Morrowind vs Skyrim objectively

[DragoFireheart]

Hello!

Putting nostalgia glasses aside, what do you think is the objectively better RPG?

Do you enjoy the dice-rolling button-smashing combat of morrowind, or the fluent slice-n-dice skyrim combat?

 

[Night Goat]

Sure is a lot of edgy in this thread.

Anyway, the OP's question is dumb, but I'll answer it anyway. Let's look at what each game does better.

Skyrim:
more user-friendly
quests can be more complex
more graffix
better weapon combat
dragon shouts make noncasters less shitty
recruitable companions
no fucking cliff racers
perks are a good idea
better nude mods

Morrowind:
vastly more interesting setting and story
more interesting characters
dungeons don't just consist of a single hallway
make your own spells
greater variety of spells
better faction system
no fucking dragons
no stupid matching puzzles
better interface
more complex character system

To be honest I enjoyed both games, but even without taking nostalgia into consideration, I consider Morrowind the better one. I am first and foremost a storyfag, and Skyrim's generic "kill the ancient evil" quest didn't do anything for me.

 

[CyberP]

Let's look at what each game does better.

Skyrim:
more user-friendly
quests can be more complex
more graffix
better weapon combat
dragon shouts make noncasters less shitty
recruitable companions
no fucking cliff racers
perks are a good idea
better nude mods

 

[Night Goat]

Let's look at what each game does better.

Skyrim:
more user-friendly
quests can be more complex
more graffix
better weapon combat
dragon shouts make noncasters less shitty
recruitable companions
no fucking cliff racers
perks are a good idea
better nude mods

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

i had fun in both games

 

[Lhynn]

Skyrim:
quests can be more complex

wat?

 

[Night Goat]

Skyrim has more advanced scripting. It isn't used to its full potential - not even close - but there are a few quests where it's used to good effect. Skyrim can also have quests where a major NPC accompanies you, since the AI is better and they don't have to worry about that character dying.

 

[Dreaad]

Skyrim is much better. You only have one slot for armor, no stats and 10 or so spell effects. Fuck customization, RPGs are all about clicking quickly.

Seriously though, seriously.... guise.... there is nothing to do in Skyrim... at all. Without mods it's a pointless place with pointless people, pointless loot and no challenge. After 10 or so gigabytes of mods it's alright. You have to insert better enemies, insert decent NPC's, insert better items, insert better leveling mechanics, insert better spells, insert some miscellaneous flavor (read: horse cock, bdsm and cold temperature mods). Then you have to make sure it works, then it's okay.

 

[Jaesun]

Skyrim:
quests can be more complex

Please provide us with an example of the incredibly complex quests that are in Skyrim as you are stating.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

He said they can be more complex than in Morrowind, which is actually not a big feat because MW's quests are the pretty basic "go there and kill X/take Y and report back to me".

 

[Dreaad]

^ At least in Morrowind you had to read to figure out where to go to collect item X or talk to person Y. Skyrim didn't even have that, don't see how anything can be considered complex when you have a huge arrow pointing you where to go/what item to pick up.

 

[Lhynn]

Skyrim has more advanced scripting. It isn't used to its full potential - not even close - but there are a few quests where it's used to good effect. Skyrim can also have quests where a major NPC accompanies you, since the AI is better and they don't have to worry about that character dying.

Again, wat?
Quests on skyrim are so bsb its amazing anyone would bring up the fact that they can potentially be better. For what its worth even oblivion had better quests than skyrim.

I dont know about their potential, but i can tell you that current modders havent done much to show said potential.

 

[Lemming42]

Morrowind, I guess. I'm still not entirely sure what the exact reason is that I didn't really enjoy Skyrim.

 

[Konjad]

Hello!

Putting nostalgia glasses aside, what do you think is the objectively better RPG?

Do you enjoy the dice-rolling button-smashing combat of morrowind, or the fluent slice-n-dice skyrim combat?
Which world had a greater immersive quality to it? (aesthetics, emergent elements as well)
How about the classless character progression in skyrim? Or would you rather have your character clasically "rolled" into classes?
Questlines! Which game had those written better?

I would love to hear some hardcore rpg fans answer those questions above in an as subjective manner as possible! Of course feel free to throw in some of your own areas of comparison.

P.S. I would love if some people who played/replayed Morrowind on some overhaul mods contributed! Since it makes it feel a little bit less retro and fresh in comparison to Skyrim.

