, and interacting with elements of the world--talking to them, looting them, freeing them, killing them, etc.

Fourth post of the thread: PP: 1) The only interaction you have is hitting things and reading, 2) your experiences can lie to you, so none of your evidence, i.e. instances of enjoying the game, prove that it's an enjoyable game hurrhurrderr, 3) the game world presented nothing outside of expository text ergo if there is exploration, then exploration must be reading. Leaving aside that your counter-example for fine interaction for the world involves "climbing" and "horsing around" (wait, if Morrowind had horses would it have exploration? Is Oblivion the better game?), 2 is herpaderp and 3 is willful ignorance, presumably to make a point. 2 is dumb because all I ever experience when playing a game is a collection of pixels of varying colours than move in patterns, fucker. Sometimes there are these weird noises, too. This is apparently your problem with number three--"all is see are pixels! that's not a real history, it's made up! that's not an economy, it's totally static! all I see are words and pixels."

Leaving the herpderp aside, the question that you should have been asking was this: what is the exploration mechanic in Morrowind? Because if it isn't mechanical in the game, then it's as irrelevant as the colour of the font. It's what you were driving at, though you provided no examples of a good mechanic, criteria for assessing mechanics or anything of the like. If I have to be a pretentious assmuncher like you want me to be, I'd call it something like a controlled information loop. Simply, play the game, get information, information influences how you play the game. Information accretes and that is player progress in the game--exploration not necessarily of the physical space but of the information space that includes the history, culture, yadda yadda you know the cant. How does the game world do this? If the player asks around Seyda Neen, somebody will mention Addamasartus. What do you learn in Addamasartus? Skooma is an illegal drug. There are slaves in Morrowind, and you can free them. What do you do with that information? Me, I raided every possible mine or farm to look for slaves to free. And the game kept track of that shit and rewarded me with a nice little quest down the line. With the skooma, it's maybe a little more subtle. It turns up again in the Imperials' confiscated goods in Seyda Neen. You can run into and raid a drug lab--a nongeneric encounter with hostiles with loot made interesting by its specific purpose and place in the Morrowind universe--and find it on Orvas Dren's plantation. Depending on how much you know, this can be a first sign that something's not right with the Duke and his family, prompting investigation of the Duke's underworld connections, or it could merely be more evidence that Orvas is a scumbag while you're cheerily on your way to murder his ass. This is what I'm pointing to when I talk about a dutiful simulation of a world and just now, when I pulled "information loop" out of my ass to describe how Morrowind's lore interacts with how you play the game.

Moving on!

My response: Why are you complaining about reading? If it's not worth it for you, it's not worth it, that's cool. Also, there is mystery. There's a 'why' behind so much of what goes on the game world that it's a game that begs you to ask the question 'why,' unlike so many others.

Fifth post: 1) Having to ask what's going on in a game world is a bad thing, though there are allowances for fantasy/realworld gaps. -) FUCKING OPINION UNSUBSTANTIATED BY ANYTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING THOUGHT. I believe exactly the opposite. Maybe it's because I stopped reading children's books a few years back? I don't know.
2) Morrowind has a lot of lore and the game is mostly a mechanism for unpacking that lore. -) Yup. You know. Exploring that lore.
3) Morrowind's lore is ambiguous and contradictory. This is bad. -) Bollocks. Absolute bullshit. Your argument is quite literally "Of course ambiguity can be a fine tool for telling a story, but the story ends up being a heap of lore about a world that no longer is or can be little but read about; the game itself is theoretical, the fact that you walk from this place to the next is not used to tell a story, the fact that you chose to speak to someone only gives you a node for lore text--not even a character or person is behind it, characters are often used to reveal exposition in a way that enlivens the world and makes it feel it is actually populated by people." To get started, 'ambiguity is okay to tell a story, but this isn't a story, ergo the ambiguity is not okay' is a fucking awful argument. The ambiguity exists for a few reasons. DraQ attempted to demonstrate to you the appeal of ambiguous lore, especially the simulation of a living world in which multiple, contradictory viewpoints vie for authority and there is no access to the absolute, unvarnished truth. Oh, but you derped to that, too. We'll get to it. It also exists in the story as the game unfolds because there was an attempt to create player choice in the game and not completely disrespect it. You could be so fucking Imperial it oozed out of your ears, being a cultist and legionnaire. This whole saving Morrowind thing is just out of duty to protect the Empire's interests. Or you could be a hard core nativist, killing Imperials with abandon, mourning the state of your Dunmer kin, and you save Morrowind, unite the Dunmer and plan on ousting the Empire just as soon as you get back from that volcano. It's called roleplaying, bitch. Not everybody has to do it this way, but Morrowind did. The ambiguity in lore and in the story--who you are, why you're doing what you're doing--serve purposes for the game.
4) This critique was in the bit quoted above: there's nothing to do but walk around and read expository text. -) Nope. You're doing the "all I see are pixels" thing again.

