Morrowind and its Design.

[hakuroshi]

You know I never discuss with anybody WHY Britney is bad singer. It's very trivial and pointless.

Not everyone has inherently good taste. Sometimes we have to develop it, making conscious decisions what is good and what is bad and why it is so. And unlike Britney (and Oblivion) some people whom I respect not to mention myself, enjoyed MW in some aspect, hence the interest to this discussion. It may be pointless and done many times in the past, that is true though.

Are they plain shitty by default and no good game should have them?
Features like what? Stupid poorly written dialogs.(they won't enchance any game).
Like quests - kill and collect?
Game done by very uncreative untalented people with no taste at all.

You know, I can't actually argue with that. You are right. But you arguments are just the reverse of what you can see on ESF forums. All emotion, deserved disgust. But such feelings are not constructive. It would be really waste of time to say for thousandth time that game suck. And it would be plain retarded to claim it to be anything else.
I prefere to see current thread as some kind of academic research. Stupid really...

????
If some feature done differently, it's another feature, right?

Wrong. Dialogue is a feature. Ability to do quests in a game is a feature. How they are implemented is a different story. They were poorly done in MW. Is trying to understand how could they have been done better such a bad idea? It is not for improving MW, which is dead and now on a dissection table. It is for my personal understanding of crpg.
In my opinion it is easy to say that someting is bad. More interesting to find the way to make it better or prove it worthless and discard.

Did I whine?

Sorry if it sounded as personal insult. It wasn't.

 

[Relayer71]

You know I never discuss with anybody WHY Britney is bad singer. It's very trivial and pointless.

Aye, but Britney has no redeeming qualities.

There are some who feel Morrowind had potential. That's why some have played it as long they have - even with it's MANY faults it did enough right to merit playing through a decent enough portion of it (with the help of a few mods).

Oblivion on the other hand is definitely Britney all the way - You could PROBABLY stomach it for a very short time but soon enough realize no matter what, she sucks.

 

[Claw]

I agree with Zomg and beyond that refer to the frickin' search function. I'm sure Morrowind has been discussed before on the Codex.

Certainly we don't have to defend our fully justified opinion of mediocre games every time a new user joins the forum.

 

[Helioth]

design ? It was randomly thrown together, hobviously.
You can see this in all the muddled cultures and pappy 'story'.

People habitually consume crap though so no worries.
The only good thing about games these days is the things that if you get wrong, stick out. Art - Sound (Iffy) - Screen shakes and Addictive leveling features.

 

[OverrideB1]

I agree with Zomg and beyond that refer to the frickin' search function. I'm sure Morrowind has been discussed before on the Codex.

Certainly we don't have to defend our fully justified opinion of mediocre games every time a new user joins the forum.

Yeah, but then you get cussed out for threadomancy... damned if you do, damned if you don't, right?

 

[Claw]

He's not supposed to post in those threads. Just read them.

 

[inwoker]

Not everyone has inherently good taste. Sometimes we have to develop it, making conscious decisions what is good and what is bad and why it is so.

Agree. Agree, but it's something inside of brain which tells you to reconider your views. If you want to turn esf forums people to the dark... uh .. codex point of view you'll surely fail. For some reason I thought that you're trying to change world.... )))

All emotion, deserved disgust.

No emotions. Not, really. Just cold stupid thoughts. Blah, maybe you're right.

I prefere to see current thread as some kind of academic research. Smile Stupid really...

hm....
To research some flaws to understand how not to make them? Maybe.
This must be a part of research: other part 'bout advantages of good games! )

Wrong.

Misunderstanding I think.
Dialog tree is a feature not dialog, that was what I mean as feature.
arr. You know, we understood each other.

Sorry if it sounded as personal insult. It wasn't.

no, no insults. all ok.
)

 

[Alex]

...
Maybe you guys can try to clarify smth. for me. If the game is retarded and have poor design, why do we need to discuss how to improve it?
...

Well, you certainly don't need to discuss it, but I would be thankful if you did, since I hoped I could learn something about game design. Maybe you think that the mistakes on Morrowind prevents it from being able to teach anything, but I think that if the mistakes in morrowind are analyzed outside of their context, they could elucidate some points in game design theory.

For example, take the fact that some people found exploration in Morrowind worthwhile. This alone indicates that the game did something right to someone. What actually made it enjoyable to those people? Was it the graphics and area design? Was it able to show enough variety to those people that they were always intrigued to explore more?

