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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
After 4 weeks of playing Morrowind ( ~ 380-420 hours) i have finally finished the game. That means i can't find more open quests at the moment, but i am sure there ARE more to find (-> in Daggerfall i found new things after years of playing).
pros:
huge game world to explore
many items, weapons,armor, books
many quests, sidequests
many factions to join
good graphics
solid story
some funny dialoges
cool Alchemy and Enchanting System
you can play many different roles
many unique items
cons:
the economic system collapses, when you find and sell your first Daedric/Glass item
the combat is too easy (the difficulty setting doesn't help) - the opponents are simply not intelligent enough to use their skills and items. For example: No one levitates or teleports away in a battle.
ca. 30% of the quests are of the type: go there, get the item, bring it back, this is rpg-stoneage and boring.
ca. 95% of the so called dungeons are actually little caves, that are very easy to explore. It seems that Bethesda has gone from one extreme (Daggerfall-very huge dungeons) to another.
There are very few secret levers, secret doors, puzzles in the game. (maybe i missed them ?)
the quest plots could be a little more tricky and twisted (Do you remember Fallout or Planescape Torment ?).
Like: you're are a thief ? - then you cannot join the fighters guild until you kill your local master.
the journeybook sucks -> make your own notes
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Overall Morrowind is an epic game, easy to play and i can recommend it for rpg-newbies. It is an excellent platform for roleplaying, exploring and adventuring. The quests could be a little more complicated for my taste.
8.5 / 10 points
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Sat Jun 29, 2002 3:17 am |
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LORD_LSD
City Guard
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 138
Location: Anywhere but there |
I'd have to say 2 things to that:
1) You're absolutely right
2) I miss Daggerfall, as XP can't handle it.
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- Of all the worlds there must be - why was i born on this one? -
- Idiocy. A rare encounter or a way of life? - |
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Sun Jun 30, 2002 1:09 am |
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CharlieGuest
Guest
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| I want *less* choice, damnit! |
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> many items, weapons,armor, books
I have to say I'd prefer to see a little bit more variation in weapons and armour. I bought a Silver Longsword when I reached Balmora, and upgraded it to an *enchanted* Silver Longsword soon afterwards. I'm currently level 13-ish and I'm still using the same sword; near as I can tell I'll not find better in my weapon configuration until I start playing with Ebony or Daedric.
The armour has been more varied; occasionally I'll find an upgrade (Silver Boots here, Imperial Right Gauntlet there) but again it looks like I have to wait until Ebony or Daedric before I find better. My current Helm and Shield (Dreugh) I didn't get hold of for a while, but I'd been keeping an eye on them ever since I arrived in Balmora. I haven't had any changes to my weapons or armour for 4 or 5 levels, although my next purchase is an Ebony bracer I've noticed in a shop at an undisclosed location...
That said, the variety of books is fantastic! Well done Bethesda, you got that part absolutely spot on. I can't imagine the time I've spent losing myself in the history of Tamriel or reading accounts of courageous deeds of warriors long dead...
And I *totally* agree with all your other good points - 100%.
> [economic system collapse]
Dealing with economy in a game like this is tricky. You can see they've tried to balance high value items with high cost of living in many ways (a master lockpick costing so much more for just a little increase in performance, or the value of better quality potions being way out of scale with the potion's improved effects) but it just doesn't really work. Once a player gets powerful enough they use magical items or spells in place of consumables like potions and lockpicks and enchant items themselves - what is there to soak up the player's money? Impose a higher band of income tax maybe?  Answers on a postcard.
> [easy combat]
Yeah, the AI could do with a little variation. We've surpassed run-at-the-player-and-hit-them-'til-one-of-us-is-dead-type AI in many games. It'd be nice if just once a creature went to get reinforcements, or used a jinkblade and followed it up with a BIG weapon to maximize the damage dealt, or stopped firing arrows once it realised you just stay 20 feet away, sidestepping them when it shoots...
> [dungeons are little caves]
I figured the main reason for this is the changed map system. It's no longer feasible to have a multi-levelled dungeon with overlapping sections because the map would be next to useless. Should work with a nice big sprawler though... I expect the community will fix this, in time.
Overall, I guess my main problem with the game is the variety of material/weapon types. I hate to compare Morrowind to Daggerfall, but you always seemed just of the verge of getting a new pauldron, or a new pair of boots or a new design of long blade or something. In Morrowind you seem to get everything at the start and never have to worry - you're spoilt for choice.