Let's compare

Morrowind
+ the world and setting
+ the interesting, original and alien surroundings
+ audio (music and especially ambient sounds)
+ interesting quests (albeit some crappy or mediocre ones happen too)
+ intriguing story
+ huge world with the island having different environments in various locations
+ interesting dungeons
+ cool loot, exploring dangerous areas was worthwhile
= some level scalling that wasn't even noticeable until late game
- NPC wikipedias and boring dialogues
- crappy combat system

Skyrim
+ nice graphic filter to make everything look gloomy, albeit it has no 'special' feeling as Morrowind's alien environment
= audio? do you even remember any music track or particular sounds from this game?
= crappy combat system, albeit better than in Morrowing, same as in Oblibion
- more aggressive level scalling, albeit far from being as bad as Oblibion
- guys, fuck lore, lets make everything awesum!
- boring and EPIC dialogues
- boring quests (RUN! GO TO MOUNTAIN TARDS SO THEY CAN TELL YOU YOU ARE SPECIAL! KILL A DRAGON! KILL MANY A DRAGON! Guild quests? I don't even remember them and I though some Oblivion guild quests were damn good)
- story about killing dragons, i mean what the fuck, do they have no shame?
- huge world with... umm... snow. Oh, and there are some swamps! And areas with grass without snow! (even Oblibion had more variety and it was basically just one fucking forest copy-pasted all over the place)
- linear, boring dungeons
- level scaled loot, no reason to explore anything except to look at new wall textures


Did I miss something? Or is it not objective enough, because objectively MORROWIND OLD SHIT, SKYRIM THE NEW AWESOME SHIT!!!1

 

[imweasel]

better nude mods

Very important feature.

 

[Carrion]

He said they can be more complex than in Morrowind, which is actually not a big feat because MW's quests are the pretty basic "go there and kill X/take Y and report back to me".

Both games mostly have very simple and straightforward quests, but Morrowind at least allows a bit more systemic freedom. If you are told to fetch Y, all that matters for completing the quest is getting Y in any way you can think of, which occasionally allows for some out-of-the-box solutions thanks to the magic system among other things. Skyrim's quests are often seemingly more complex in structure, but that only really means that there are more hoops to jump through and often notably less player freedom. Basically the quests are still similar fetch quests, occasionally just with two or three different parts instead of one, a lot more scripting and even fewer alternative solutions.

I suppose there are a few quests in Skyrim that try to be a bit more ambitious than what you had in Morrowind, though, but those are mostly spectacular failures, like some of the Markarth quests or the Windhelm murder investigation.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Skyrim got me hooked but Morrowind is objectively a better RPG. Mind you that Elder Scrolls in themselves are not very good RPG's so...

 

[catfood]

Let's look at what each game does better.

Skyrim:
more user-friendly
quests can be more complex
more graffix
better weapon combat
dragon shouts make noncasters less shitty
recruitable companions
no fucking cliff racers
perks are a good idea
better nude mods

Well you have to agree about the cliffracers though.

 

[AW8]

In Skyrim, things had to be Balanced, Challenging and Modular as well, but also Very Restricted. If you encounter a certain enemy and run away, it will be there when you return.

It's a shame this never happened to me, though. In Morrowind, I always get two-shotted by Godrod Hairy-Breeks in Ulummusa on newly started characters because my stats are so shit. It doesn't take long before you become a god, but at least the feeling of being a frail novice is there for the first few hours.

In Skyrim, I ccould just pick any dungeon without ever running into something that was too powerful for me.

 

[Jick Magger]

I'd also add to the downsides to Skyrim:

No sense of pacing in regards to guild quest lines. One quest in you're just an initiate into the Brotherood Fighters Guild-thing, three missions later you're now trusted enough to be allowed into the inner circle of members who decide to share with you the power to turn into a werewolf, something they haven't done for other members who've been part of the guild for years. A half dozen missions after that they allow you to keep their newly reforged ancestral weapon and make you head of their guild. Everything moves at breakneck speed, and you never feel as though you actually got to where you were because of your ability, but because the plot says so.

Also the fact that the game was made so that every blithering moron can do everything on their first go through, basically all your accomplishments in every guild just feels meaningless. You can become the head of the companions with a scrawny mage who's only swung a sword around once in their lives; to get initiated in. You can become the head of the mages guild with a complete luddite Orc Barbarian who only knows the starter spells necessary to get you in, and so on.

 

[Immortal]

Both are good games.

Not joking/trolling.

Skyrim is better at melee/ranged (non-magic) combat and has better graphics, but Morrowind is better at everything else.

*bends over*

167 hours
and I never got around to beat dragonwhatever so I might play it again in the future

This looks pretty close to my steam page except swap Might & Magic with Dark Souls

 

[Dreaad]

Let's look at what each game does better.

Skyrim:
more user-friendly
quests can be more complex
more graffix
better weapon combat
dragon shouts make noncasters less shitty
recruitable companions
no fucking cliff racers
perks are a good idea
better nude mods

Well you have to agree about the cliffracers though.