Sixth-Eighth: You be a pretentious dumbass some more, while condescending down on people when you're the only one in the thread that can't follow a fucking argument or play a goddamned game correctly, i.e. in the way that is fun.

Let me lay it out again, in the hopes that it'll penetrate your asshole and enter your brain. No, dumbshit, until very recently in fiction, there was nearly always a firm and trusted narrator in the person of the author. In film, it's what the audience sees and hears. So no, the norm is a trusted authority laying down the truths of the universe. It could be fucking Deckard Cain, nobody contradicts that motherfucker.

In character lore, as DraQ chose to term it, is this: the player gets to know only what the character knows. The character receives knowledge in-game from people, books, his environment and its objects. None of these things is given more weight from without the game, e.g. you can trust Vivec because he's a god, apparently, but nothing outside of the game universe indicates that you should trust him. And there are good reasons in the game universe not to. Your last criticism is anti-RPG, so I'm not going to address it further than I did in the 'ambiguity' criticism above.

You end this particular chapter of idiocy with "The only thing that's been ascertained so far is that Morrowind fanciers find every aspect of Morrowind rubbish besides early looting and reading lore." Jesus H. Christ. See your second post of this thread.

Ninth post of the thread: DING! WE HAVE A LEGITIMATE CRITICISM! I'm so proud of you, I knew you could do it. Too bad it involved responding to a post you apparently completely missed the point of. Or is this just a 'yeah, but' without the yeah? It's kind of hard to tell with that fishy first sentence.

My response: Goes completely ignored while you whine about how many people don't agree with you. Oh look, you again not addressing anybody's points.

Eleventh post: You whining more about how you're an idiot. By the way, 'lore' is your word, not our word, piece of shit. More you, not listening to anybody else or responding to what they're saying. You haven't made a single decent fucking argument about shit in this entire thread. Instead you've just puffed up your own opinions and unsubstantiated claims, inserted your finger into your nostril and called what you scooped out gold while looking down your nose at everybody else, whining about being oppressed by the plenary of opinion. Nothing you have brought forth has been argued because you've argued nothing. Morrowind other than its exploration has been highly debased by its fanciers? What a fucking crock.

You're stupid and you think pretending everybody else is stupid will correct that. Jesus H. Christ. I can only talk about what the game objectively presents and the experience I had of playing it. The gap between those two things and 'fun' is like the gap between them and 'beauty' in art. For me, it's not worth going into that gap here. You didn't find it fun. Fine. Good, because God knows we're a hivemind. But you make no criticism of the game that isn't 1) the combat, 2) "they could have done more with it" or 3) based on personal tastes and preferences. Don't think otherwise. Sorry, I can only bring the ass to the river. If he wants to flail on the banks, masturbating furiously while braying orgasmically, so be it.

8 pages and the wog is still going strong I see.

I want plane tickets. I'll make him fucking play Morrowind properly and point out when it does clever shit like the skooma thing. I'll make him play it until he cries for all his sins and all its beauty.

Then the rape.

ITT :

It looks like these characters don't know about save scumming, and require someone who is actually capable, thus at higher level than 2.

Well, in this case, I am a Level 7 character and I was required to be Level 8.

By the way, the scary thing about Direnni Tower is that it's hard enough getting in to the inner sanctum, but it's near impossible getting out. Daggerfall is a MONSTER of a game.

Oh boy. You'd think you'd learn from the anime art style thing not to say ridiculous nonsense.

Excuse me, should I regurgitate juvenile sci-fi writers as authorities on this esteemed topic and claim that my position is unimpeachable by anybody who hasn't read several thousand pages of schlock?

Dear me this is perfectly delightful; never thought I'd get anything out of this. Good work Skittles, very good work.