Anyone ever used Iron armour? Not when you can get a full set of Steel in the first ten minutes of play. Anyone used Netch Leather or Nordic Fur? Nope, because you can buy a full suit of Chitin in Seyda Neen. Why bother having these armour types if noone would ever need them? I think I'd prefer it if I had to make do with iron arrows for a while or use leather even though my skill in it is terrible, just to make me more grateful when I finally find that elusive matching gauntlet, or a weapon I don't have much skill in but will use anyway because it's *Silver* and I'm having an Ancestral Ghost problem.
Overall though, so far it's at least a 9.5/10 from me!  |
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Sun Jun 30, 2002 3:01 am |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
CharlieGuest:
i used some *bad* armour for balancing the game for a while, but this worked only for a couple of levels.
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Sun Jun 30, 2002 9:40 am |
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CharlieGuest
Guest
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Good point - we always have the option of imposing "better" rules on our game ourselves (for varying definitions of "better"). Don't like the Creeper? Don't use him. Don't approve of mages in plate metal? Don't wear it.
However, it would require a steady resolve and a little fanaticism to do it properly - better to have this kind of thing imposed on you I think. ("Ach, I've managed to beat that dungeon, I *deserve* that steel cuirass... and the greaves... and the master's calcinator... and that Ebony katana wouldn't hurt the game too much either..."  )
I wonder if it's worth making a "pure RPG" plugin for Morrowind that takes away some of the arcade aspects and make it a little more RPG-like (again, for varying definitions of "RPG-like"!). |
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Sun Jun 30, 2002 12:54 pm |
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FlipMoeJack
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 23 Jun 2002
Posts: 176
Location: New York |
One Pro that was left out was the fact that the game is totally editable, as much as I can tell.
Us gamers can change this game to whatever we want (reminds me of Jedi Knight). The community (if it desires to) can change almost everything in the game, besides the bugs, and create a new game.
I'm not sure, but can we edit the combat to make it more complicated. I'm guessing it would take a great deal of programming expertise.
I'm not sure if I'd like the idea of a PURE RPG, but I'd like to enforce certain things in the game to make it far more difficult, not just monster difficulty, but like you two expressed..make it more economically difficult.
I'd also like to help in the creation of more realistic NPCs just like daggerfall or atleast Gothic.
My best friend, Dragonphinn is a really good programmer. He is currently making his own RPG based of our co-authored story.
Atleast we know, that we can still improve upon the game..
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(-[ApoK Forever]-) |
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Sun Jun 30, 2002 5:13 pm |
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CharlieGuest
Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by FlipMoeJack
One Pro that was left out was the fact that the game is totally editable, as much as I can tell.
Oh absolutely! TESCS is the best editor I've seen for *any* game, bar none. It's *dead* easy for anyone to make changes to the game and distribute their modifications to other people. Thanks for mentioning that, it's probably going to guarantee the replayability of Morrowind for many years to come.
quote:
Originally posted by FlipMoeJack
The community (if it desires to) can change almost everything in the game, besides the bugs, and create a new game.
[...]
I'm not sure, but can we edit the combat to make it more complicated. I'm guessing it would take a great deal of programming expertise.
Actually, one of the things I was very impressed with is that when showstoppers in the quest logic were discovered, the community was able to come up with workarounds within days. If this had been Daggerfall, people would have had to post the bug somewhere and wait for the patch. As it is, people can keep going with the game and when Bethesda get a patch out to fix the problems they just patch their game and disable the plugin. Marvellous. The players don't have to wait for the patch, and Bethesda shouldn't feel under as much pressure to get the next patch out. Win-win.
Bugs in the rendering or AI though, we can't fix. Not until we start playing with the editor that'll come with TES4... Mostly a joke, although come to think of it, changing the AI is feasibly possible to make it into the next one.
Changing the combat is out of our league at the moment - that'll be hardcoded in the game engine.
quote:
Originally posted by FlipMoeJack
I'm not sure if I'd like the idea of a PURE RPG, but I'd like to enforce certain things in the game to make it far more difficult, not just monster difficulty, but like you two expressed..make it more economically difficult.
I'd also like to help in the creation of more realistic NPCs just like daggerfall or atleast Gothic.
Yeah, it's a bad name. What I was more thinking of is somehow getting requests from the community to develop a set of plugins to make the game better received by those who would prefer a harder challenge, or want to enforce a more "believable" world. I'd expect plugins to fix things like the following:
Don't leave expensive items lying around in the world, or at least leave someone guarding them. I got my Master's alchemy kit from a certain Mage's Guild. I just wandered up a flight of stairs, found it on a table, and took it. Around 5-7K worth of equipment that I didn't have to work for, didn't need to sneak or carefully time a raid and didn't have to overcome anything to get. I'm pleased I got it, but I think I'd prefer if I'd had to take risks or even just think in order to get it.
Day/night cycle for NPCs. Shops should close, traders should go to bed, the streets should be pretty deserted. Bands of wandering orcs might even skulk into town in the dead of night, looking for trouble. (No offence to the orc players out there!)