Except that dragons were cliff racers with more hp and level scaling. (Unless you are trying to edgy in which case my mistake)

 

[CyberP]

Except that dragons were cliff racers with more hp and level scaling. (Unless you are trying to edgy in which case my mistake)

Yes, except cliff racers will fuck you up whilst Dragons are not a threat. I don't remember dying to a dragon once.
That said, their AI was impressive whilst cliff racers just glitched down cliffs at you...the dragons just wasn't programmed/designed to be a challenge.
All objective

 

[thesheeep]

Vanilla: Morrowind >>> Skyrim.
Morrowind just doesn't need mods to be great.

Modded: Skyrim ><=!??? Morrowind.
Skyrim modded to hell and back with all the mods that make the game suited to your taste.. Maybe equal. Maybe even better. I will always prefer the less direct, more RPG-ish combat of Morrowind, though.
I have some hopes for Morrowind modding made possible with OpenMW.

 

[Ulminati]

Spoiler

 

[AW8]

RUN! GO TO MOUNTAIN TARDS SO THEY CAN TELL YOU YOU ARE SPECIAL! KILL A DRAGON! KILL MANY A DRAGON!

Morrowind
+ audio (music and especially ambient sounds)
+ huge world with the island having different environments in various locations


Skyrim
= audio? do you even remember any music track or particular sounds from this game?
- huge world with... umm... snow. Oh, and there are some swamps! And areas with grass without snow! (even Oblibion had more variety and it was basically just one fucking forest copy-pasted all over the place)

I won't stand for this, Konjad! Although I agree with almost everything you said, I can't agree with you here. In fact, I would dare claim Skyrim even has better audio and world variety than Morrowind.

ON AUDIO
Jeremy Soule's work on Morrowind is legendary, and it remains my favourite TES soundtrack. But the man outdid himself with Skyrim - the soundtrack weigh in on a ridiculous 53 songs, compare with 15 for Morrowind. The music is not only excellent, but for the first time since Daggerfall, highly situational.
Different songs play in the morning, during the day, during the evening, and the night.
Falmer ice caves have their own music.
Dragon battles have their own music.
The final stage of the main quest has its own music.
Even the taverns have their own mood-setting music.
Dwemer ruins have no music, instead you hear the hissing and clunking sounds of Dwemer machinery.

Dawnguard and Dragonborn add new location-specific music tracks as well.

As for ambient sounds, there's even a 40 minutes long track on the soundtrack called "Skyrim Atmospheres" which is a collection of ambient tracks and enviromental sounds (chirping birds, waterfalls, the wind blowing). Morrowind's ambience was good but incredibly limited in comparison, as they didn't have the ridiciulous "everyone and their mother will play this"-budget that they had for Skyrim.

Just listen to Skyrim Atmospheres and tell me it's not amazing!




ON WORLD VARIETY

First off, Oblivion did not have better world variety than Skyrim. I'm willing to defend Oblivion on some points, but not this one.

Spoiler

Oblivion has 5 different enviroments, out of which one (generic green forest/fields) covers most of the map. And the swamp forest in the south and the Colovian Highlands to the west barely differ from the generic green forest/fields. That leaves the Gold Coast and the snow-covered mountain regions the only enviroments that stand out against this green blob of copy-paste.

Now take Morrowind.

Spoiler

There are 6 visually distinct enviroments on Vvardenfell. They are Bitter Coast, West Gash, Ascadian Isles, Grazelands and collected regions Ashlands+Red Mountain＋Molag Amur and Azura's Coast+Sheogorad. Sure, the ash-covered hills cover most of the map, but that is alleviated by the fact that
1. Volcanic landscape is a hell lot more interesting than green fields, and gives the other regions an element of beauty in comparison
2. The other 5 enviroments are visually different from each other.

Lastly, Skyrim.

Spoiler

The argument that Skyrim was all snow needs to die. The snow is centered on the mountains ranges that go between the holds and borders the other provinces, other than that, there's only major snow in the north.

In Skyrim, we have 8 visually distinct regions.

We have:

The green forest of Falkreath
The autumn forest of the Rift
The yellow tundra of Whiterun
The ruggy mountaineous region of the Reach
The hot springs of Eastmarch
The marsh of Hlaalmarch
The snow-covered fields and forests of Winterhold and the Pale
The glacier and iceberg-filled waters in the north of Winterhold and the Pale

(There's also the snow-free northern coastline of Haafingar, but other than that, it doesn't differ from the Pale that much.)

Even if you combine the glacier with the snowy fields (Haafingar+The Pale+Winterhold), you still have more visually distinct regions than Morrowind. And what's better, no region takes up half the map. The map is instead divided more evenly between the different enviroments.