On the other hand, I disliked the exploration in the game. For me, there was never much to do, even if there were things to see. This taught me that having different ways to interact with the world helps to keep the player's attention. In particular, a game that I thought did this well was NetHack. I know what parts I disliked in Morrowind, but by seeing what other people disliked, I hope to gain some insight in how to make a good game.

By the way, while the above example isn't much of an insight (repetitiveness bad), I still think it is nice to see how a feature interacted with another. For example, the very bland dialogue may have made it so that some actual variety went unseen. By avoiding dialogue, you may miss something actually interesting the characters had to say.

I agree with Zomg and beyond that refer to the frickin' search function. I'm sure Morrowind has been discussed before on the Codex.

Certainly we don't have to defend our fully justified opinion of mediocre games every time a new user joins the forum.

I actually hoped to use Morrowind to learn something with this thread, not just discuss it. Also, most threads about disliked games here seem to go on like this: someone spams that such and such game is awesome. People complain or call the spammer stupid, or say something funny. Hardly a good discussion on the subject.

 

[galsiah]

Well, you certainly don't need to discuss it, but I would be thankful if you did, since I hoped I could learn something about game design.

If that's your aim, I think it'd be more constructive to analyse a game that's a stand-alone, or the first in a series.

If you look at the Arena->Daggerfall->Morrowind->Oblivion "progression", its abundantly clear that neither MW, nor OB was designed from first principles (maybe DF too - I've not played the first two, so I can't comment).
Many of the design decisions in the later games are daft because no-one bothered to rethink the design from the ground up. New ideas were introduced, and old systems were tweaked without serious consideration of redesign. The mechanics of those old systems were understood (possibly), but their purpose in the previous design was not - and neither were the motivations and compromises that led to their initial creation.

If you look at a stand-alone game (and preferably not some generic clone), you can at least be sure that the features you're looking at were design decisions - good or bad. With Morrowind, a feature might be the way it is through inertia, misunderstanding, confused retrofit, compromise with half-understood existing features... - or, just occasionally, a well-thought-through decision.

Of course it's possible to critique and learn from the design of any game. However, it's usually instructive to compare your criticisms with your perception of the designer's aims/reasoning. With Morrowind you can't do that with any clarity/confidence.

If you want to get ideas on a general high-level approach to game design, Morrowind and Oblivion are again examples of what not to do. Previous games are an invaluable source of ideas - they are not a framework to be tweaked, retrofitted and windowdressed into a new game. That may or may not be a reasonable business strategy - depending on the applicability/inflexibility of your existing engine. It remains a horrible design strategy.

 

[Callaxes]

Certainly we don't have to defend our fully justified opinion of mediocre games every time a new user joins the forum.

Fuck it Claw! Read beyond the second paragraph. He isn't asking you to defend your opinion on Morrowind, he's asking how the game could be done better.

 

[Section8]

For example, take the fact that some people found exploration in Morrowind worthwhile. This alone indicates that the game did something right to someone. What actually made it enjoyable to those people? Was it the graphics and area design? Was it able to show enough variety to those people that they were always intrigued to explore more?

Well, since for me the quest highlight was the temple one where you had to take a vow of silence and embark on a pilgrimage across the isle, I think I'm probably one of those someones you referred to.

A good deal of the motivation for exploration for me is closely related to the fascination I have with archaeological artifacts. It's not so much a matter of what I might see when I explore, it's what I might find. And since Morrowind's world was mostly hand-tailored, it meant that there would be curiosities everywhere I went. Finding obscure magical items and such was intriguing to me, even if the item was of no real use to me.

I'm also a big fan of garage/yard sales, if that helps. I'm partly there to find something useful, and partly there to find something to stir my imagination.

And that's another element that drives me - the one that's closely related to my fascination for archaeological ruins. I love to see an incomplete piece of history and speculate, with the option of discovering the truth if I so desire. It's an investigative urge, I guess.

The other completely unrelated element that made exploration appealing to me was a bit inconstitent, and that's the survival element. Being isolated from the convenience of buying a solution to any drawback can lead to emergence of interesting improvisations. Debilitating effects on both character and equipment in combat was the main catalyst, which meant that there was a required balance that unfortunately, the game never struck.

However, that doesn't stop me from having fond memories of desperate crawls back to civilsation, and agonising decisions of whether to set foot in a cave/crypt in search of a cure for my disease, or a vital ingredient knowing that the critters might do even more harm in my quest to get myself back to health.

