Poll: Morrowind: Should I get it?

[Lord Quirk]

To clarify, the only elder scrolls/Bethesda stuff I've played is Skyrim, Fallouts 3 and New Vegas, a couple of hours into Fallout 2 and about ten minutes of morrowind on a friend's PC. Seeing it half price on Steam, would you guys say that it holds up well nowadays? Because from what I've played, I couldn't hit anything, not even a worm, so does it get better, or am I best off sticking with the modern Elder Scrolls games?

In short, is it still playable and fun given the competition of newer ES games?

 

[veloper]

Morrowind mostly has it's original setting and history going for it.

Crafting spells and enchanting equipment was also interesting in this game because there are many neat variables to play with. Downside is you can completely destroy the challenge with a little crafting ingenuity or by abusing alchemy.

Everything else, not so much.

 

[Bad Jim]

You will find yourself hitting stuff more frequently as you level up your weapon skills, but you will always be missing some times.

Since there is no fast travel, I should perhaps help you get around.

1) Guild guides
The Mages Guild have a person in each branch who can teleport you to any other branch of the mages guild for a small fee. So join the Mages Guild.

2) Boots of Blinding Speed
This is a quest reward obtained from Pemenie, who can be found on the west road out of Caldera. It's quite an easy quest even at low levels. The boots make you run very fast, but also blind you (haha). There are ways to wear the boots and still see, but you can just bind them and a normal pair of boots to hotkeys so can run blind and periodically switch to normal boots to see where you are going.

3) Amulet of Recall
Verick Gemain in Caldera sells this amulet for a pittance. You will need to cast Mark somewhere in order to use it, but you only need to do it once, so a scroll will do for that. Once you have done this, you can use Recall to teleport to where you cast Mark.

4) Custom levitate amulet
Make a ring with a 0 speed, 12 second levitate. This is incredibly handy, and pretty cheap. You can take so many shortcuts when you can fly.

5) The Shrine to Stop the Moon / Shrine of Daring
At the temple in Vivec there is a shrine where you can donate a Rising Force potion and you will be able to fly at great speed for 24 minutes real time. Potions you make yourself won't work, but any other Rising Force Potions will. There is even a someone nearby who sells the potions you need cheap.

 

[Savagezion]

Skyrim is the best of Bethesda's library, if you ask me, and I would still say Morrowind is worth a purchase. That is, if you are interested in a game seriously not holding your hand. The NPCs in that game are probably the worst Bethesda has to offer. There is a mod that makes you properly swing whatever weapon you equip so that you aren't slashing with a spear instead of stabbing that I highly recommend to help the combat. Unfortunately I don't remember the name but will see if I can dig it up if you want me to. These are heavy downsides that go in tandem with that crazy micromanaging old school leveling system. If action is what you are looking for, this game is probably going to disappoint.

Now if adventure is what you are after, this game will shimmer (perhaps not shine) decently enough to get your money's worth. You will have to actually explore and learn Morrowind. Not the game, but the game world. The combat being as cruel as it is has made me use my environment plenty by pulling enemies to places where I would hold an advantage. You will have to learn and pay attention so that you can find your way around as there is no quest arrows as well. You are seriously dropped in an alien world and are forced to explore it for survival and there are very real threats out there. You can't just walk in any old cave and be ok. You can walk into any cave, but you have to learn your character's limitations - especially, early on.

There are small gems I love about it beyond this but at that point I am guessing mileage varies. Overall, Morrowind is valuable as an adventure that can be frustrating. There is zero hand holding and you are on your own to make the best of it. However, most of that frustration came in through the action and NPCs for me. But the adventure was worth the time investment.

 

[Foolery]

I'll be blunt. Only if you mod the hell out of it. Otherwise, no. The vanilla game was a dull hiking simulator with fetch quests in 2002 and it's still dull now. Get the overhaul mod, and it's a good experience.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

As mentioned by everyone else, it's worth a purchase if you mod the crap out of it. The game was chock-full of annoyances that were thankfully eliminated shortly after its inception. The worst one for me was the storage container weight limit. In an RPG such as Morrowind, those limitations are horrible!