Your 100 page treatise on why the most banal shit boring game ever made is a masterwork is quite enough, thank you.

Trolling takes hard work, son. You gotta earn it. I suggest you start by telling the Codex how the writings of Enid Blyton make a eugenics programme the only way to run a society and then stick your fingers in your ears when somebody asks you to expand.

Stay golden, pony boy. Never change. NEVER.

Also, we have like 3 guys with an ask me about anime tag. Now I see why, some people really do need to be educated before they blab their ignorance to the world.

Yeah, read me some science fiction and call me a political scientist. Oh, and please do it on the GRPG discussion board instead of GD where it belongs.

Flame away, but flame about RPGS, for fuck's sake, instead of wasting space. Tell me why Morrowind sucks balls, just stop being so fucking boring and stupid.

Pump the brakes, kid. If you don't know skooma was comic relief you in serious trouble of making a Best Thread Ever level fool of yourself.

You are a really illogical creature, aren't you.

Let's read back and see who brought up science fiction. Oh right.

Also your first sentence there is pretty incoherent or to put it into terms that might resonate with you better "there's that fag talk we were talking about.".

Morrowind is fucking gay. I don't feel like I need to say more than that but if you demand more, fine.

Morrowind is not even a game. You just walk around. Combat is pointless and has nothing in common with real RPGs. It's so easy you may as well not have it. The game system is so dumbed down it may as well not exist, and they were smart to take it out in skyrim as no one really cares who's interested in such a game.

Everything is either over the top like vivec and trying so hard to be super serious, or it's lulzy shit like skooma.

People who've never played anything but consoles might like it because oh my god it's like a real world. Basically the feel of ultima underworld but with slightly better graphics and 100 times shallower.

The music is the most soulless, repetitive and derivative schlock I've ever heard. Again I can only think people who like it so much have never heard anything but top 40 hits.

In summary morrowind is neither an RPG or a good game. I can't even make myself think it's anything but a hiking simulator that aspies who hate character interaction, have never played a game with good graphics, only listen to top 40 and play console games like because they don't know any better and have slightly abnormal brains.

That's some quality criticism there, but the post is a tad too big. Anyone interested in a condensed version can check this review.

I didn't mention the big gay mushrooms, and that took some effort.

So people here actually defend morrowind as a good game these days, without being lynched?



Sorry I don't share the common tastes of morrowind and faggotry that so many here seem to love so much these days.

Change "heavily" to "transparently".

Also: "This phat lewt wasn't lying in plain sight and wasn't everywhere, so finding it could both rewarding and unexpected. Sometimes it wasn't just random caves, but ones with clues leading to them".

Well, that would be borderline larping, but the ambiguity was there and the game didn't shoehorn you into any of the roles. Although cosmetic, there was even a dialogue choice at the end to state your perspective. Including (paraphrasing) "I don't fucking know if I'm anyone's reincarnation and pawn of fate, pawn of the jealous daedroth, genuine loose cannon or just a pawn of the Empire".

Fucking this. If you take pretty much any game with developed gameworld you usually get single undisputed account, often supported by out-of-character materials. At best you will get conflicting accounts of which all but one are transparently false.

With Morrowind (and Daggerfall) it's none of this shit. You don't know if and how gods (Aedra) actually exist, which ones are actually the same under different names, who was the Underking, what made Dwarves disappear, who killed Nerevar and so on.
This makes the world much more believable *and* mysterious.

Plus, TES world is deeply cynical and morally ambiguous at its core, which also helps with having stuff that is different than it appears.
In most games we have good templars beating evil necromancers. In some games we have seemingly good templars beating seemingly evil necromancers, but we find out that through "clever" inversion they are actually evil templars and good, but misunderstood necromancers.

In TES we have morally ambiguous but usually fanatical and oppressive templars persecuting morally ambiguous, but often amoral and unethical necromancers.

In most games we have good and evil aligned factions and people. In TES we have factions with conflicting philosophy, few relatively sympathetic characters and usually more numerous greedy, power hungry or otherwise flawed fucks.

As for horsing around, the spellmaker, enchanting and the possibilities they open are the fucking definition of horsing around.

All in all:
, , .

@Fagotty Friend:
You have joined on Friday.
Friday is not Thursday.
Dismissed by default.

Am I the only one who has played Shadow of the Colossus? You rode around on an actual horse in that game. It controlled very well and was beautifully animated.