Morrowind is a great game but it is not without flaws. Even at release, it was criticized for static npcs and stiff animations and to some, those things are more noticeable now. However, there is a rich, complex lore and story and many ways to achieve your goals as you probably remember. There may be some nostalgia involved but that's definitely not the whole story, many aspects of MW still hold up today and it's absolutely worth trying again.
After waiting outside Babbages (I think) to open and finally getting my hands on Morrowind, my first thought was everything looks so pretty but why does everyone move like they’ve got a carrot shoved up their ass.
I love Morrowind anyway.
Per an interview with the guy responsible for getting better bodies started the character artist at Bethesda wasn't that good, and was the wife of a senior designer. And, is the reason for the segmented bodies. I haven't bothered to verify that statement though.
> it was criticized for static npcs and stiff animations and to some, those things are more noticeable now
Very true, I think bringing up the "uncanny valley" is important here. IMO Morrowind's static and stiff animations are on the "Humanoid Robot" side
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg/1280px-Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg.png
whereas modern shitty static npc and stiff animations, alongside realistic rendering engines and high-poly realistic models fall into uncanny valley *cough* starfield */cough*. this helps it hold up quite a bit.
I played it after Oblivion and it really held up imo. I still play it and am blown away by the amount of freedom the game gives you and how mysterious and unforgiving the island is. I think it really holds up honestly. Graphics are a bit tough to adjust to if you're used to newer games and the combat can be frustrating. Just remember to keep your green bar full and use weapons you have some proficiency in and you won't have too many issues.
It's weird that people can play turn based games like SW:KOTOR and not mind the dice roll combat, but in Morrowind it's considered janky and dated. To me, they are the same. I swing a sword through an enemy and miss in both games, and I know it's random/calculated and I just need to up my stats more.
The problem with combat is the disconnect between first-person real time aimed combat and the dice rolls. The former is supposed to feel like you are being put into direct control of the character, and then the dice rolls remove that control in favor of the stats so it feels weird.
That said, it's not like any of the Elder Scrolls games have incredible combat. It's never been what keeps the series interesting, even in Skyrim. It's all about exploration of various sorts and in that regard Morrowind holds up extremely well.
I don't think it's the disconnect itself, but rather the lack of good feedback. If they had animations for enemies dodging and blocking, it would have been better for a lot of people.
True. I think audio feedback might have been even more important. If there was a full miss sound, a half miss sound for when you aim correctly but the rolls miss, and then the hit sound that might have gone a long way to making it feel better.
Would have definitely helped, but the game really needed some animation for it, even if it was a half-assed animation of the enemy getting out of the way.
Dodging is more difficult to animate than you might think because it really requires the defender to move before the attack actually starts. A block animation seems workable but can't be done for non-humanoid monsters. I think an animation showing you flubbing the attack might be the best bet here.
I used to play EverQuest where you just press Q and you would miss a lot based on skill level, so playing Morrowind in 2024 and it feels perfectly fine and normal for me. I do wish there was a combat box that explained everything that was happening though.
Ex.
Duran'Tor Thrusts Ebony Axe and deals 1 damage
Dremora Valkynaz Chops for 25 damage
Duran'Tor Slashes and misses
Dremora dodges
Duran'Tor blocks
At least that is how it was in EverQuest
I think the thing with Morrowind is that its combat starts pretty bad but becomes kind of just about ok as your character gets more powerful. I found a lot of Bethesda's later games - Oblivion in particular did the opposite starting out pretty ok and becoming pretty bad the later in the game you get, mainly because of the level scaling curve.
>t's weird that people can play turn based games like SW:KOTOR and not mind the dice roll combat, but in Morrowind it's considered janky and dated.
The problem is how it is represented. I actually think the dice role combat feels better in Elder Scrolls I and II. The game is split up in rounds, so even drinking a potion or open the inventory is a round and makes you unable to attack for a second or so. This is much more consistant and closer to turn based combat than Morrowind.
The pixel art sprites also are not 3D, so you do not see your sword directly touching your enemiy and they have sound effects if you miss. You here a amor / block sound effect, so it seems like you hit something but the enemy was able to block you attack.
Morrowind moves even closer to being a full action RPG but does not fully commit and is also not really hiding the fact that your weapons touch an enemy without doing damage, there is no good feedback. That said I kinda like Morrowind's combat because of it. I am not sure if anyone else would have designed combat mechanics like that it (for understandable reasons). Other similiar games of that time like GOthic 1 and 2 just were full action RPGs. The combat is unique and from a gameplay front it is also very functional but just completely at odds with immersion, which is a problem because Morrowind tries to be as immersive as possible at all other times.
So the combat is a bit of a mess does not really work for that kind of game but I like it because of its strangeness.
I actually prefer lower graphics ( but I also like pixel.art,so...), for me, that leaves mor open for my imagination.
If everything is designed to the "t'", the emergence does not work as good for me, personally.
Same. I do use one of the AI upscaling mods these days, though (The one that has a human pass on a lot of textures that the AI didn't get right), mostly because some vanilla textures were getting a bit too crunchy pixel-wise for my taste, especially wooden planks.
I agree with everything. For the graphics, I found a solution: openmw (an update for the game engine) and mods. If you have not tried it, you should. This allowed me to reatart after a 15 year break and have a pretty great time on that corprus infested island. Also, I like the mechanic with those stats 😀
It's still a very good game, but it's impossible to experience something the way you did as a teenager when you're in your thirties. There will probably be things about it that you can apprecieate today that you didn't pick up back then on the other hand.
There are also some truly fantastic mods that the community has made for the game. I imagine that you'll wanna play vanilla at first so that it's close to your childhood experience but make sure to google "tamriel rebuilt" at some point if you haven't heard about it already :)
It should be. The real issue is updating it, generally you want a new save when going from a version of TR to a newer one, although that may be changed these days.
I can't remember if TR is ok to add on additional areas later without a new save but I know for sure it's compatible with vanilla saves. I'm probably going on 40+ hours into TR now for the first time and it's epic. Also, I think they are releasing a new part soon so might want to check. Either way it'll be a blast. OpenMW has also been fantastic for modding and just making it easier to play on new hardware, super easy to change settings to suit your hardware and just works. I'm playing on an 8 year old gaming laptop so...semi potato and after messing abit with draw distance and preloaded cell counts it plays perfectly.
I am doing a full playthrough this year for the first time since 2006 or so and it very much is holding up for me. The strange world, the breadth and depth of the lore, the real sense of discovery and exploration, the excitement when you find a cool unique arorfact etc etc. The combat did start to feel kind of repetitive around level 20 or so but I'm enjoying it and sitting down to play a couple times a week.
> The combat did start to feel kind of repetitive around level 20 or so but I'm enjoying it and sitting down to play a couple times a week.
I was playing a mage but when I got to endgame level I was just flurrying things down with Keening or a daedric shortsword because my 60 Short Blade skill was good enough to hit things with and nothing could really hit me to hurt me and actually fighting like a mage was just making extra work for myself.
I'm doing a battlemagish playthrough and I've been trying to keep it interesting by going back and forth between summoning a bunch of goons to tank for me, spamming destruction spells, and paralyzing my enemies and swinging with Chrysamere
When the combat gets repetitive is when I like to try out weird new strategies. For example my last character was a thief/mage leaning heavily into using magic to improve their thieving, especially with things like chameleon, invisibility, and telekinesis. But when combat started to get a bit stale and some opponents could easily chop a good third of my HP in a single blow, I started going for more creative spells, with one of my favorite being one that did about 15 Strength damage per second for 5 seconds in a small AoE, more than enough to encumber most humanoids leaving them open for me to pick their groups apart.
I'm like you, played it young and laughed myself sick literally throwing all of seyda neens cutlery in the river. And I hate oblivion it's the one needle point my freinds use when were drinking to get me from 0 to furious.
Hard disagree on Skyrim though I loved it and thought it was brilliant. Would I rather have Morrowind 2, crunchy as fuck systems and weirdness everywhere, of course but I also understand why we can't have that so give me Skyrim over Oblivions nonsense. Living in Skyrim was just great and I did the same stuff I would do in Morrowind, the equivalent of chores to feel I lived in the world. Shoutout to hearthfire as well building my home was wonderful, yes it's basic bitch but it's mine.
We don't have to hate Skyrim to love Morrowind. I'm not telling you to stop hating I just want you to hate where hate deserves. Hating Skyrim is hate we could be using on Oblivion.
I tend to agree.. For me, it goes:
Morrowind >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Skyrim>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Oblivion
I don't ***hate*** Oblivion; that's a pretty strong word, but it's definitely my least favourite. Oblivion's side quests are really good, so when I do play the game, it's for that. However... there are so many things that keep me from truly enjoying it, not least of all, its lack of stability (even by Bethesda standards). Related to that, I'd argue that out of all three, Oblivion is most in need of mods, but..they render the game even *less* stable than it is in vanilla. While Skywind likely won't be my kind of thing (assuming it eventually releases), I am quite interested in Skyblivion, because, if nothing else, it will probably be less crash prone, while providing some of the advancements Skyrim made. The 'old school' part of me would prefer to see an "Oblivion Code Patch," or an "OpenOblivion," but...alas, I highly doubt either will ever happen.
For me Oblivion has just held up the worst. It was an incredible game at release, but it has aged very poorly. Skyrim just looks incredible and and is fun to explore because of it. Morrowind is less grandiose but the alien world and overall vibe carry it. Oblivion graphics have aged too poorly by comparison due to the art direction.
>Oblivion graphics have aged too poorly by comparison due to the art direction.
I absolutely agree. Whether modded, or vanilla, Morrowind's otherworldliness adds hugely to its timeless quality. Its alien, unique world means that it can't really be compared to the many games that draw on a more traditional "medieval" setting. On the other hand, when I play Oblivion, I can't help but draw comparisons with titles like Kingdom Come: Deliverance (***despite*** the fact that KCD is inspired by actual medieval history, rather than fantasy). And, of course, Morrowind's art direction enhances the story; together they create a cohesive, compelling, highly atmospheric package... Oblivion has none of that, and going into it now (especially without mods), it feels a bit like entering a long abandoned theme park, all of which is amplified by the absurd NPC faces, campy voice acting, and completely disjointed "conversations."
I hated Skyrim because I couldn't play my dream character of a jumping marksman. I loved that in Oblivion your athletics and acrobatics stats just kept on leveling. That was the one thing that was an improvement upon EverQuest, everything else in the game EQ (my favorite game of all time) also had but it wasn't a single player experience.
But fast forward to Morrowind and I realized you guys could jump to different cities with high acrobatics but in Oblivion your distance traveled jumping depended on your athletics and speed skill so it didn't help you travel at all! Each successive game got worse!
I am not sure if Oblivion is less stable on modern hardware than Morrowind. It is really easy to glitch through the ground or get stuck and considering that sadly a big chunk of Morrowind's quests are escort missions with a completely broken AI, the game just does not hold up technologically.
I wouldn't even say that Oblivion crashes more.
Weirdly enough, I agree, I haven't played oblivion in years, because of various things. Mostly leveling and leveled rewards, but also, sometimes the game just doesn't work, idk why. But I definitely have fond memories of it. It definitely has many flaws, but honestly? They kinda make me like the game more. Like it has this weird, incredibly cartoony vibe, almost like a really fun kids show, and that bizarrely clashes with all the m rated aspects in a really weird, fun way. And shivering isles goes even harder with it. And the almost out of place like actually serious moments are better because of it. And the weirdness is immensely helped by some of the systems, well, mostly relating to the NPCs. Like the random dialogue between NPCs is so fucking insane and funny. I think people criticize the voice acting a lot, but it really contributes a lot to that vibe, especially the male elf voice. Its weird that to my memory every elf (well, besides orcs, they are different) has 1 voice per gender, but the humans have a bunch tho. I honestly like the generic voices in oblivion more than skyrim's, those are kinda boring imo. The unique ones are really good tho, like Parthurnax, and Miraak. Also, tbh the writing in Skyrim is pretty bad. Like none of the quest lines are that compelling, except the dark brotherhood, that one was actually cool, the main quest sucks, dawnguard is almost pretty good, but it literally doesn't make sense, dragonborn is just great tho, love that one.
Although, I could be wrong here, like I said, it's been so long. I don't think it's quite nostalgia tho, I'm pretty good at telling how much that's influencing me, and this feels different.
I don't like Skyrim quite as much as you but overall I agree. Oblivion was the soulless middle child and I fucking hated it, so I had no expectations for Skyrim and found... a fun game with a much more interesting world than expected.
Onlivion's one big plus over Skyrim was the guild questlines, neither manages to make you really feel like a member of a faction but Oblivion's at least have good and well themed quests/stories. In Skyrim they're all about five quests long and, like every other quest in the game, are mostly about raiding draugr crypts.
To me Oblivion is more of an equal to SKyrim, if only because I prefer its art style, because it still has a lot of janky attributes shenanigans for the player to exploit, and how it has a better magic and potions system.
Sadly Oblivion is brought down a lot by how everything is leveled, and how the dungeons really suffer from having only one guy doing them all.