Activity cycles for NPCs. You can script NPCs to do things on an hourly basis. You could have guards changing at a certain time, people obviously on errands (not just wandering or standing still), guards patrolling the perimeter of the town, people getting together in groups (presumably for a chat or something).
Shop items - you shouldn't get everything you want whenever you want. I saw that Chitin cuirass yesterday, but today it appears to have been sold. Ah, nevermind. Hey, there's that steel longsword I wanted - better go make some money, it might not be there in a few days.
Magic items should be *rare*! You should feel grateful for finding one in a dungeon, and impressed when a vendor has one in stock. Having them so readily available takes all the mystery out of them, and devalues them as an object of wonder.
What do these bandits *do* with all that stock anyway? I went through one cave system killing about 6-8 NPCs one by one (healing up in between each combat). When I finally Recalled out of there it was with 975 weight units of items, including Dwemer weaponry, magical rings and amulets, entire suits of armour, magical scrolls and potions etc. Why did a bandit face me toe to toe in Netch Leather when there was a suit of Chitin in the box behind him? When the first few NPCs fall, shouldn't *someone* use that Summon Flame Atronarch scroll that's sitting on the floor in the corner?
Ah well, a long post, but I hope someone gets some value out of it! |
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Mon Jul 01, 2002 2:16 pm |
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sauron38
Rara Avis
Joined: 14 Jan 2002
Posts: 4396
Location: Winnipeg's Sanctum Sanctorum |
Why don't you register so that uh... you can still post after tomorrow?
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Make good choices. |
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Mon Jul 01, 2002 3:44 pm |
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soltys
Magister of the Light
Joined: 12 Jan 2002
Posts: 386
Location: Poland, Warsaw |
One little wish:
more user friendly alchemy (ingredients selection screen to be precise) - like 2d table, left side with ingredients you have, top side with desired effects (that you are aware of), and small markers in the middle to know what can be done. This would be much nicer and faster than scrolling left and right and hovering above different ingredients.
Is it possible to do it with editor ?
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--=Member of The Sport Fans' Club=-- |
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Mon Jul 01, 2002 3:52 pm |
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Mattias Kreku
Magister of the Light
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 387
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When I first started Morrowind I didn't care about the towns, I just went straight out into the wilderness to explore (since the wilderness in Daggerfall had been so poorly executed I immediately wanted to find out if Morrowind had improved upon it) and 30 minutes after I entered the game I found my first glass longsword (actually a Frostsword, it was even magic, worth 17000 gold). I think I had reached level 4-5 by then just by fighting off small slaughterfishies. From then on the game was a piece of cake. Everything fell for my sword in 3-5 swipes. I never even though about wearing iron/steel/imperial armour. It took me an hour to get my first indoril/ebony pieces (forgot exactly WHICH pieces) but I know I am still using the ebony leggings I found around level 10. This is one of the (many) huge mistakes Bethesda did. Because of the fact that the dungeons aren't random (static to 99%) they HAD to put in pieces of really good equipment. But that also meant that if you were lucky you'd find them within an hour of playing. Daggerfall was hard-coded to NOT load any good equipment before you had reached a certain level, so it was almost impossible to get orcish/ebony/daedric armour before level 20 or so. I just wish they had done something similar in Morrowind too. Maybe just put a level restriction ("Sorry, you have to be at least 70% in heavy armour before you can use daedric equipment.") on certain overpowered items..?
Some of you write "If you want a challenge then just don't use the best eq" but one of the major reasons I play RPGs is the challenge of making my character as good as he can be.. If I have to choose not to use the best equipment I find, then the drive to get better and better equipment disappears along with 50% of what I like in a game. |
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Mon Jul 01, 2002 3:56 pm |
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England |
quote:
Originally posted by sauron38
Why don't you register so that uh... you can still post after tomorrow?
Alacazam! 
quote:
Originally posted by soltys
more user friendly alchemy (ingredients selection screen to be precise) - like 2d table, left side with ingredients you have, top side with desired effects (that you are aware of), and small markers in the middle to know what can be done. This would be much nicer and faster than scrolling left and right and hovering above different ingredients.
Is it possible to do it with editor ?
Regrettably not (it *is* rather annoying, isn't it?). What we have the ability to change is the content, not the process. We can change the world, add new creatures and locations, change the factions and how they interact, add new NPCs and quests etc, but we can't change things like the menu system, the inventory interface, creature combat AI and things like that. Also, we can't change the level up messages as they're stored in the Morrowind.ini file... answers on a postcard about that one!
quote:
Originally posted by Mattias Kreku
Because of the fact that the dungeons aren't random (static to 99%) they HAD to put in pieces of really good equipment.