Get a home display mod if you want a place to showcase your loot. The mannequins that have been a housing staple in Oblivion and Skyrim were originally modder-created during Morrowind's heyday. Though they were always problematic, they were so popular that Bethesda included them in the later ES games.

One more mod that you'll find absolutely essential: cliffracer reducer/eliminator.

 

[SajuukKhar]

-Actual faction requirements with consequences. No joining every faction.
-Actual exploration with actual meaning. Stuff is actually hidden, not handed to you like in new ones. For instance, you had to work for daedric and ebony armor.
-Huge level of detail and place. Beats all other TES.
-You can set a house anywhere.

All of these are false
-Its entirely possibly to join every faction, including all three great houses, since the game is horribly bugged, and the TG gives you an easy out of having to fight the fighters guild. Beyond that you can become the leader of both contradictory religious groups.

-Daedric and Ebony armor are only had to get because they, like most things in Morrowind, were artificially rare, and didn't have as many pieces of them as logic and lore would suggest. I guess you could call that better game design, if artificial difficulty is your thing.

-Morrowind quite provably has the least amount details in its world/dungeons, even less so then Oblivion.

-You can't put a house anywhere, in fact there are only 3 pre-set house locations.

I mean, I love Morrowind also, still the second best TES game, but theres no reason to make stuff up about it.

In short, is it still playable and fun given the competition of newer ES games?

Its fun, but like most Bethesda games, playing the newer games first often tends to ruin your enjoyment of it because the newer games end up fixing so many problems the past games had that playing the past games without the modern conveniences.

Some things to prepare for
-Walking slower then a snail even at high speed stats just so Beth could make the world seem artificially larger then it actually is.
-Missing attacks in a first person Action game despite that not making any sense perspective wise.
-Most good items are made artificially rarer then they are in lore to keep the player artificially weaker then they should be.
-Cliff racers WILL bug the crap out of you
-The Journal is a god awful mess, even with the expansions update to it.
-Most NPCs do nothing but stand in one spot and spout the exact same 50 copy-pasted word for word dialog responded every other NPC uses, so talking to anyone you aren't explicitly told to is utterly pointless.
-Most guilds lack any sort of over arching plot and are nothing but 30 or so fetch/kill quests that dont connect to each other in anyway.
-The ashlands, a giant area of nothing but dirt and dead trees, makes up 50% of the map, if not more, so prepare to spend long amounts of time looking at literally nothing but dirt.
-NPC directions are vauge as hell, and oftentimes outright wrong, so have a detailed map of Morrowind opened up in a web browser just in case.

 

[Funyahns]

Morrowind is tougher to play now it didn't age that well. At the time I played it though it was one of my favorite games ever. The spell building and enchanting were amazing and it was fun trying to destroy the world.

 

[Saetha]

Some things to prepare for
-Walking slower then a snail even at high speed stats just so Beth could make the world seem artificially larger then it actually is.

Isn't there a bug you can exploit with the Boots of Blinding Speed that basically eliminates this issue? Though you have to find the boots first, and I can't remember what the bug was...

To OP: I still like Morrowind, though that might just be the nostalgia goggles. It does really shows it's age, with outdated graphics, dull color scheme, weird combat, and a quest journal that makes it almost impossible to do a quest if you wait on it for too long. But it also has a wonderfully unique setting, with a lot of places to see and explore. And it's more Elder Scrolls, so...

On the other hand, there's a mod people are working on called Skywind, that aims to recreate Morrowind using Skyrim's graphics and engine. I'm not sure how far along they are, and you have to own copies of both games as well as the DLC, but you might want to wait until that's out.

 

[Neonit]

No.

Dont get me wrong, its my favorite TES game. It was also my first. And let me tell you one thing, as much as i love it, I couldnt go back to playing it. It didnt age well.

The atmosphere is awesome, mostly because its alien, but gameplay is old, and difficult to get into.

Unless you are prepared to mod the hell out of it. And only if you are ready for bugs - mostly crashes and clipping issues.