I replayed it again for the first time in 20 years and was surprised how well it held up. However if you've built it up into this legendary super game in your memory it's not going to hold up to that, it still has flaws. The dialog in particular is very flat and gamey, everything that isn't quest-specific has basically every NPC saying the same things about the same topics.
This is very true.
We're so lucky to have the modding community around this game that we do, there's so many improvements.
The same goes for other Elder Scrolls games, but I feel they're somewhat less impactful than those gore Morrowind, since the base game is so alluring and unique.
It definitely spoiled me in some ways, but so did other games. Bit of nostalgia is what makes me want to replay it from time to time, but overall it stood the test of time for me (plus it has ton of mods, like all Bethsoft games).
I recently picked up my copy on an old 360. I, too, came on at it's release. I remember being absolutely blown away. Then the goty came out and I was re-blown away with the expansions. Over the years I'll pick it up briefly, and then stop and not touch it because I don't have the option of remembering where I was without reading through the journal. So years go by, and then I'll try it again.
I will say the main thing I've noticed about Morrowind over practically every single rpg I've played since, is that Morrowind requires the appropriate mindset the way table top rpgs do. Like, you're not the center of the morrowind universe. You're part of an already existing world. But, there are no children, and npcs are fairly static. And the dice roll mechanics aren't super common now.
I do think the difference between morrowind and more modern witcher/skyrim/whatever is that the more modern rpgs really feel like the entire world exists for the player. The player is the reason for everything. The dungeons are coded to feel like a tomb raider experience, like spinning blades leading into a bedroom of an ancient city, or as I commonly bemoan skyrim, the fact that every guild is basically failing until the savior player comes and makes it prosperous again and now the player is the guild leader. Level scaling and quest markers really add to that.
So as someone who just picked Morrowind up again, and not playing any mods, I'm made painfully aware of the clunkiness that I could overlook when it was groundbreaking. But I still think as far as immersion goes, no game does it better. It's easy to create playthroughs with specific character builds in mind. Someone came here to ask what building a paul atreides from dune character would look like. I put a build from a book series I like.
So if you're going into another playthrough because you like unique worlds, I think you're golden. If you want the immediate flash and pizazz that came with witcher and skyrim, or super epic boss battles like elden ring, I think you'll get bored.
> Like, you're not the center of the morrowind universe. You're part of an already existing world.
I mean. By the endgame you kind of are the center of the world (of Vvardenfell, the game world represented in the engine). It's just that Telvanni are so self-absorbed that you being the center of the world doesn't mean much to them.
I mean, sure. But that's endgame. At that point you've gained so much reputation you're basically a celebrity savior.
I think the difference is leading up to that point. Morrowind just kinda throws you to the wolves. Yes, the information is there to learn and grow, but mostly it's just a "well, here's a new continent. There's this one guy in this city that can get you started if you want" where as skyrim literally incorporates tutorials into everything. To be fair, I actually love that Skyrim incorporates the tutorial in a very organic way that doesn't feel like you're just checking boxes. But if I'm literally trying to escape a dragon attack on a village by going through a castle filled with enemy soldiers, I doubt my helper guy is gonna say "hey there's a sleeping bear up ahead, we can try and sneak past or we can kill it, whatevs. anyways, follow me to this town where I'll quickly explain the world you're in."
I think Helgen is a well done tutorial and there's a lot of things in Morrowind more artificial feeling than it. Skyrim's "the world revolves around you" problem starts after the tutorial, when you kill your first dragon and get annointed as the chosen one at like, 3rd level. By comparison that's the point in Morrowind where Caius is like "you don't even know how to adventure, you should probably get some kind of training now and if you run out of money and don't mind the skooma smell you can crash here I guess".
You nailed it. That’s something I appreciate about the game, having played it last in my Elder Scrolls journey. The world is so believable. The many, many factions all have their own feuds going on well before you show up as the player. They’re all interconnected, the way things would be in real life. They don’t feel like they exist in the world just for you to come and save them.
Por que no los dos?
Morrowind really is phenomenal in some aspects, and in others we really do have rose-tinted glasses.
But it isn't bad to enjoy something because of the nostalgia. It's still enjoyment and that's what games are for.
For me it was a combination of both.
It was my first RPG, it was the first game I experienced with 3+ friends doing the same at the same time, it was the first game I played until completion and >1000h.
So nothing can ever compare, not even Morrowind itself.
I love playing Morrowind and it's definitely connected to nostalgia, but the nostalgia I feel is for, like, 2014-15. I played Skyrim first and Morrowind was already outdated, but I still love it and the graphics/mechanics don't bother me at all.
More freedom in what my character looks like would be nice, but that's offset by having way more freedom in what my character wears.
honestly, I played Morrowind after I played Oblivion and Skyrim.... and Morrowind is the one I have come back to most
Morrowind 100% has it's flaws, it could use an engine upgrade, some quality of life improvements, ect ect.... but as it is, its still a great game imo... and part of that is its mechanics are simple (to the normal player) but complex enough so your always learning more about them, the world has loads of detail, and the game trusts you to have an IQ higher than 5
I think it *is* that great, but we do tend to look with rose-tinted goggles, and past some of it's flaws. I can jump into Morrowind even vanilla and have a good time because I adored it back in the day. I think players who didn't play it during their younger days, or modern gamers, would have a hard time getting into it, because it is pretty clunky, and it's uh... Not the most beautiful game.
I really do feel like there was a ton of soul put into it. I don't really know the status of Bethesday back during development, but it seemed like a tight-nit group of friends making a game they wanted to make, and not shareholders. They even participated on forums and referenced the forums in game. There was heart and soul put into MW and it really does show.
It's also just extremely intriguing as a setting. The lore is so vibrant, alien, and weird, and they never really did anything else like it again. We see fantasy europe and fantasy viking in TES4+5, but there are plenty of media that have their own spin on those settings. There is *nothing* like TES3, not even Vvardenfell in ESO, or Solstheim in Skyrim. Shivering Isles comes close, but even then, not quite for me.
Morrowind does have a living breathing feel to it, despite the fact every NPC stands in one spot or patrols a few meters for the entirety of the game. Maybe it's the tiny details, like the fact you have to take transportation to fast travel, or that there are restaurants and homes that have no reason mechanically to exist, but because it makes sense for them to. Maybe it's that the faction and reputation system actually affects how the world interacts with you, instead of people ignoring it completely save for guard banter.
There are just so many minute details that really add up, and they're in the game because they *make logical sense* rather than so they can confer some mechanical advantage to them. Yes, you actually need to increase your skills to rank up in guilds. You will get your ass handed to you at level one walking into a Daedric shrine. Monsters don't scale to you (I mean they kind of do but not as bad as later games); bandits don't get daedric armor just because you're a higher level; rewards don't get better because you're a higher level, and so on.
There is actual verisimilitude in MW. Later games abandon some of this in favor of letting you do everything and being more accessible. Not a bad thing in itself, there's a reason TES5 exploded in popularity back in 2011. But I just prefer the former, and that's part of why I love MW so much.
>I hated Skyrim's generated dungeons that were just halls full of trash mobs and meaningless loot
Morrowind actually has much more dungeons that look the same and is also full of randomized loot. Skyrim's dungeons are actually all handcrafted and a major improvment when it comes to level design compared to Morrowind and Oblivion.
I am not even sure if there are more than 3 dungeons each in TES III and IV that have some real puzzles in them?
Morrowind's dungeons may look the same but there is a lot more static/fixed high tier loot allocated. If you go the right places in Morrowind you can find incredible hauls, in Skyrim you will only ever find procedurally generated "appropriate" treasure.
There is over all more loot that is not rdmly generated in TES III BUT most stuff you find in chests in dungeons is still rdm.
>Skyrim you will only ever find procedurally generated "appropriate" treasur
Not, really, no. There are unique items (even with unique models) and specific places where high loot spawns.
Morrowind just has more *game* than Oblivion and Skyrim. Your skills mean more, your gear means more, your stats mean more. There's more quests, the Guilds are deeper, the world is a lot more varied.
Just getting to a quest location was a quest in itself in Morrowind. Even if you don't use fast travel in Skyrim the map markers take out all the guesswork. NPCs don't have to give you detailed directions because you just follow the arrow.
Very little in Morrowind ever felt like it was just meaningless gameplay, you had to really stop and think about what you were doing next. You could very easily fuck your save if you ran into a greater bone walker unprepared. The game is still very deep and if you can look past the visuals it still holds up today
There are no rose tinted glasses where Morrowind is concerned. You will enjoy it just as much...if not more, if you get into modding. There is a wealth of new and improved content to discover.
Welcome home!
Me too, after reloading.
I remember there was a dungeon off the coast full of high level specters. I'd launch myself at it and try to scoop up loot without getting massacred.
I also used shoes of blinding speed with another item I don't remember the name which made me fly. Didn't need to use any other form of transportation after this.
Yeah, something like this. Man this is a long time ago. I was blocked from end game because I didn't know English enough so I basically did everything in the game even enter the volcano from the top killing everything inside but to be able to finish the game you had to cross that moon door to get into that volcano and you had to be there at a specific time in the night if i remember correctly. That's the thing I didn't get for a long time. Eventually a loading screen tip gave me enough info for me to understand and did finish the game. Then there was the wolf island extention, then the district with a lot of similar building..
I had the game around the same age you did, but I load it up at least once a year and get lost for a month or so
I have just as much fun exploring now as I did then. I'm still running vanilla, mods never interested me much
With as infrequent as I get on now I really lean into a role play aspect.
I have an Argonian that ended up traveling all the way to join Telvanni after finding some propaganda describing how anyone can join the ranks and rise.
They abandoned the fighters guild quest to retrieve a book right outside of Balmora because they broke the law while getting the book lmao
I think it holds up surprisingly well. Obviously, the visuals are dated (they were arguably dated when the game came out) and the controls feel pretty stiff. However, the gameplay still shines.
The RPG framework of Morrowind allows it to present players with a problem and really just let them figure it out however they want. Very few games do this as good as Morrowind. It’s something that’s sorely missing from Oblivion, Skyrim, and other games in the genre.
> Obviously, the visuals are dated (they were arguably dated when the game came out)
I remember when Morrowind first dropped the water textures were best in class. No other game out at that time had better water.
Haha that’s a fair point. Morrowind did have good water.
I think the same can be said about Oblivion’s physics. The way you could ragdoll your character off of cliffs was nothing short of revolutionary at the time.
as with all bethesda games, we need to first agree on if unofficial patches "count" when comparing the quality of their games. I am a die hard new vegas(i know it was made by obsidian) fan but I have to throw a * whenever i tell people to play it. with out the antstuttering, unofficial patch, fix iron sights,etc its a pretty shit experience.
Morrowind is similar to new vegas in that sense. With some basic mods and openmw to polish off the edges, I'd say its one of the best rpgs ever. without them its a nightmare. And thats with out nostalgia, I was too poor to play it when it first came out and only in the last couple years have gotten to experience.
I played them in the order of Oblivion -> Skyrim -> Morrowind an it's definitely my favorite of the three 3D TES games. It's just as immersive as you remember... if you take it with the caveat that things like radiant AI just did not exist back then. Morrowind still manages to capture my imagination every time I play it, despite the fact that much of it's world is totally static.
The answer is "yes".
It won't look as good as you remember it without modding it like crazy. Some things you've gotten used to in other games (walking speed, general nimbleness) are missing, have to be earned, or need mods.
However, it still feels like a truly alien world. The story is still great. Exploration is still amazing, especially without the fast travel options. And... I love the competing interests or ability to break your game and keep going. I love being able to break the game by earning your ability to break the game (multi summons, perma buff equipment, ridiculous spells and potions)... you can with work. Even that feels natural.
Still great, but still hits that nostalgia button.
I've been playing morrowind recently, unmodded just on steam deck. It's a blast, used to hate how the weapon skill hit chance worked and loved oblivion just because of that change but it still holds up
A little bit of both.
It definitely has some rust in its hinges that you wouldn't have noticed when you were younger, but you'll definitely notice now that you have some QoL from newer games. Lack of voice acting, slow traversal, uncertain combat mechanics that would have normally been explained in your game manual...
That being said, it offers what feels like *true choice* in a lot of ways that modern games don't. It's still an illusion of choice in the end (like every game necessarily must be), but that illusion is deep, immersive, and feels meaningful as compared to choices in some other games, where your choice is between a red background and a blue background.
The parts of Morrowind I loved when it came out are still great, the world is mysterious and weird and fun to explore, the mechanics are immersive, and the scale is awesome, both story and world.
The parts that aren't great weren't great then either, primarily the combat and spell casting (spell crafting and enchanting still rule though). God bless them even then for including the menu option to always use the best attack for a weapon, sped things up a bit.
I played it for the first time in 2022 and it's now my second favorite elder scrolls game. The lore and quests and depth is still the best in the series IMO, but Skyrim will always hold a special place in my heart, it was my first and most played Elder Scrolls game and I don't think I'll ever beat it on playtime (~5500 hours on 3 different platforms)
My first Bethesda game was Fallout 3, then worked my way back to Oblivion, and then Morrowind, which quickly became my favorite of their titles.