 

[Rat Keeng]

I enjoyed the exploration part for a short while, until all the other flaws just weighed so heavily upon me I had to quit. I think it was about a week or so, and probably a few more in failed attempts at getting through the game again.

To be fair though, I've recently found it can be somewhat enjoyable if you get some texture improvements, fixes and tweaks and such (like Wakim's), some of the better faction mods, and certainly a fix for the broken character development system; I recommend Galsiah's, it's the least obtrusive char system I've seen.

And as for the first post about the Imperial Cult and it's quests, it is the absolutely worst written and worst designed faction ever. If the designer for these quests were kept on for Oblivion, it explains a lot. If he's still on and working on FO3, gods help us all.

 

[Selenti]

Aren't there quite a few people here who liked Morrowind? (Only Exitium comes to mind, for some reason, and he's no longer around).

I liked it. Not the best game Bethsoft ever made, but it sure beat the fuck out of Oblivion. It has the dubious distinction of being the halfway stop between the promise of Daggerfall and the eye-opening childrape of Oblivion.

 

[Klaz]

I think that modded Morrowind is actually quite good, these are some of the better mods:
"The Request" (Improves NPC interaction)
"Galsiah's Character Development" (Improves Leveling System)
"Better Balmora" (Makes Balmora bigger, and a lot of nice features)
"Roleplaying Classes: Stealth Pack" (You can perform shows at inns, like jokes or storytelling, rob houses entering the windows, and gamble)
"Big Mod" (Adds choices and consequence, reviews most quests in the game)
"White Wolf of Lokken Mountain" (GREAT quest)
"Dulsya Isle" (Adds an island to the southwest of Vvardenfell, with a lot of quests, and choices and consequences)
"Brother Junipel's Twin Lamps" (You can join the Twin Lamps now, diplomatic solutions)
"Morrowind Comes Alive" (Adds a lot of NPCs to the cities, random generated)
"Living Cities of Vvardenfell" (Adds schedules to the NPCs)
"The Seekers" (A faction for detective-like characters)
"The Illuminated Order" (Great exploration quests)
"Children of Morrowind" (Adds children to the game, you can become a childkiller ala Fallout)
"Elders of Vvardenfell" (Same as children mod but adds old people instead)
"Extended Vivec" (Adds an underworld to Vivec and open cantons)
"Character Maker" (Lets you distribute points into your character's stats and skills in the beggining of the came yourself, like in the SPECIAL system, so race selection is just for looks and initial powers)
"Advantages/Disadvantages" (Adds Daggerfall-style Advantages and Disadvantages)
"You have violated the law" (If you join the Imperial Legion, you can arrest people)
"The Morag Tong Services" (You can pay assassins to murder any NPC in the game)
"Julan, Ashlander Warrior" (Adds a companion with a personality, and you can train his skills in any direction you want)
"Dracandros' Voice" and "Give your Orders" (Those mod compliment eachother, they let you give orders to members of your faction if you are a higher rank)
"Less Generic NPC's Project" (Unclonizes NPC's in the game)

 

[D]

Half the problem with Morrowind's story wasn't its' plot (Which, imo, was well done) but, rather, the way that you needed to go out of your way to really learn all that much about it.

Only about half of the actual plotline is even revealed to you in normal playing - the other half is often only revealed to you in one-time, at-one-point-only dialog from the Wise-women or Vivec, and a good portion of the plot is only found through reading books and notes lying around randomly.

However, once you finally end up researching the plot in its' enterity, it comes close to Daggerfall's in terms of political meandering and covered-up backstabbing.

This, combined with the way that the main plot seemed a little loose as a result, made it less engaging that it could of been.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Morrowind is like your backyard. If your IQ is low enough, you can have fun exploring it, but no matter who you are, you won't find much interesting stuff. Oh yeah and they're both small and have no story.

 

[D]

My backyard is pretty big but its' also practically a wildlife reserve so I guess it doesn't count.

...My country is fucking wierd.

 

[hakuroshi]

Misunderstanding I think.
Dialog tree is a feature not dialog, that was what I mean as feature.
arr. You know, we understood each other.

Surely. And yor are right: dialogue tree of course. Probably it may be narrowed to hyperlinked text dialogue tree feature Not much of a tree left.

 

[Mayday]

Hyperlinked might work if the NPCs get angry at you from constantly jumping from one subject to another and treating them like walking encyclopaedias.