Actually, we can change that!  There's the concept of a "levelled item" which is basically a *place* for an item in the world - what the actual item is depends on the level of the player when they find it (Schroedinger's Broadsword???).
So we could define that Glass Longsword to actually be a Steel Dagger up to level 3, a Silver Tanto until 5, a Silver Sparksword until 8 etc. until it finally "becomes" a Glass Longsword at the ripe old age of level 30.
Considering this for any length of time starts to show us problems: if a level 1 character went around and looked at all the levelled items in the game, they'd never find a Glass Longsword as one would never exist - all the items had resolved themselves to low level weapons already... Also, consider a level 5 character looting a dungeon. They have to be content that if they'd waited until level 6 they might have got MUCH better items...  Creatures are also levelled, so what start out as mudcrabs around Seyda Neen at level 1 become Bull Netch when you wander back at level 15. Nice! There's no levelling of NPCs, but you can level the items the NPC *carries*, so you can sort of get around it - at a higher player level they'll be wearing better armour and carrying better weapons, potions and other items. I don't think you can level spells...
Anyway, this is how the dungeons etc work at the moment, and while there may be potential issues with it, it's a very fine solution. What *we'd* need to do is turn more of the "fixed" items into levelled items.
quote:
Originally posted by Mattias Kreku
If I have to choose not to use the best equipment I find, then the drive to get better and better equipment disappears along with 50% of what I like in a game.
Very true, my thoughts exactly. We can change this game to allow players who aren't really after as much of an "arcade" experience can play the game without cheating, and without cheating themselves.
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Charlie Dobbie
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Moderator of the Morrowind/Oblivion Forums= |
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Mon Jul 01, 2002 10:26 pm |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
Welcome to the boards, cfmdobbie !
interesting article - how would you handle respawning daedras - the major resource for daedric and ebony stuff ?
I think the best solution would be, if the respawning daedras drop nothing when killed. Daedric weapons should only be dropped by big bad hard to beat guys lurking in a big dungeon.
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Tue Jul 02, 2002 12:10 am |
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England |
Interesting problem. If they respawn then they're defined as levelled creatures, so we can't swap them out for a new non-player race that has a racial ability to summon bound armour or anything... they're a major enemy at medium levels so you can't bump them up to a higher "levelled" status... They're Daedra so they certainly should be wearing hefty armour...
I wonder if we can give them Summon Bound spells and get them to cast them when they see you? Script them to "lose" all their armour when they die? (Can you execute a script on a death trigger?)
I'm sure it's possible, needs a bit of thought though (at the very least we could give them all a Magical Daedric Bucket, an immensely heavy almost-worthless bucket with a slow-recharging Summon Bound effect on it. Not worth selling, not worth carrying... )
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Charlie Dobbie
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Moderator of the Morrowind/Oblivion Forums= |
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Tue Jul 02, 2002 1:00 am |
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Scrivener
Noble Knight
Joined: 20 Jun 2002
Posts: 223
Location: Australia |
Another possibility would be to give monsters strong immunities (Flame Atronach ONLY vulnerable to frost). This could be scaled to player level. Then discovering immunities would be part of the game, and you'd have to make choices about equipment carried.
Or how about scaling up creatures' magic abilities. If someone hit you with "Drain 200 Strength" you'd feel it. High level wizards could summon lots of Daedra, and even mud-crabs could start using magic. The good thing about that is the unpredictability of combining spells. Like if three storm atronachs (summoned by the guy you're assassinating) went wild in a bar and killed half the NPCs while you were paralyzed, or something. It'd be a simple way to make things more complicated!
For the above weapon problems, maybe you could make ebony stuff degenerate at an amazing rate. Maybe Daedric stuff could have "damage self" as a constant effect (just one point per second or even less) or reduce your intelligence or something while you had it equipped.
(BTW, even if you gave Daedra constant-effect bound weapons I think they would disappear when the Daedra died) |
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Tue Jul 02, 2002 8:57 am |
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Scrivener
Noble Knight
Joined: 20 Jun 2002
Posts: 223
Location: Australia |
Maybe we can assume all the stuff in the smugglers' caves belongs to "The Boss" and they aren't allowed to use it even if it means death
One possible solution to "easy stealing" would be: Every individual has a "faction" backing them up. For example, if you steal from a shopkeeper X number of times, after a couple of weeks the "shopkeepers' guild" dispatches an assassination team to take you out. If you keep grabbing alchemy equipment from unsuspecting mages, eventually they catch on and the mages guild sends six wizards to attack you in your sleep.
Oh why is this pointless stuff more interesting than work...... |
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Tue Jul 02, 2002 9:18 am |
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