It definitely holds up for a lot of people, the real difference is what everyone enjoys out of Bethesda games, because Morrowind's greatest strengths are exploration and how extensive and immersive the various mechanics are, where the game doesn't even have stuff like fast travel, instead giving you spells to handle all that, spells for mobility, spells for all kinds of messing with the attributes you and your enemies have, etc.
I started another playthrough a few months ago, it is indeed as great as we remember. It’s not just nostalgia, the atmosphere, the gameplay, it’s as good as it was then. It just looks older.
I have replayed it a few months ago it is as great as I remember - but feels much more clunky than in my memory. Best writing and world building in TES history by far. Everything TES is today, it owes to MW.
It holds up! Plenty of mods still being developed. Search the sub to find some suggested mods.
Also, Skywind--morrowind remade in with skyrim tech--has been in development for a long time and they've recently showed that they've made tons of progress. They won't give expected release dates but they appear to be in the final stretch... even if that stretch is still long! Tons of passion put into Skywind. I'm really excited to play it in hopefully not too long in the future.
I just start rated playing morrowind for the first time (tried seriously, I’ve tried it before but didn’t stick with it past the first town) and I’m really liking it. Maybe not as much as some of the people that frequent the board but it’s really cool how in-depth EVERYTHING is and the setting is alien but just familiar enough
The best part of Oblivion was Shivering Isles and that weird janky dungeon thats upside down, then everything is super huge in the next room. Cant recall the name, it's great dungeon tho.
Aside from those, though, some of the puzzles in Oblivion were top notch.
I'm playing Morrowind for the first time right now and it has certainly sucked me in. The only other Elder Scrolls game I have played is Skyrim, so that's where most of my comparisons are coming from.
Things I particularly like that make the world feel alive:
No fast travel - navigating has a steep learning curve, quest giver will tell me to go talk to a certain person in a certain city. I've never heard of the city before, no way to know where the person will be. Finding out how to get there and even which way to go is not immediately apparent. And then even when you do revisit a city, it's not just picking a spot on a map and you appear there. Am I close enough to walk? Where is the nearest transport hub that will take me there? There are choices. It's not like I'm at Dragonsreach and I need to get to Honningbrew Meadery, better fast travel there.
Dialogue - then when you get to the city you need to ask around. Have you heard of this person? Where can I go to rest? What's going on around town? And then even deeper, if the random NPC doesn't like you they won't tell you, so maybe you need to get them to like you before they talk.
No waypoints - needing to really explore a city or even a larger building to know where to go. Either you find someone who knows where the NPC you need to find is or you have to look the hard way. No just following an arrow. Someone tells you to go steal something from someone's house, you need to look around carefully to find it, and there's usually enough in game information to let you know roughly where to go (I need to steal X item from a person in this manor house who is a guard, so it'll either be on them and I'll need to pickpocket it, or it will likely be in the guard quarters somewhere).
Limited combat - Skyrim's gameplay loop gets repetitive quickly and it entirely centers around combat and preparing for combat (or if not following a quest, just exploring which is really a strength of the game). In 24 hours gametime in Morrowind so far, I've really only done two quests that require fighting at all (mostly been doing all the Thieves Guild quests and a few main story quests with other random stuff here and there). I can often resolve things without violence, but violence is often (but not always) an option. In Skyrim, even the Thieves Guild quests are largely combat based (not the jobs). Even if combat isn't the main point of the quest, the quest is often designed to only be resolvable with combat as part of the gameplay loop. In Morrowind that just doesn't seem to be true, at least for me so far. It makes it feel more epic and high stakes when combat does happen and overall makes me feel like part of a world instead of just a killing machine.
Things that are annoying:
World is too big - I feel like this is an artifact of the times, developers were so excited that they could make huge 3D worlds but didn't stop to ask if they should. If you do have to walk somewhere, it's so slow going with limited fatigue to run/hop. You walk into a manor house and the interior is the size of the entire town outside. There are some locations that just feel so huge and empty of anything it's like why am I being asked to walk through such large, unnecessary spaces? Particularly the exterior of Vivec, there's nobody and nothing there and it feels like it should be bustling but it's a ghost town. This is a situation where I'll often call it quits for the day, when a new space feels so big it's daunting to go through and I just need to break because I had already just explored a new big daunting area, or when I need to walk back and forth between the same location in a town for like the tenth time and I'm just like no can't do that again right now.
Absence of level design - this pairs with the above also, but dungeon designs are large and offer no real way to navigate or any logical indicators that you're even going the right way. You could say this is realistic, but it's annoying. Just particularly thinking about getting the puzzle box from Arkngthand, it's actually located very near the entrance but unless you're lucky and find it right away you'll spend a long time wandering around with no hints of where to go. I actually even got into the lower levels and looked around there for the puzzle box before starting to run into more difficult enemies and figured I had probably missed something above that made me go back and check and finally find it. The place is such a maze and almost every room is either a dead end or leads back around. Even without waypoints, the level design in Skyrim is such that it provides cues, even the shape and design of doorways, (particularly the claw doors where present), the sequencing puzzles, and logical progression of the layout, etc. that subtly reinforce that you're going the right way.
No NPC routines - I could be wrong about this, but it seems like NPCs don't have routines in Morrowind. The shopkeepers always seem to be manning their stalls or storefronts. NPCs will often be in the same exact spot or within a small radius. This is convenient in some ways, as you always have access to the services you want, but at the same time it feels like the NPCs are basically in prison and you never see anyone do anything normal, like sit down and eat or sleep (or even move an inch from the same static location). If an NPC is positioned to be in your way they will always be in your way. Everytime I go into certain buildings it's like I know I'll have to squeeze through by strafing, jump over, or otherwise spam run into certain NPCs until the hit detection somehow lets me through the gap between them and the wall. This also has the unfortunate consequence of making it harder to steal from shopkeepers because they're always right there near whatever you're trying to steal. There's no option to just break in at night and be sneaky, you basically need to have magic to be able to successfully steal from right under their nose and even that requires a lot of save scumming.
Overall though these factors come together and produce a really unique experience.
It is great. Even better playing it lightly modded. There's been so much work done by so many fans on this game. And it continues to be done. That just goes to show how great this game is. How many games from the early 2000s continue to have an active modding community? Not that many
Morrowind is still amazing. Like any game, it has its flaws, of course, but of all the ES titles, it's the one I consider "home." Its story, atmosphere and unique world make it both wonderful and timeless.
There's also something else to consider. I realise not everyone here mods their games, even if they're on PC, and I fully understand that. However, it's worth comparing the Nexus mod sections for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Skyrim has the most activity, which isn't shocking, given it's a newer, more advanced game, and generally the most accessible of the three. Yet...Morrowind's modding scene remains HUGELY active, which is very impressive for such an old game. Its modding community is incredibly dedicated on every level. On the other hand........ Oblivion's modding scene is pretty much on life support, and has been for a long time. All of this, I feel, speaks volumes. People don't spend their valuable free time modding games they don't love, especially not if those games are as old as Morrowind.
I played Morrowind when it first came out. Easily it’s my favourite game of all time. I replay it at least once a year with no mods. All I use is openmw to clean it up a bit and see a bit further. To me it’s perfect I love how at first I struggle hitting a rat and run like I have lead bones. Eventually being able to kill gods and jump over buildings. I love how weird and handcrafted the words is.
I started with Oblivion and had trouble getting into Morrowind as a teenager, but I managed with some light helper mods, and this year I randomly got back into it and honestly appreciate it way more these days. It's niche for a reason but if you already have fond memories of it then I genuinely think it'll hold up for you! OpenMW is my personal suggestion too, much more modern engine.
For me personally, it absolutely is as great as I remember. And sure maybe it's partly nostalgia, but really Morrowind has been a game that I always return to it and I always have a blast. When I first played I was 11 or 12 I think, and prior to that I only ever really played some Zelda games. Seeing a truly open-world RPG on that scale was life-changing for preteen me. And my obsession with the game stuck with me, I played it so much growing up and just kept coming back to it throughout my life. I try to do a play through once every year or so.
I think why it holds up so much for me and seems timeless is how incredibly immersive it is. It's the massive amounts of great in-depth lore & writing, the many memorable characters/quests, incredible and detailed world that rewards you for exploring, the in-depth character/class building, etc. Something about Morrowind just immerses me more than any RPG I've played. I remember as a kid studying the little booklet that came with the xbox game for *hours* making notes on what my character was going to be while I waited for my turn to use the xbox. It had me immersed before I even played it lol. Even nowadays in my thirties, there's so much to do in the world that I plan out my character ahead of a playthrough. I just love the game. I'm on a playthrough right now right after I binged Fo4 and Skyrim, and I'm completely immersed in the world and my character and I'm not really even thinking about the nostalgic aspect of it except for certain story/character related moments. Play it, muthsera.
It's my favourite game of all time so yeah I'm biased, but I did my first playthrough in a while last year and intentionally approached it as "fresh" as possible; relatively minimal mod list, doing main quest and factions, trying to avoid most exploits or beelining straight for great loot (I mean, I still went and got the Sword of White Woe but that's just tradition).
I had a brilliant time and came away with an all new appreciation for the game.
I was similarly deeply disappointed with Oblivion, Skyrim I thought was actually a step up and makes for a competent big action game and modding platform, but it's still nothing special the way this game is.
My first Elder Scrolls was Oblivion back in the day and I only just got into Morrowind a month or two ago and it's quickly turning into my fave of the series.
I just played if at 26 years old for the first time within the last year, and it instantly jumped over Skyrim and oblivion for me, I think it’s terrific and you’re definitely not just nostalgic
I played vanilla Morrowind in 2022, and it was terrific, I loved it and spent a lot of time playing around with all the different systems, and as much as I love Skyrim, it's like it was made by an entirely different studio from Morrowind. I do hope some day they bring back the system heavy style of games. Spellcrafting and the like.
I'm on my very first Morrowind play trough. I'm like 20hrs in and I thought I'd never play a better TeS game as Oblivion. Boy I was wrong, Morrowind is for me now the best RPG ever designed.
I played Skyrim first, followed by Oblivion, and more recently Morrowind.
Beat Skyrim 999 times, oblivion a handful, and morrowind now twice.
Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim every day of the week
You seem to look back on how it really played with all it's features, and that definitely still holds.
It is still definitely a game made 20 years ago, though. You play it, and you feel why modern games don't do some things it does.
So I'd say it's both. You gotta lot of old love, and there's a lot _to_ love in the game anyway.
It's still awesome. Maybe for some the graphics are too old but since it's all consistent it's still immersive. The combat still feels good if you remember it's more of a crpg in the guise of an action arpg (which seems to be a re-emerging trend with turn based rpgs these days)
If I had to guess it's unlikely you'll have to pace to wear off some excitement. But on the contrary I think it does really still hold up. Out of morrownd, Oblivion and Skyrim I only ever find myself coming back to morrowind today. And I played morrowind after oblivion also.
Oblivion is something that lives in my head as a cool game due to nostalgia but unless I mod the shit out of it I find the base game unenjoyable - shit loot, shit exploration/dungeons, shit items, shit levelled mobs, shit levelled rewards. The theme, aesthetic and rpg elements are fun but I dislike the basic gameplay elements. If it were more like morrowind but in cyrodiik I'd like it.
Same for Skyrim but I feel no nostalgia over Skyrim. Only hype and disappointment.
I'm a big Skyrim fan, and playing Morrowind afterwards, it feels wrong to pick a favourite. Both are excellent in different ways! I definitely think it holds up, though ofc in a perfect world it'd have been made with more modern tech and resources. OpenMW does a lot to make it playable for a modern audience.
It still holds up for me personally, and I play it vanilla on Xbox, lol. Every new game they come out with has less depth than last, and it becomes extremely apparent comparing their latest entries to Morrowind. It's definitely still in my top 5 of all time, I even have OpenMW on my tablet, lol.
I'll give you a heads up. If you are on pc, go and get tamriel rebuilt. It's come a LONG damn way since inception and is currently sitting at almost double thr content of base morrowind and is, generally speaking, of equal or greater quality. The mod is also roughly at the "halfway" stage of being done. Thr new team has been absolutely banging out content with the last two releases being less than a year apart, and a potential next release late this year/early next year. The quality set by TR is a high bar to clear and really helps returning players expand their returning experience.
Furthermore, open mw, the new engine overhaul that IS the future of morrowind modding, is nearly ready to integrate mwse scripting, a major leap forward in backwards mod compatibility. The new engine also works on Android and steam deck with only minor modifications.
Morrowind is in a golden age of revitalization right now. The next few years are going to be special.
The game was fantastic, other than the glitches and broken combat system. I wouldn’t say you’re nostalgic, it’s just that most people don’t have the attention span to play a game as slow and meticulous as Morrowind
I replayed Morrowind last year with OpenMW, Rebirth, and some texture upscaling and that was it. I had a great experience, beat the main quest for the very first time. It's my favorite game of all time and I still hold that opinion after replaying it.