In short - it was awesome in its time. Id say better that skyrim, and sure as hell better than oblivion. But its old now.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Some things to prepare for
-Walking slower then a snail even at high speed stats just so Beth could make the world seem artificially larger then it actually is.

Isn't there a bug you can exploit with the Boots of Blinding Speed that basically eliminates this issue? Though you have to find the boots first, and I can't remember what the bug was....

The bug is with the way magicka resistance works in Morrowind. If you have 100% resistance to magicka at the time you equip the BoBS, you still get the speed boost but you don't get blinded for your trouble, even if the resistance wears off while the boots are still equipped. It needs to be done every time you re-equip them, though, otherwise you get blinded.

 

[Quadocky]

You should get it, but if you are spoiled on the mechanics of modern games do be warned that the only thing good about this game is the UI and world design. Everything else gameplay wise can be incredibly tedious compared to modern games. (Back then it was alright because the sheer existence of such a damn big game was a novelty in itself so it was easily tolerated.)

In fact that brings an interesting thought in my mind... back then I would tolerate bugs and crashes because the game was just so... "WOW THIS IS AMAZING HOLY CRAP!"

 

[Souplex]

My understanding is that Morrowind is a good RPG, but a terrible action-RPG that has not aged well in any respect.
Keep that in mind and play at your own peril.

 

[Ieyke]

I can't personally stand Morrowind's graphics and animation. But I can't stand the animations in ANY of the Elder Scrolls/modern Fallout games.

I'd personally recommend waiting for Skywind, the Morrowind remake in Skyrim.

But...*shrug*

 

[xacto14]

I'd personally recommend waiting for Skywind, the Morrowind remake in Skyrim.

Thats what I'm doing.

Morrowind and oblivion are both great in there own ways but are so much better today with overhaul mods. I would look into graphic and game play overhauls.

 

[Bad Jim]

Some things to prepare for
-Walking slower then a snail even at high speed stats just so Beth could make the world seem artificially larger then it actually is.

Isn't there a bug you can exploit with the Boots of Blinding Speed that basically eliminates this issue? Though you have to find the boots first, and I can't remember what the bug was....

The bug is with the way magicka resistance works in Morrowind. If you have 100% resistance to magicka at the time you equip the BoBS, you still get the speed boost but you don't get blinded for your trouble, even if the resistance wears off while the boots are still equipped. It needs to be done every time you re-equip them, though, otherwise you get blinded.

Or you could just put the BoBS on hotkey, plus a pair of ordinary boots on another hotkey. Then you run blind but switch footwear every few steps to get your bearings. It's not quite as good, but is nearly so and doesn't require magicka resistance.

 

[Moonmover]

Just buy The Elder Scrolls Anthology. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Elder-Scrolls-Anthology-Pc/dp/B00E9I1FPI] That way, if Morrowind turns out to be too uncomfortably old-school for you, you now have the much-more-accessible Oblivion to play. Plus, it has all the Skyrim DLC if you don't already have those.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Some things to prepare for
-Walking slower then a snail even at high speed stats just so Beth could make the world seem artificially larger then it actually is.

Isn't there a bug you can exploit with the Boots of Blinding Speed that basically eliminates this issue? Though you have to find the boots first, and I can't remember what the bug was....

The bug is with the way magicka resistance works in Morrowind. If you have 100% resistance to magicka at the time you equip the BoBS, you still get the speed boost but you don't get blinded for your trouble, even if the resistance wears off while the boots are still equipped. It needs to be done every time you re-equip them, though, otherwise you get blinded.

Or you could just put the BoBS on hotkey, plus a pair of ordinary boots on another hotkey. Then you run blind but switch footwear every few steps to get your bearings. It's not quite as good, but is nearly so and doesn't require magicka resistance.

That seems needlessly complicated. Really, all you need is a custom made spell of 100 points of magicka resistance that lasts for 3 seconds and targets the player. Remember that the blindness only procs when you equip the boots, it doesn't keep checking for resistance after you have them equipped.

 

[OpticalJunction]

if you like RPGs and have a few bucks to spare (and a lot of time), then yes.