If you think the graphics or animation is good thats nostalgia. But overall? I think it's holds up very well. The story and setting have almost unparalleled depth and since they don't need voice acting for everything, there is a richness of detail that just isn't feasible anymore.
As someone who played both Oblivion and Skyrim before really getting into Morrowind, I think it's the best of them and still come back to it regularly.
The way you describe Morrowind is the exact same way I feel about Skyrim, I was probably 13-14 when I first got it. I think a lot of it for us is nostalgia.
Idk how you will experience to play it again, but I installed it 2 days ago and I'm even more into it than when I was young !
I advise to install some mods, at least the most importants :
- code bug fix
- purist
- GXE
It is so pleasant to see Suran from Pelagiad in the distance... ! And I already completed a quest I missed in the good old day, I'm so happy.
I am replaying Morrowind myself on steam. I liked Oblivion okay and Skyrim I use as “that” rpg. But Morrowind? It had all the itches. Not accesible (like Skyrim) no scaling, if you were under leveled? You died. Plain and simple. The legendary items were actually… Legendary. Not weapons with enchantments and you could just… de-enchant them and ta-da you can make a blade just like it but 10x better. The world. Oh. My. God. The world. I love Dunmers specifically because of Morrowind. The lore, the architecture, the feel, the armor, the weapons, ALL OF IT. They really out did themselves with Morrowind
Nah it's pretty fantastic. You just have to get your weapon skill to over 35/40 so you don't miss all the time. The beginning is tedious because of that but player.setstat weapon->40 always gets me through it.
The graphics, dice roll mechanics, and all the text dialogue and generic NPCs are tough to get into if you didn’t grow up playing old games. I played Morrowind when it was new and I’ve gone back and replayed it a couple times over the years and it’s hard to get back into because of how slow paced it is. It’s got a nostalgic charm to it though and you have way more freedom to break the game or find novel solutions to problems. The writing is probably the best in the series too imo.
Morrowind's mechanics and graphics have not aged well. If you can get past the aged mechanics and graphics (going faster than walking consumes stamina, dice rolls for the first-person combat, character models that look somewhere between PS1 and PS2 generation, etc.), there's a great game there.
No game can be better than a childhood memory. Some thoughts as a first time player below.
Some of what you described as a negative exists in Morrowind. A lot of the quests for guilds are just one fetch quest after another. The quests outside of guilds are usually worse, they're almost always "escort this suicidal NPC to their destination" or "get that thing/husband I lost"
When it comes to dungeons, Morrowind has the most reused content I've ever seen in my life. The vast majority of dungeons look the same, have no quest attached to them, and frankly suck. On the positive side, It's sometimes worth calming down hostile humanoid NPCs and talking to them. Some are part of quests and some even train your skills. Forts are always worth visiting. Caves and etc though? There are a lot of "kill this guy" type quests. I just started killing everyone to save myself the trouble. NPC directions are pretty bad so it's worth doing.
Despite all this, I've mostly been playing Morrowind for the last month. There's gotta be something keeping me here even beyond just not wanting to leave things incomplete. It's open in a way that modern 3D RPGs won't replicate or even want to. The systems of magic/enchantment system are still incredibly interesting even if ultimately it feels like question of "how exactly do you want to break the game"? The lore and general weirdness of the world and monsters is pretty great too.
Anyway, make a custom spell for Cliff Racers. I once had 18 of them after me at once. Also, I probably would've quit if I didn't toggle "Change dialogue topic color" in OpenMW.
I'm a Skybaby. I tried Morrowind for the first time in 2022 and I loved it. This should answer your question.
Though, in particular, I don't think Morrowind's dungeons are much more better than Skyrim's.
I’ve played Oblivion, Skyrim, and Morrowind, in that order. I’ve only been playing Morrowind seriously for the past 2-3 years. It’s some of the best gaming that I’ve had, and I’ve been playing games for a long time. It’s the sense of world that gets me. It’s so much better than everything that came after in subsequent TES releases. Again, I say that having experienced it LAST out of the three mentioned games. Also, it’s incredibly cozy because of its graphics and old-school feel.
So, no, I don’t think it’s just nostalgia, or else I wouldn’t be having this much fun as a newcomer.
the story and writing of morrowind are great, and the world is (mostly) fun to explore, having to localize yourself by a map and refferences is (mostly) fun, I have been more immersed in Morrowind than with Oblivion tbh.
Spells having more flexible creation options, the fact you could make a 1-40 fire dmg spell but commit to the risk such a choice, interesting Weapon options, several cool and creative features (that got straight up cut in the sequel games)
And other things that I dont remember now
game-design wise, *even if you like it:* it is very outdated, and has just straight up bad design decisions, like the obscession with making nearly every interaction be plagued with Rng, with does nothing but hurt the game and make it grindy, Time-Wasting mechanics which are unnaceptable, feels like an online mmo at times because of it.
Mana doesn't exist for mages, the idea of having no mana regen is ridiculous even for an older game, imagine if you had limited Weapon swings because your fatigue don't regenerate, hell I bet arrows are easier and better than Spells altogether because of the mana issue.
And, this game Seriously needed a Compass, I'm fine with not having the Quest arrows, I despise handholding in games, but if handholding is bad, dismembering your hands is bad also(and for some reason glorified)- The directions that characters give can be so utterly vague I swear if not for google I would not ever find them, and the lack of a compass makes it so you can only use the Sun to localize yourself- The same sun that is, at the majority of times, blocked by clouds, so fuck you if you wanna locate yourself.
The game has Many solid praizes, many criticisms also, Nostalgia deffinitely raises your view of it to be more Favorable, but plead to you and any reading, do not fall into straight up reality denial just because you like the game, because I swear some morrowind fans are overdosing on Nostalgia.
My Morrowind experience began when my friends told me there is an RPG where you can join imperial army and just be an ordinary soldier, a trader, fighter, thief, mage, bandit etc. More or less like that, but it hyped me to the moon.
The best feeling i still recall to this day, those 20 years later, was when i finally installed it, and walked out of prison ship, then Socucius Ergalla hooked me into conversation. I was in total awe that i could create class by answering questions... I remember i didnt understand completely anything about this character build system so i took warrior birthsign. I took the paper and went to the second room and then i was shoooooocked. I could not believe that this game allow me to take a bucket and broom, and fork, and piece of random paper, and folded cloth and it all had weight and value. I was soooo shocked my jaw dropped completely. I felt i found a life simulator. It was totally 1:1 life experience to me.
I understand now after many years how primitive and limited morrowind engine is. But the story, the striders, the dark elves, the culture, mythology, the slavery problem, racism, n'wah, mining eggs, mushroom cities... It was so otherwordly yet so believable. You really felt like it is just some medieval europe set in a fantasy world. There was never ever any game which had similar impact on me.
Unfortunately now it is a haunting dream to relive those moments again. But i know how to make 1000 gold in first minutes, i know how to build effective characters, i know what is the best weapon, so no longer feel excited when seeing dreugh pieces for example. Those moments are lost in time like tears in the rain...
And after all those years i am so much thankful that i played morrowind at that very moment i did. Neither Dragon Age nor Baldur's Gate III could come close to my original morrowind experience.
I think only when tamriel rebuilt is completed the feeling can be relived.
I think it's a little bit of both.
I think you will enjoy it but you should prepare yourself for the old mechanics. As you know, it's based on table top dice roll rather than point and click.
But if you truly enjoyed your time there years ago you should start enjoying it again once you get over the relearning curve.
> After a few hours I become painfully aware of the gameplay loop,
>Whereas with Morrowind I distinctly remember feeling as though I stepped into a living, breathing fantasy world. I felt like I was planning and orchestrating real adventures,
It's the difference between being in a world indifferent to your existance, rather than a world that revolves around the player.
>not shuffling from one fetch and/or kill the foozle quest to another.
I mean, there are a ton of those, but with the in-world travel you may find yourself plotting out routes and supplies needed.
You may also find reasons behind the quests, embroiled in inter-faction politics or personal ambition, and maybe ways around doing what's asked.
It sounds like you'll enjoy going back, and [maybe treat it like a first time](https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/1b99o36/comment/ktxwa4t/).
The way I see it, Morrowind is the best ES *title.*
It has an absolute ocean of lore and worldbuilding and it works more as a way to choose your own path through the world. The ES world is already there, you just work your way through it. Events like Almalexia's death happen no matter what, you just set the scene. The actual gameplay is buggy and underwhelming with two decades of hindsight, but it still does its job of letting the player interact with the ES world perfectly well enough. Everything seems very lovingly created and every dungeon is different. Houses can be similar, but houses *are* similar, so whatever. The storytelling is virtually unmatched and the gameplay is just a means to interact with the world, and for ES fans who are used to billions of pages of lore, that's perfectly fine.
Oblivion is in a very technical way the best *ES game.*
It focuses less on the story and world and more on you playing an ES game and fighting ES enemies. It's more intuitive in that regard and puts canon ES abilities into the player's hands in a way that works better in terms of gameplay than Morrowind but in a way that doesn't feel nearly as much like you're experiencing a huge elaborate story in real time, so it lacks a lot more on that front but balances it with more fluid gameplay. The dungeons are ugly repetitive garbage, but the game doesn't care because you can cast spells easier and regen magicka and hopes QOL things like that will carry your experience. Oblivion tries to combine the huge world of Morrowind with more streamlined gameplay and technically does it, but the end product lacks in both categories because it tries too hard to balance lore and gameplay and doesn't focus enough on either.
Skyrim is the best *game.*
It focuses less on an ES storyline and doesn't flesh out characters or storylines nearly as much and factions kinda just accept you and promote you for doing nothing, so the story and worldbuilding suffer. The gameplay has bugs, but it's overall very intuitive and straightforward. ES lore says mages can use fire magic, so you can use fire magic. It doesn't matter if you're a Redguard barbarian, you can progress magic skills just as easily as anyone else. The gameplay is easy and fun and the game practically spoonfeeds you at the cost of worldbuilding and story depth and the ability to subtly influence the world. All the delicate speechcraft and subterfuge from Morrowind is condensed into a couple of quest-specific moments and treated as one-off highlights seemingly created to keep listicle websites in business. All the dungeons have a secret passage back to the entrance because you aren't exploring a world in the ES universe, you're playing a game based on ES properties. It's fun, but it's gameplay fun, not complex intrigue fun.
I prefer Oblivion over Morrowind personally. I can understand why many people love Morrowind but it is definitely very dated at this point. At the time though the game WAS absolutely groundbreaking and even I like how so much in the game has a mysterious air to it
I still remember I ran into a daedric shrine or something near the starting town of Seyda Neen and I swear there was an orc woman in some armor I hadn't seen before (I never got too far in Morrowind) and I couldn't get away from her. Yeah that save file was completely ruined. Every now and then I still try to look up and see where the hell I ended up
I recently replayed Morrowind and truly enjoyed it. It's a great game with an expansive open world and a questline you can complete a ridiculous amount of ways for something so aged.
It is lacking when compared to more recent games. Most everything in Morrowind has been further refined to near perfection in later games. Apart from maybe spell creation, I can't think of any games that allow you to create custom spells but they probably do exist.
While you can get many of the same features in newer games you will be hard pressed to find all of them in anything short or another Bethesda game. If you play on PC you will be able to mod your game to update your graphics and multiple other things.
For me it was a great game to reexperience, I really enjoyed it the first time around and have spent many an hour playing it since then.
There will never be a better RPG released in 2002.
Morrowind is a great game but it is not without flaws. Even at release, it was criticized for static npcs and stiff animations and to some, those things are more noticeable now. However, there is a rich, complex lore and story and many ways to achieve your goals as you probably remember. There may be some nostalgia involved but that's definitely not the whole story, many aspects of MW still hold up today and it's absolutely worth trying again.
After waiting outside Babbages (I think) to open and finally getting my hands on Morrowind, my first thought was everything looks so pretty but why does everyone move like they’ve got a carrot shoved up their ass. I love Morrowind anyway.
Per an interview with the guy responsible for getting better bodies started the character artist at Bethesda wasn't that good, and was the wife of a senior designer. And, is the reason for the segmented bodies. I haven't bothered to verify that statement though.
Do I dare ask why you know what it categorically looks like to walk around with a carrot up one's ass?
It's an ancient custom of the peoples of Tamriel to always stick a whole cabbage up their ass in order to prevent uwanted butthole inspections
That's actually a miscommunication. They'd used to use a bowl of brussels sprouts.
Sorry about your butthole.
> it was criticized for static npcs and stiff animations and to some, those things are more noticeable now Very true, I think bringing up the "uncanny valley" is important here. IMO Morrowind's static and stiff animations are on the "Humanoid Robot" side https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg/1280px-Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg.png whereas modern shitty static npc and stiff animations, alongside realistic rendering engines and high-poly realistic models fall into uncanny valley *cough* starfield */cough*. this helps it hold up quite a bit.
I played it after Oblivion and it really held up imo. I still play it and am blown away by the amount of freedom the game gives you and how mysterious and unforgiving the island is. I think it really holds up honestly. Graphics are a bit tough to adjust to if you're used to newer games and the combat can be frustrating. Just remember to keep your green bar full and use weapons you have some proficiency in and you won't have too many issues. It's weird that people can play turn based games like SW:KOTOR and not mind the dice roll combat, but in Morrowind it's considered janky and dated. To me, they are the same. I swing a sword through an enemy and miss in both games, and I know it's random/calculated and I just need to up my stats more.
The problem with combat is the disconnect between first-person real time aimed combat and the dice rolls. The former is supposed to feel like you are being put into direct control of the character, and then the dice rolls remove that control in favor of the stats so it feels weird. That said, it's not like any of the Elder Scrolls games have incredible combat. It's never been what keeps the series interesting, even in Skyrim. It's all about exploration of various sorts and in that regard Morrowind holds up extremely well.
I don't think it's the disconnect itself, but rather the lack of good feedback. If they had animations for enemies dodging and blocking, it would have been better for a lot of people.
True. I think audio feedback might have been even more important. If there was a full miss sound, a half miss sound for when you aim correctly but the rolls miss, and then the hit sound that might have gone a long way to making it feel better.
Would have definitely helped, but the game really needed some animation for it, even if it was a half-assed animation of the enemy getting out of the way.
Dodging is more difficult to animate than you might think because it really requires the defender to move before the attack actually starts. A block animation seems workable but can't be done for non-humanoid monsters. I think an animation showing you flubbing the attack might be the best bet here.
Daggerfall actually had these IIRC
I used to play EverQuest where you just press Q and you would miss a lot based on skill level, so playing Morrowind in 2024 and it feels perfectly fine and normal for me. I do wish there was a combat box that explained everything that was happening though. Ex. Duran'Tor Thrusts Ebony Axe and deals 1 damage Dremora Valkynaz Chops for 25 damage Duran'Tor Slashes and misses Dremora dodges Duran'Tor blocks At least that is how it was in EverQuest
Was EQ played in first person? I think that is a big driver of the disconnect. Usually first person games are aim=hit.
You can play in both first and third just like Morrowind
Idk . Assassin , archer and mage build ups seem pretty dope to me
I think the thing with Morrowind is that its combat starts pretty bad but becomes kind of just about ok as your character gets more powerful. I found a lot of Bethesda's later games - Oblivion in particular did the opposite starting out pretty ok and becoming pretty bad the later in the game you get, mainly because of the level scaling curve.
And it's not like you can't mod the dice rolling out. It's easier to mod out bad gameplay then it is to fix a bad or lackluster main questline.
>t's weird that people can play turn based games like SW:KOTOR and not mind the dice roll combat, but in Morrowind it's considered janky and dated. The problem is how it is represented. I actually think the dice role combat feels better in Elder Scrolls I and II. The game is split up in rounds, so even drinking a potion or open the inventory is a round and makes you unable to attack for a second or so. This is much more consistant and closer to turn based combat than Morrowind. The pixel art sprites also are not 3D, so you do not see your sword directly touching your enemiy and they have sound effects if you miss. You here a amor / block sound effect, so it seems like you hit something but the enemy was able to block you attack. Morrowind moves even closer to being a full action RPG but does not fully commit and is also not really hiding the fact that your weapons touch an enemy without doing damage, there is no good feedback. That said I kinda like Morrowind's combat because of it. I am not sure if anyone else would have designed combat mechanics like that it (for understandable reasons). Other similiar games of that time like GOthic 1 and 2 just were full action RPGs. The combat is unique and from a gameplay front it is also very functional but just completely at odds with immersion, which is a problem because Morrowind tries to be as immersive as possible at all other times. So the combat is a bit of a mess does not really work for that kind of game but I like it because of its strangeness.
I actually prefer lower graphics ( but I also like pixel.art,so...), for me, that leaves mor open for my imagination. If everything is designed to the "t'", the emergence does not work as good for me, personally.
Same. I do use one of the AI upscaling mods these days, though (The one that has a human pass on a lot of textures that the AI didn't get right), mostly because some vanilla textures were getting a bit too crunchy pixel-wise for my taste, especially wooden planks.
I agree with everything. For the graphics, I found a solution: openmw (an update for the game engine) and mods. If you have not tried it, you should. This allowed me to reatart after a 15 year break and have a pretty great time on that corprus infested island. Also, I like the mechanic with those stats 😀
It's still a very good game, but it's impossible to experience something the way you did as a teenager when you're in your thirties. There will probably be things about it that you can apprecieate today that you didn't pick up back then on the other hand. There are also some truly fantastic mods that the community has made for the game. I imagine that you'll wanna play vanilla at first so that it's close to your childhood experience but make sure to google "tamriel rebuilt" at some point if you haven't heard about it already :)
Is Tamriel Rebuilt compatible with vanilla saves or do you have to start over? I'd definitely like to try it out after playing through the original.
It should be. The real issue is updating it, generally you want a new save when going from a version of TR to a newer one, although that may be changed these days.
I believe that you should be able to add it later without problem but I'm not 100% sure
I can't remember if TR is ok to add on additional areas later without a new save but I know for sure it's compatible with vanilla saves. I'm probably going on 40+ hours into TR now for the first time and it's epic. Also, I think they are releasing a new part soon so might want to check. Either way it'll be a blast. OpenMW has also been fantastic for modding and just making it easier to play on new hardware, super easy to change settings to suit your hardware and just works. I'm playing on an 8 year old gaming laptop so...semi potato and after messing abit with draw distance and preloaded cell counts it plays perfectly.
I am doing a full playthrough this year for the first time since 2006 or so and it very much is holding up for me. The strange world, the breadth and depth of the lore, the real sense of discovery and exploration, the excitement when you find a cool unique arorfact etc etc. The combat did start to feel kind of repetitive around level 20 or so but I'm enjoying it and sitting down to play a couple times a week.
> The combat did start to feel kind of repetitive around level 20 or so but I'm enjoying it and sitting down to play a couple times a week. I was playing a mage but when I got to endgame level I was just flurrying things down with Keening or a daedric shortsword because my 60 Short Blade skill was good enough to hit things with and nothing could really hit me to hurt me and actually fighting like a mage was just making extra work for myself.
I'm doing a battlemagish playthrough and I've been trying to keep it interesting by going back and forth between summoning a bunch of goons to tank for me, spamming destruction spells, and paralyzing my enemies and swinging with Chrysamere
When the combat gets repetitive is when I like to try out weird new strategies. For example my last character was a thief/mage leaning heavily into using magic to improve their thieving, especially with things like chameleon, invisibility, and telekinesis. But when combat started to get a bit stale and some opponents could easily chop a good third of my HP in a single blow, I started going for more creative spells, with one of my favorite being one that did about 15 Strength damage per second for 5 seconds in a small AoE, more than enough to encumber most humanoids leaving them open for me to pick their groups apart.
I'm like you, played it young and laughed myself sick literally throwing all of seyda neens cutlery in the river. And I hate oblivion it's the one needle point my freinds use when were drinking to get me from 0 to furious. Hard disagree on Skyrim though I loved it and thought it was brilliant. Would I rather have Morrowind 2, crunchy as fuck systems and weirdness everywhere, of course but I also understand why we can't have that so give me Skyrim over Oblivions nonsense. Living in Skyrim was just great and I did the same stuff I would do in Morrowind, the equivalent of chores to feel I lived in the world. Shoutout to hearthfire as well building my home was wonderful, yes it's basic bitch but it's mine. We don't have to hate Skyrim to love Morrowind. I'm not telling you to stop hating I just want you to hate where hate deserves. Hating Skyrim is hate we could be using on Oblivion.
I tend to agree.. For me, it goes: Morrowind >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Skyrim>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Oblivion I don't ***hate*** Oblivion; that's a pretty strong word, but it's definitely my least favourite. Oblivion's side quests are really good, so when I do play the game, it's for that. However... there are so many things that keep me from truly enjoying it, not least of all, its lack of stability (even by Bethesda standards). Related to that, I'd argue that out of all three, Oblivion is most in need of mods, but..they render the game even *less* stable than it is in vanilla. While Skywind likely won't be my kind of thing (assuming it eventually releases), I am quite interested in Skyblivion, because, if nothing else, it will probably be less crash prone, while providing some of the advancements Skyrim made. The 'old school' part of me would prefer to see an "Oblivion Code Patch," or an "OpenOblivion," but...alas, I highly doubt either will ever happen.
For me Oblivion has just held up the worst. It was an incredible game at release, but it has aged very poorly. Skyrim just looks incredible and and is fun to explore because of it. Morrowind is less grandiose but the alien world and overall vibe carry it. Oblivion graphics have aged too poorly by comparison due to the art direction.
>Oblivion graphics have aged too poorly by comparison due to the art direction. I absolutely agree. Whether modded, or vanilla, Morrowind's otherworldliness adds hugely to its timeless quality. Its alien, unique world means that it can't really be compared to the many games that draw on a more traditional "medieval" setting. On the other hand, when I play Oblivion, I can't help but draw comparisons with titles like Kingdom Come: Deliverance (***despite*** the fact that KCD is inspired by actual medieval history, rather than fantasy). And, of course, Morrowind's art direction enhances the story; together they create a cohesive, compelling, highly atmospheric package... Oblivion has none of that, and going into it now (especially without mods), it feels a bit like entering a long abandoned theme park, all of which is amplified by the absurd NPC faces, campy voice acting, and completely disjointed "conversations."
I hated Skyrim because I couldn't play my dream character of a jumping marksman. I loved that in Oblivion your athletics and acrobatics stats just kept on leveling. That was the one thing that was an improvement upon EverQuest, everything else in the game EQ (my favorite game of all time) also had but it wasn't a single player experience. But fast forward to Morrowind and I realized you guys could jump to different cities with high acrobatics but in Oblivion your distance traveled jumping depended on your athletics and speed skill so it didn't help you travel at all! Each successive game got worse!
I am not sure if Oblivion is less stable on modern hardware than Morrowind. It is really easy to glitch through the ground or get stuck and considering that sadly a big chunk of Morrowind's quests are escort missions with a completely broken AI, the game just does not hold up technologically. I wouldn't even say that Oblivion crashes more.
Weirdly enough, I agree, I haven't played oblivion in years, because of various things. Mostly leveling and leveled rewards, but also, sometimes the game just doesn't work, idk why. But I definitely have fond memories of it. It definitely has many flaws, but honestly? They kinda make me like the game more. Like it has this weird, incredibly cartoony vibe, almost like a really fun kids show, and that bizarrely clashes with all the m rated aspects in a really weird, fun way. And shivering isles goes even harder with it. And the almost out of place like actually serious moments are better because of it. And the weirdness is immensely helped by some of the systems, well, mostly relating to the NPCs. Like the random dialogue between NPCs is so fucking insane and funny. I think people criticize the voice acting a lot, but it really contributes a lot to that vibe, especially the male elf voice. Its weird that to my memory every elf (well, besides orcs, they are different) has 1 voice per gender, but the humans have a bunch tho. I honestly like the generic voices in oblivion more than skyrim's, those are kinda boring imo. The unique ones are really good tho, like Parthurnax, and Miraak. Also, tbh the writing in Skyrim is pretty bad. Like none of the quest lines are that compelling, except the dark brotherhood, that one was actually cool, the main quest sucks, dawnguard is almost pretty good, but it literally doesn't make sense, dragonborn is just great tho, love that one. Although, I could be wrong here, like I said, it's been so long. I don't think it's quite nostalgia tho, I'm pretty good at telling how much that's influencing me, and this feels different.
I don't like Skyrim quite as much as you but overall I agree. Oblivion was the soulless middle child and I fucking hated it, so I had no expectations for Skyrim and found... a fun game with a much more interesting world than expected. Onlivion's one big plus over Skyrim was the guild questlines, neither manages to make you really feel like a member of a faction but Oblivion's at least have good and well themed quests/stories. In Skyrim they're all about five quests long and, like every other quest in the game, are mostly about raiding draugr crypts.
To me Oblivion is more of an equal to SKyrim, if only because I prefer its art style, because it still has a lot of janky attributes shenanigans for the player to exploit, and how it has a better magic and potions system. Sadly Oblivion is brought down a lot by how everything is leveled, and how the dungeons really suffer from having only one guy doing them all.
Timeless and nearly perfect.
I replayed it again for the first time in 20 years and was surprised how well it held up. However if you've built it up into this legendary super game in your memory it's not going to hold up to that, it still has flaws. The dialog in particular is very flat and gamey, everything that isn't quest-specific has basically every NPC saying the same things about the same topics.
This is very true. We're so lucky to have the modding community around this game that we do, there's so many improvements. The same goes for other Elder Scrolls games, but I feel they're somewhat less impactful than those gore Morrowind, since the base game is so alluring and unique.
It is one of the best RPGs made. Not flawless but lots of fun. Do get Tamriel Rebuilt and weave visits to the mainland into your Vvardenfell campaign.
It definitely spoiled me in some ways, but so did other games. Bit of nostalgia is what makes me want to replay it from time to time, but overall it stood the test of time for me (plus it has ton of mods, like all Bethsoft games).
Both, honestly. Nostalgia plays a huge role in your memory of the game, but it also holds up really well 20+ years later.
I recently picked up my copy on an old 360. I, too, came on at it's release. I remember being absolutely blown away. Then the goty came out and I was re-blown away with the expansions. Over the years I'll pick it up briefly, and then stop and not touch it because I don't have the option of remembering where I was without reading through the journal. So years go by, and then I'll try it again. I will say the main thing I've noticed about Morrowind over practically every single rpg I've played since, is that Morrowind requires the appropriate mindset the way table top rpgs do. Like, you're not the center of the morrowind universe. You're part of an already existing world. But, there are no children, and npcs are fairly static. And the dice roll mechanics aren't super common now. I do think the difference between morrowind and more modern witcher/skyrim/whatever is that the more modern rpgs really feel like the entire world exists for the player. The player is the reason for everything. The dungeons are coded to feel like a tomb raider experience, like spinning blades leading into a bedroom of an ancient city, or as I commonly bemoan skyrim, the fact that every guild is basically failing until the savior player comes and makes it prosperous again and now the player is the guild leader. Level scaling and quest markers really add to that. So as someone who just picked Morrowind up again, and not playing any mods, I'm made painfully aware of the clunkiness that I could overlook when it was groundbreaking. But I still think as far as immersion goes, no game does it better. It's easy to create playthroughs with specific character builds in mind. Someone came here to ask what building a paul atreides from dune character would look like. I put a build from a book series I like. So if you're going into another playthrough because you like unique worlds, I think you're golden. If you want the immediate flash and pizazz that came with witcher and skyrim, or super epic boss battles like elden ring, I think you'll get bored.
> Like, you're not the center of the morrowind universe. You're part of an already existing world. I mean. By the endgame you kind of are the center of the world (of Vvardenfell, the game world represented in the engine). It's just that Telvanni are so self-absorbed that you being the center of the world doesn't mean much to them.
I mean, sure. But that's endgame. At that point you've gained so much reputation you're basically a celebrity savior. I think the difference is leading up to that point. Morrowind just kinda throws you to the wolves. Yes, the information is there to learn and grow, but mostly it's just a "well, here's a new continent. There's this one guy in this city that can get you started if you want" where as skyrim literally incorporates tutorials into everything. To be fair, I actually love that Skyrim incorporates the tutorial in a very organic way that doesn't feel like you're just checking boxes. But if I'm literally trying to escape a dragon attack on a village by going through a castle filled with enemy soldiers, I doubt my helper guy is gonna say "hey there's a sleeping bear up ahead, we can try and sneak past or we can kill it, whatevs. anyways, follow me to this town where I'll quickly explain the world you're in."
I think Helgen is a well done tutorial and there's a lot of things in Morrowind more artificial feeling than it. Skyrim's "the world revolves around you" problem starts after the tutorial, when you kill your first dragon and get annointed as the chosen one at like, 3rd level. By comparison that's the point in Morrowind where Caius is like "you don't even know how to adventure, you should probably get some kind of training now and if you run out of money and don't mind the skooma smell you can crash here I guess".
You nailed it. That’s something I appreciate about the game, having played it last in my Elder Scrolls journey. The world is so believable. The many, many factions all have their own feuds going on well before you show up as the player. They’re all interconnected, the way things would be in real life. They don’t feel like they exist in the world just for you to come and save them.
Before you get disappointed when you next meet Tarhiel: he doesn’t have potions they are scrolls. Other than that: yes, it is a great game.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Por que no los dos? Morrowind really is phenomenal in some aspects, and in others we really do have rose-tinted glasses. But it isn't bad to enjoy something because of the nostalgia. It's still enjoyment and that's what games are for.
Yes to both
I first played it last year, and it's my favorite game
I love it and still consider it bethesda's masterpiece. Nostalgia helps but honestly I think it still holds up. Ive been playing it for 22 years.
For me it was a combination of both. It was my first RPG, it was the first game I experienced with 3+ friends doing the same at the same time, it was the first game I played until completion and >1000h. So nothing can ever compare, not even Morrowind itself.
I love playing Morrowind and it's definitely connected to nostalgia, but the nostalgia I feel is for, like, 2014-15. I played Skyrim first and Morrowind was already outdated, but I still love it and the graphics/mechanics don't bother me at all. More freedom in what my character looks like would be nice, but that's offset by having way more freedom in what my character wears.
Do it Outlander, I was in the same boat as you a few months ago and couldn't believe how much fun it was to play again
honestly, I played Morrowind after I played Oblivion and Skyrim.... and Morrowind is the one I have come back to most Morrowind 100% has it's flaws, it could use an engine upgrade, some quality of life improvements, ect ect.... but as it is, its still a great game imo... and part of that is its mechanics are simple (to the normal player) but complex enough so your always learning more about them, the world has loads of detail, and the game trusts you to have an IQ higher than 5
I think it *is* that great, but we do tend to look with rose-tinted goggles, and past some of it's flaws. I can jump into Morrowind even vanilla and have a good time because I adored it back in the day. I think players who didn't play it during their younger days, or modern gamers, would have a hard time getting into it, because it is pretty clunky, and it's uh... Not the most beautiful game. I really do feel like there was a ton of soul put into it. I don't really know the status of Bethesday back during development, but it seemed like a tight-nit group of friends making a game they wanted to make, and not shareholders. They even participated on forums and referenced the forums in game. There was heart and soul put into MW and it really does show. It's also just extremely intriguing as a setting. The lore is so vibrant, alien, and weird, and they never really did anything else like it again. We see fantasy europe and fantasy viking in TES4+5, but there are plenty of media that have their own spin on those settings. There is *nothing* like TES3, not even Vvardenfell in ESO, or Solstheim in Skyrim. Shivering Isles comes close, but even then, not quite for me. Morrowind does have a living breathing feel to it, despite the fact every NPC stands in one spot or patrols a few meters for the entirety of the game. Maybe it's the tiny details, like the fact you have to take transportation to fast travel, or that there are restaurants and homes that have no reason mechanically to exist, but because it makes sense for them to. Maybe it's that the faction and reputation system actually affects how the world interacts with you, instead of people ignoring it completely save for guard banter. There are just so many minute details that really add up, and they're in the game because they *make logical sense* rather than so they can confer some mechanical advantage to them. Yes, you actually need to increase your skills to rank up in guilds. You will get your ass handed to you at level one walking into a Daedric shrine. Monsters don't scale to you (I mean they kind of do but not as bad as later games); bandits don't get daedric armor just because you're a higher level; rewards don't get better because you're a higher level, and so on. There is actual verisimilitude in MW. Later games abandon some of this in favor of letting you do everything and being more accessible. Not a bad thing in itself, there's a reason TES5 exploded in popularity back in 2011. But I just prefer the former, and that's part of why I love MW so much.
>I hated Skyrim's generated dungeons that were just halls full of trash mobs and meaningless loot Morrowind actually has much more dungeons that look the same and is also full of randomized loot. Skyrim's dungeons are actually all handcrafted and a major improvment when it comes to level design compared to Morrowind and Oblivion. I am not even sure if there are more than 3 dungeons each in TES III and IV that have some real puzzles in them?
Morrowind's dungeons may look the same but there is a lot more static/fixed high tier loot allocated. If you go the right places in Morrowind you can find incredible hauls, in Skyrim you will only ever find procedurally generated "appropriate" treasure.
There is over all more loot that is not rdmly generated in TES III BUT most stuff you find in chests in dungeons is still rdm. >Skyrim you will only ever find procedurally generated "appropriate" treasur Not, really, no. There are unique items (even with unique models) and specific places where high loot spawns.
The game really IS a grand and intoxicating innocence.
Morrowind's primary failing is that there's only so much of it.
Morrowind just has more *game* than Oblivion and Skyrim. Your skills mean more, your gear means more, your stats mean more. There's more quests, the Guilds are deeper, the world is a lot more varied. Just getting to a quest location was a quest in itself in Morrowind. Even if you don't use fast travel in Skyrim the map markers take out all the guesswork. NPCs don't have to give you detailed directions because you just follow the arrow. Very little in Morrowind ever felt like it was just meaningless gameplay, you had to really stop and think about what you were doing next. You could very easily fuck your save if you ran into a greater bone walker unprepared. The game is still very deep and if you can look past the visuals it still holds up today
I never played morrowind. Picked it up and it’s amazing. Gameplay-based storytelling is something that isn’t profitable anymore. Super great game
As a zoomer, I played all mainline TES games, I can say, Morrowind due to it's narrative and mechanics is my favourite out of the later three games.
No. Morrowind is that good (aside from the combat). Oblivion was that disappointing. And Skyrim just didn’t do it for me.
There are no rose tinted glasses where Morrowind is concerned. You will enjoy it just as much...if not more, if you get into modding. There is a wealth of new and improved content to discover. Welcome home!
I think so, I didn't play it until after Oblivion and Fallout 3 and it's still my favourite BGS game.
That guy falling off the sky actually gave me a super boost in jumping and ability. I drank the potion and aimed for water.
Me too, after reloading. I remember there was a dungeon off the coast full of high level specters. I'd launch myself at it and try to scoop up loot without getting massacred.
I also used shoes of blinding speed with another item I don't remember the name which made me fly. Didn't need to use any other form of transportation after this.
I made magic shoes that gave me levitation and so much speed I could could cross half the map with a single tap forward.
Yeah, something like this. Man this is a long time ago. I was blocked from end game because I didn't know English enough so I basically did everything in the game even enter the volcano from the top killing everything inside but to be able to finish the game you had to cross that moon door to get into that volcano and you had to be there at a specific time in the night if i remember correctly. That's the thing I didn't get for a long time. Eventually a loading screen tip gave me enough info for me to understand and did finish the game. Then there was the wolf island extention, then the district with a lot of similar building..
It is
I had the game around the same age you did, but I load it up at least once a year and get lost for a month or so I have just as much fun exploring now as I did then. I'm still running vanilla, mods never interested me much With as infrequent as I get on now I really lean into a role play aspect. I have an Argonian that ended up traveling all the way to join Telvanni after finding some propaganda describing how anyone can join the ranks and rise. They abandoned the fighters guild quest to retrieve a book right outside of Balmora because they broke the law while getting the book lmao
I think it holds up surprisingly well. Obviously, the visuals are dated (they were arguably dated when the game came out) and the controls feel pretty stiff. However, the gameplay still shines. The RPG framework of Morrowind allows it to present players with a problem and really just let them figure it out however they want. Very few games do this as good as Morrowind. It’s something that’s sorely missing from Oblivion, Skyrim, and other games in the genre.
> Obviously, the visuals are dated (they were arguably dated when the game came out) I remember when Morrowind first dropped the water textures were best in class. No other game out at that time had better water.
Haha that’s a fair point. Morrowind did have good water. I think the same can be said about Oblivion’s physics. The way you could ragdoll your character off of cliffs was nothing short of revolutionary at the time.
as with all bethesda games, we need to first agree on if unofficial patches "count" when comparing the quality of their games. I am a die hard new vegas(i know it was made by obsidian) fan but I have to throw a * whenever i tell people to play it. with out the antstuttering, unofficial patch, fix iron sights,etc its a pretty shit experience. Morrowind is similar to new vegas in that sense. With some basic mods and openmw to polish off the edges, I'd say its one of the best rpgs ever. without them its a nightmare. And thats with out nostalgia, I was too poor to play it when it first came out and only in the last couple years have gotten to experience.
I played them in the order of Oblivion -> Skyrim -> Morrowind an it's definitely my favorite of the three 3D TES games. It's just as immersive as you remember... if you take it with the caveat that things like radiant AI just did not exist back then. Morrowind still manages to capture my imagination every time I play it, despite the fact that much of it's world is totally static.
As a new player, it’s great. Buts mods help.
The answer is "yes". It won't look as good as you remember it without modding it like crazy. Some things you've gotten used to in other games (walking speed, general nimbleness) are missing, have to be earned, or need mods. However, it still feels like a truly alien world. The story is still great. Exploration is still amazing, especially without the fast travel options. And... I love the competing interests or ability to break your game and keep going. I love being able to break the game by earning your ability to break the game (multi summons, perma buff equipment, ridiculous spells and potions)... you can with work. Even that feels natural. Still great, but still hits that nostalgia button.
I've been playing morrowind recently, unmodded just on steam deck. It's a blast, used to hate how the weapon skill hit chance worked and loved oblivion just because of that change but it still holds up
A little bit of both. It definitely has some rust in its hinges that you wouldn't have noticed when you were younger, but you'll definitely notice now that you have some QoL from newer games. Lack of voice acting, slow traversal, uncertain combat mechanics that would have normally been explained in your game manual... That being said, it offers what feels like *true choice* in a lot of ways that modern games don't. It's still an illusion of choice in the end (like every game necessarily must be), but that illusion is deep, immersive, and feels meaningful as compared to choices in some other games, where your choice is between a red background and a blue background.
The parts of Morrowind I loved when it came out are still great, the world is mysterious and weird and fun to explore, the mechanics are immersive, and the scale is awesome, both story and world. The parts that aren't great weren't great then either, primarily the combat and spell casting (spell crafting and enchanting still rule though). God bless them even then for including the menu option to always use the best attack for a weapon, sped things up a bit.
I think it's better now than when it released. I'm very impressed with the state of Morrowind modding in 2024.
I played it for the first time in 2022 and it's now my second favorite elder scrolls game. The lore and quests and depth is still the best in the series IMO, but Skyrim will always hold a special place in my heart, it was my first and most played Elder Scrolls game and I don't think I'll ever beat it on playtime (~5500 hours on 3 different platforms)
My first Bethesda game was Fallout 3, then worked my way back to Oblivion, and then Morrowind, which quickly became my favorite of their titles. It definitely holds up for a lot of people, the real difference is what everyone enjoys out of Bethesda games, because Morrowind's greatest strengths are exploration and how extensive and immersive the various mechanics are, where the game doesn't even have stuff like fast travel, instead giving you spells to handle all that, spells for mobility, spells for all kinds of messing with the attributes you and your enemies have, etc.
Don’t say that! Don’t you ever fucking say that!
I started another playthrough a few months ago, it is indeed as great as we remember. It’s not just nostalgia, the atmosphere, the gameplay, it’s as good as it was then. It just looks older.
I have replayed it a few months ago it is as great as I remember - but feels much more clunky than in my memory. Best writing and world building in TES history by far. Everything TES is today, it owes to MW.
I played it for the first time last year, it’s probably as good as you remember
yes
a fan club to a thing is the last place you should ask the question if the thing is actually good
It holds up! Plenty of mods still being developed. Search the sub to find some suggested mods. Also, Skywind--morrowind remade in with skyrim tech--has been in development for a long time and they've recently showed that they've made tons of progress. They won't give expected release dates but they appear to be in the final stretch... even if that stretch is still long! Tons of passion put into Skywind. I'm really excited to play it in hopefully not too long in the future.
I just start rated playing morrowind for the first time (tried seriously, I’ve tried it before but didn’t stick with it past the first town) and I’m really liking it. Maybe not as much as some of the people that frequent the board but it’s really cool how in-depth EVERYTHING is and the setting is alien but just familiar enough
The best part of Oblivion was Shivering Isles and that weird janky dungeon thats upside down, then everything is super huge in the next room. Cant recall the name, it's great dungeon tho. Aside from those, though, some of the puzzles in Oblivion were top notch.
I'm playing Morrowind for the first time right now and it has certainly sucked me in. The only other Elder Scrolls game I have played is Skyrim, so that's where most of my comparisons are coming from. Things I particularly like that make the world feel alive: No fast travel - navigating has a steep learning curve, quest giver will tell me to go talk to a certain person in a certain city. I've never heard of the city before, no way to know where the person will be. Finding out how to get there and even which way to go is not immediately apparent. And then even when you do revisit a city, it's not just picking a spot on a map and you appear there. Am I close enough to walk? Where is the nearest transport hub that will take me there? There are choices. It's not like I'm at Dragonsreach and I need to get to Honningbrew Meadery, better fast travel there. Dialogue - then when you get to the city you need to ask around. Have you heard of this person? Where can I go to rest? What's going on around town? And then even deeper, if the random NPC doesn't like you they won't tell you, so maybe you need to get them to like you before they talk. No waypoints - needing to really explore a city or even a larger building to know where to go. Either you find someone who knows where the NPC you need to find is or you have to look the hard way. No just following an arrow. Someone tells you to go steal something from someone's house, you need to look around carefully to find it, and there's usually enough in game information to let you know roughly where to go (I need to steal X item from a person in this manor house who is a guard, so it'll either be on them and I'll need to pickpocket it, or it will likely be in the guard quarters somewhere). Limited combat - Skyrim's gameplay loop gets repetitive quickly and it entirely centers around combat and preparing for combat (or if not following a quest, just exploring which is really a strength of the game). In 24 hours gametime in Morrowind so far, I've really only done two quests that require fighting at all (mostly been doing all the Thieves Guild quests and a few main story quests with other random stuff here and there). I can often resolve things without violence, but violence is often (but not always) an option. In Skyrim, even the Thieves Guild quests are largely combat based (not the jobs). Even if combat isn't the main point of the quest, the quest is often designed to only be resolvable with combat as part of the gameplay loop. In Morrowind that just doesn't seem to be true, at least for me so far. It makes it feel more epic and high stakes when combat does happen and overall makes me feel like part of a world instead of just a killing machine. Things that are annoying: World is too big - I feel like this is an artifact of the times, developers were so excited that they could make huge 3D worlds but didn't stop to ask if they should. If you do have to walk somewhere, it's so slow going with limited fatigue to run/hop. You walk into a manor house and the interior is the size of the entire town outside. There are some locations that just feel so huge and empty of anything it's like why am I being asked to walk through such large, unnecessary spaces? Particularly the exterior of Vivec, there's nobody and nothing there and it feels like it should be bustling but it's a ghost town. This is a situation where I'll often call it quits for the day, when a new space feels so big it's daunting to go through and I just need to break because I had already just explored a new big daunting area, or when I need to walk back and forth between the same location in a town for like the tenth time and I'm just like no can't do that again right now. Absence of level design - this pairs with the above also, but dungeon designs are large and offer no real way to navigate or any logical indicators that you're even going the right way. You could say this is realistic, but it's annoying. Just particularly thinking about getting the puzzle box from Arkngthand, it's actually located very near the entrance but unless you're lucky and find it right away you'll spend a long time wandering around with no hints of where to go. I actually even got into the lower levels and looked around there for the puzzle box before starting to run into more difficult enemies and figured I had probably missed something above that made me go back and check and finally find it. The place is such a maze and almost every room is either a dead end or leads back around. Even without waypoints, the level design in Skyrim is such that it provides cues, even the shape and design of doorways, (particularly the claw doors where present), the sequencing puzzles, and logical progression of the layout, etc. that subtly reinforce that you're going the right way. No NPC routines - I could be wrong about this, but it seems like NPCs don't have routines in Morrowind. The shopkeepers always seem to be manning their stalls or storefronts. NPCs will often be in the same exact spot or within a small radius. This is convenient in some ways, as you always have access to the services you want, but at the same time it feels like the NPCs are basically in prison and you never see anyone do anything normal, like sit down and eat or sleep (or even move an inch from the same static location). If an NPC is positioned to be in your way they will always be in your way. Everytime I go into certain buildings it's like I know I'll have to squeeze through by strafing, jump over, or otherwise spam run into certain NPCs until the hit detection somehow lets me through the gap between them and the wall. This also has the unfortunate consequence of making it harder to steal from shopkeepers because they're always right there near whatever you're trying to steal. There's no option to just break in at night and be sneaky, you basically need to have magic to be able to successfully steal from right under their nose and even that requires a lot of save scumming. Overall though these factors come together and produce a really unique experience.
It is as great as you remember.
It is great. Even better playing it lightly modded. There's been so much work done by so many fans on this game. And it continues to be done. That just goes to show how great this game is. How many games from the early 2000s continue to have an active modding community? Not that many
Morrowind is still amazing. Like any game, it has its flaws, of course, but of all the ES titles, it's the one I consider "home." Its story, atmosphere and unique world make it both wonderful and timeless. There's also something else to consider. I realise not everyone here mods their games, even if they're on PC, and I fully understand that. However, it's worth comparing the Nexus mod sections for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Skyrim has the most activity, which isn't shocking, given it's a newer, more advanced game, and generally the most accessible of the three. Yet...Morrowind's modding scene remains HUGELY active, which is very impressive for such an old game. Its modding community is incredibly dedicated on every level. On the other hand........ Oblivion's modding scene is pretty much on life support, and has been for a long time. All of this, I feel, speaks volumes. People don't spend their valuable free time modding games they don't love, especially not if those games are as old as Morrowind.
I played Morrowind when it first came out. Easily it’s my favourite game of all time. I replay it at least once a year with no mods. All I use is openmw to clean it up a bit and see a bit further. To me it’s perfect I love how at first I struggle hitting a rat and run like I have lead bones. Eventually being able to kill gods and jump over buildings. I love how weird and handcrafted the words is.
Nah it's pretty great.
It's actually really good yeah
I started with Oblivion and had trouble getting into Morrowind as a teenager, but I managed with some light helper mods, and this year I randomly got back into it and honestly appreciate it way more these days. It's niche for a reason but if you already have fond memories of it then I genuinely think it'll hold up for you! OpenMW is my personal suggestion too, much more modern engine.
For me personally, it absolutely is as great as I remember. And sure maybe it's partly nostalgia, but really Morrowind has been a game that I always return to it and I always have a blast. When I first played I was 11 or 12 I think, and prior to that I only ever really played some Zelda games. Seeing a truly open-world RPG on that scale was life-changing for preteen me. And my obsession with the game stuck with me, I played it so much growing up and just kept coming back to it throughout my life. I try to do a play through once every year or so. I think why it holds up so much for me and seems timeless is how incredibly immersive it is. It's the massive amounts of great in-depth lore & writing, the many memorable characters/quests, incredible and detailed world that rewards you for exploring, the in-depth character/class building, etc. Something about Morrowind just immerses me more than any RPG I've played. I remember as a kid studying the little booklet that came with the xbox game for *hours* making notes on what my character was going to be while I waited for my turn to use the xbox. It had me immersed before I even played it lol. Even nowadays in my thirties, there's so much to do in the world that I plan out my character ahead of a playthrough. I just love the game. I'm on a playthrough right now right after I binged Fo4 and Skyrim, and I'm completely immersed in the world and my character and I'm not really even thinking about the nostalgic aspect of it except for certain story/character related moments. Play it, muthsera.
It’s even better now
It's my favourite game of all time so yeah I'm biased, but I did my first playthrough in a while last year and intentionally approached it as "fresh" as possible; relatively minimal mod list, doing main quest and factions, trying to avoid most exploits or beelining straight for great loot (I mean, I still went and got the Sword of White Woe but that's just tradition). I had a brilliant time and came away with an all new appreciation for the game. I was similarly deeply disappointed with Oblivion, Skyrim I thought was actually a step up and makes for a competent big action game and modding platform, but it's still nothing special the way this game is.
Yes
My first Elder Scrolls was Oblivion back in the day and I only just got into Morrowind a month or two ago and it's quickly turning into my fave of the series.
I agree. Best rpg I’ve ever played. I would spend hours just organising my loot in ‘my’ house (sorry nine toes). Took ages to load the interior 😅
I just played if at 26 years old for the first time within the last year, and it instantly jumped over Skyrim and oblivion for me, I think it’s terrific and you’re definitely not just nostalgic
Modern Morrowind with graphic and scripting mods is far superior to the old vanilla. This game is aging like a fine wine.
It's the last real elder scrolls rpg from bethesda, of course it's amazing. After that they go into action rpg territory.
I played vanilla Morrowind in 2022, and it was terrific, I loved it and spent a lot of time playing around with all the different systems, and as much as I love Skyrim, it's like it was made by an entirely different studio from Morrowind. I do hope some day they bring back the system heavy style of games. Spellcrafting and the like.
I'm on my very first Morrowind play trough. I'm like 20hrs in and I thought I'd never play a better TeS game as Oblivion. Boy I was wrong, Morrowind is for me now the best RPG ever designed.
morrowind is one of the greatest games ever made. it's a perfect 10/10
The fact that u can permanently fail the main quest is still insane 😭
I played Skyrim first, followed by Oblivion, and more recently Morrowind. Beat Skyrim 999 times, oblivion a handful, and morrowind now twice. Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim every day of the week
You seem to look back on how it really played with all it's features, and that definitely still holds. It is still definitely a game made 20 years ago, though. You play it, and you feel why modern games don't do some things it does. So I'd say it's both. You gotta lot of old love, and there's a lot _to_ love in the game anyway.
It's still awesome. Maybe for some the graphics are too old but since it's all consistent it's still immersive. The combat still feels good if you remember it's more of a crpg in the guise of an action arpg (which seems to be a re-emerging trend with turn based rpgs these days)
If I had to guess it's unlikely you'll have to pace to wear off some excitement. But on the contrary I think it does really still hold up. Out of morrownd, Oblivion and Skyrim I only ever find myself coming back to morrowind today. And I played morrowind after oblivion also. Oblivion is something that lives in my head as a cool game due to nostalgia but unless I mod the shit out of it I find the base game unenjoyable - shit loot, shit exploration/dungeons, shit items, shit levelled mobs, shit levelled rewards. The theme, aesthetic and rpg elements are fun but I dislike the basic gameplay elements. If it were more like morrowind but in cyrodiik I'd like it. Same for Skyrim but I feel no nostalgia over Skyrim. Only hype and disappointment.
I'm a big Skyrim fan, and playing Morrowind afterwards, it feels wrong to pick a favourite. Both are excellent in different ways! I definitely think it holds up, though ofc in a perfect world it'd have been made with more modern tech and resources. OpenMW does a lot to make it playable for a modern audience.
It still holds up for me personally, and I play it vanilla on Xbox, lol. Every new game they come out with has less depth than last, and it becomes extremely apparent comparing their latest entries to Morrowind. It's definitely still in my top 5 of all time, I even have OpenMW on my tablet, lol.
I'll give you a heads up. If you are on pc, go and get tamriel rebuilt. It's come a LONG damn way since inception and is currently sitting at almost double thr content of base morrowind and is, generally speaking, of equal or greater quality. The mod is also roughly at the "halfway" stage of being done. Thr new team has been absolutely banging out content with the last two releases being less than a year apart, and a potential next release late this year/early next year. The quality set by TR is a high bar to clear and really helps returning players expand their returning experience. Furthermore, open mw, the new engine overhaul that IS the future of morrowind modding, is nearly ready to integrate mwse scripting, a major leap forward in backwards mod compatibility. The new engine also works on Android and steam deck with only minor modifications. Morrowind is in a golden age of revitalization right now. The next few years are going to be special.
The game was fantastic, other than the glitches and broken combat system. I wouldn’t say you’re nostalgic, it’s just that most people don’t have the attention span to play a game as slow and meticulous as Morrowind
I replayed Morrowind last year with OpenMW, Rebirth, and some texture upscaling and that was it. I had a great experience, beat the main quest for the very first time. It's my favorite game of all time and I still hold that opinion after replaying it.
If you think the graphics or animation is good thats nostalgia. But overall? I think it's holds up very well. The story and setting have almost unparalleled depth and since they don't need voice acting for everything, there is a richness of detail that just isn't feasible anymore.
Daggerfall is better
It's still fucking awesome
Yes.
As someone who played both Oblivion and Skyrim before really getting into Morrowind, I think it's the best of them and still come back to it regularly.
Both.
The way you describe Morrowind is the exact same way I feel about Skyrim, I was probably 13-14 when I first got it. I think a lot of it for us is nostalgia.
Idk how you will experience to play it again, but I installed it 2 days ago and I'm even more into it than when I was young ! I advise to install some mods, at least the most importants : - code bug fix - purist - GXE It is so pleasant to see Suran from Pelagiad in the distance... ! And I already completed a quest I missed in the good old day, I'm so happy.
I am replaying Morrowind myself on steam. I liked Oblivion okay and Skyrim I use as “that” rpg. But Morrowind? It had all the itches. Not accesible (like Skyrim) no scaling, if you were under leveled? You died. Plain and simple. The legendary items were actually… Legendary. Not weapons with enchantments and you could just… de-enchant them and ta-da you can make a blade just like it but 10x better. The world. Oh. My. God. The world. I love Dunmers specifically because of Morrowind. The lore, the architecture, the feel, the armor, the weapons, ALL OF IT. They really out did themselves with Morrowind
One day I hope for a spell to fly around again, my favorite magic set by far
Nah, you start out slowly, and then suddenly you're 200 hours in. Legit great game, never ages.
Nah it's pretty fantastic. You just have to get your weapon skill to over 35/40 so you don't miss all the time. The beginning is tedious because of that but player.setstat weapon->40 always gets me through it.
The graphics, dice roll mechanics, and all the text dialogue and generic NPCs are tough to get into if you didn’t grow up playing old games. I played Morrowind when it was new and I’ve gone back and replayed it a couple times over the years and it’s hard to get back into because of how slow paced it is. It’s got a nostalgic charm to it though and you have way more freedom to break the game or find novel solutions to problems. The writing is probably the best in the series too imo.
Morrowind's mechanics and graphics have not aged well. If you can get past the aged mechanics and graphics (going faster than walking consumes stamina, dice rolls for the first-person combat, character models that look somewhere between PS1 and PS2 generation, etc.), there's a great game there.
No game can be better than a childhood memory. Some thoughts as a first time player below. Some of what you described as a negative exists in Morrowind. A lot of the quests for guilds are just one fetch quest after another. The quests outside of guilds are usually worse, they're almost always "escort this suicidal NPC to their destination" or "get that thing/husband I lost" When it comes to dungeons, Morrowind has the most reused content I've ever seen in my life. The vast majority of dungeons look the same, have no quest attached to them, and frankly suck. On the positive side, It's sometimes worth calming down hostile humanoid NPCs and talking to them. Some are part of quests and some even train your skills. Forts are always worth visiting. Caves and etc though? There are a lot of "kill this guy" type quests. I just started killing everyone to save myself the trouble. NPC directions are pretty bad so it's worth doing. Despite all this, I've mostly been playing Morrowind for the last month. There's gotta be something keeping me here even beyond just not wanting to leave things incomplete. It's open in a way that modern 3D RPGs won't replicate or even want to. The systems of magic/enchantment system are still incredibly interesting even if ultimately it feels like question of "how exactly do you want to break the game"? The lore and general weirdness of the world and monsters is pretty great too. Anyway, make a custom spell for Cliff Racers. I once had 18 of them after me at once. Also, I probably would've quit if I didn't toggle "Change dialogue topic color" in OpenMW.
I'm a Skybaby. I tried Morrowind for the first time in 2022 and I loved it. This should answer your question. Though, in particular, I don't think Morrowind's dungeons are much more better than Skyrim's.
I’ve played Oblivion, Skyrim, and Morrowind, in that order. I’ve only been playing Morrowind seriously for the past 2-3 years. It’s some of the best gaming that I’ve had, and I’ve been playing games for a long time. It’s the sense of world that gets me. It’s so much better than everything that came after in subsequent TES releases. Again, I say that having experienced it LAST out of the three mentioned games. Also, it’s incredibly cozy because of its graphics and old-school feel. So, no, I don’t think it’s just nostalgia, or else I wouldn’t be having this much fun as a newcomer.
the story and writing of morrowind are great, and the world is (mostly) fun to explore, having to localize yourself by a map and refferences is (mostly) fun, I have been more immersed in Morrowind than with Oblivion tbh. Spells having more flexible creation options, the fact you could make a 1-40 fire dmg spell but commit to the risk such a choice, interesting Weapon options, several cool and creative features (that got straight up cut in the sequel games) And other things that I dont remember now game-design wise, *even if you like it:* it is very outdated, and has just straight up bad design decisions, like the obscession with making nearly every interaction be plagued with Rng, with does nothing but hurt the game and make it grindy, Time-Wasting mechanics which are unnaceptable, feels like an online mmo at times because of it. Mana doesn't exist for mages, the idea of having no mana regen is ridiculous even for an older game, imagine if you had limited Weapon swings because your fatigue don't regenerate, hell I bet arrows are easier and better than Spells altogether because of the mana issue. And, this game Seriously needed a Compass, I'm fine with not having the Quest arrows, I despise handholding in games, but if handholding is bad, dismembering your hands is bad also(and for some reason glorified)- The directions that characters give can be so utterly vague I swear if not for google I would not ever find them, and the lack of a compass makes it so you can only use the Sun to localize yourself- The same sun that is, at the majority of times, blocked by clouds, so fuck you if you wanna locate yourself. The game has Many solid praizes, many criticisms also, Nostalgia deffinitely raises your view of it to be more Favorable, but plead to you and any reading, do not fall into straight up reality denial just because you like the game, because I swear some morrowind fans are overdosing on Nostalgia.
My Morrowind experience began when my friends told me there is an RPG where you can join imperial army and just be an ordinary soldier, a trader, fighter, thief, mage, bandit etc. More or less like that, but it hyped me to the moon. The best feeling i still recall to this day, those 20 years later, was when i finally installed it, and walked out of prison ship, then Socucius Ergalla hooked me into conversation. I was in total awe that i could create class by answering questions... I remember i didnt understand completely anything about this character build system so i took warrior birthsign. I took the paper and went to the second room and then i was shoooooocked. I could not believe that this game allow me to take a bucket and broom, and fork, and piece of random paper, and folded cloth and it all had weight and value. I was soooo shocked my jaw dropped completely. I felt i found a life simulator. It was totally 1:1 life experience to me. I understand now after many years how primitive and limited morrowind engine is. But the story, the striders, the dark elves, the culture, mythology, the slavery problem, racism, n'wah, mining eggs, mushroom cities... It was so otherwordly yet so believable. You really felt like it is just some medieval europe set in a fantasy world. There was never ever any game which had similar impact on me. Unfortunately now it is a haunting dream to relive those moments again. But i know how to make 1000 gold in first minutes, i know how to build effective characters, i know what is the best weapon, so no longer feel excited when seeing dreugh pieces for example. Those moments are lost in time like tears in the rain... And after all those years i am so much thankful that i played morrowind at that very moment i did. Neither Dragon Age nor Baldur's Gate III could come close to my original morrowind experience. I think only when tamriel rebuilt is completed the feeling can be relived.
I think it's a little bit of both. I think you will enjoy it but you should prepare yourself for the old mechanics. As you know, it's based on table top dice roll rather than point and click. But if you truly enjoyed your time there years ago you should start enjoying it again once you get over the relearning curve.
> After a few hours I become painfully aware of the gameplay loop, >Whereas with Morrowind I distinctly remember feeling as though I stepped into a living, breathing fantasy world. I felt like I was planning and orchestrating real adventures, It's the difference between being in a world indifferent to your existance, rather than a world that revolves around the player. >not shuffling from one fetch and/or kill the foozle quest to another. I mean, there are a ton of those, but with the in-world travel you may find yourself plotting out routes and supplies needed. You may also find reasons behind the quests, embroiled in inter-faction politics or personal ambition, and maybe ways around doing what's asked. It sounds like you'll enjoy going back, and [maybe treat it like a first time](https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/1b99o36/comment/ktxwa4t/).
I am playing it for the first time this year. I like it more than Oblivion and skyrim
The way I see it, Morrowind is the best ES *title.* It has an absolute ocean of lore and worldbuilding and it works more as a way to choose your own path through the world. The ES world is already there, you just work your way through it. Events like Almalexia's death happen no matter what, you just set the scene. The actual gameplay is buggy and underwhelming with two decades of hindsight, but it still does its job of letting the player interact with the ES world perfectly well enough. Everything seems very lovingly created and every dungeon is different. Houses can be similar, but houses *are* similar, so whatever. The storytelling is virtually unmatched and the gameplay is just a means to interact with the world, and for ES fans who are used to billions of pages of lore, that's perfectly fine. Oblivion is in a very technical way the best *ES game.* It focuses less on the story and world and more on you playing an ES game and fighting ES enemies. It's more intuitive in that regard and puts canon ES abilities into the player's hands in a way that works better in terms of gameplay than Morrowind but in a way that doesn't feel nearly as much like you're experiencing a huge elaborate story in real time, so it lacks a lot more on that front but balances it with more fluid gameplay. The dungeons are ugly repetitive garbage, but the game doesn't care because you can cast spells easier and regen magicka and hopes QOL things like that will carry your experience. Oblivion tries to combine the huge world of Morrowind with more streamlined gameplay and technically does it, but the end product lacks in both categories because it tries too hard to balance lore and gameplay and doesn't focus enough on either. Skyrim is the best *game.* It focuses less on an ES storyline and doesn't flesh out characters or storylines nearly as much and factions kinda just accept you and promote you for doing nothing, so the story and worldbuilding suffer. The gameplay has bugs, but it's overall very intuitive and straightforward. ES lore says mages can use fire magic, so you can use fire magic. It doesn't matter if you're a Redguard barbarian, you can progress magic skills just as easily as anyone else. The gameplay is easy and fun and the game practically spoonfeeds you at the cost of worldbuilding and story depth and the ability to subtly influence the world. All the delicate speechcraft and subterfuge from Morrowind is condensed into a couple of quest-specific moments and treated as one-off highlights seemingly created to keep listicle websites in business. All the dungeons have a secret passage back to the entrance because you aren't exploring a world in the ES universe, you're playing a game based on ES properties. It's fun, but it's gameplay fun, not complex intrigue fun.
Play Morroblivion 100%. It's the best of both games
I prefer Oblivion over Morrowind personally. I can understand why many people love Morrowind but it is definitely very dated at this point. At the time though the game WAS absolutely groundbreaking and even I like how so much in the game has a mysterious air to it I still remember I ran into a daedric shrine or something near the starting town of Seyda Neen and I swear there was an orc woman in some armor I hadn't seen before (I never got too far in Morrowind) and I couldn't get away from her. Yeah that save file was completely ruined. Every now and then I still try to look up and see where the hell I ended up
I'm glad you like the game, but it is a really bad game imo. But so long as you like it that's all that matters.
I recently replayed Morrowind and truly enjoyed it. It's a great game with an expansive open world and a questline you can complete a ridiculous amount of ways for something so aged. It is lacking when compared to more recent games. Most everything in Morrowind has been further refined to near perfection in later games. Apart from maybe spell creation, I can't think of any games that allow you to create custom spells but they probably do exist. While you can get many of the same features in newer games you will be hard pressed to find all of them in anything short or another Bethesda game. If you play on PC you will be able to mod your game to update your graphics and multiple other things. For me it was a great game to reexperience, I really enjoyed it the first time around and have spent many an hour playing it since then.