My eyes glazed over when they started bragging about how many miles of procedurally generated nothingness the game has tbh
because god forbid anyone has to do level design :agony-shivering:
I'm excited. Morrowind was absolutely my favorite game by Bethesda and I've certainly liked each game they've released a little bit less, but... no one really makes games like those games. There's an element to the whole "pick up anything, even like this fucking broom that isn't a weapon" that speaks to me. Even if their whole AI scheduling systems are really shallow, it still makes those worlds feel more lived in to me.
They just do something to my lizard brain idk.
Morrowind, and Daggerfall before it actually reward you for paying attention to the story. Conversely, it'll be pretty hollow without that.
The stories are more non-linear than their later games, and infamously, there's no quest marker or true quest journal. Your journal records important stuff, but it'll be written 'in game', describing places being like 'west-north-west of the marker on this road', and you'll have to actually navigate that. You have more options for doing things like 'winning over a majority of the houses'; you can pick which houses to go after, and most of them have multiple paths to win them over, many 'hidden' behind actually talking to many house members. And, to top it off, you can kill anyone. The main quest is 'solvable' by being a murder-hobo. You can march up to the god-king of the land, kill him (though it is very difficult!), and there's just enough info in his notes to still complete the main quest. Their later games just make important NPCs unkillable, which really feels like 'bumper rails at the bowling alley' to me, just ruins immersion even if I'm not really a murder-hobo player.
I also hate the gameplay design of not having level areas. I hated Oblivion for having the entire world leveled to you; it made leveling up feel entirely pointless. By the time your a max level, max equipment hero of the land, the bandits are still threats to you. Its like an anti-powerfantasy mechanic. I like having areas gated off as 'hard', or 'come back later', and I like being able to not give a shit about bandit at high level. It makes the world feel more real.
Lastly, and this is minor, I like that the island of Morrowind is weird. Oblivion was mostly just 'medieval Europe', and Skyrim was mostly just 'medieval Scandinavia'. Morrowind is a weird volcanic ash island with giant mushrooms and giant bugs. I like fantasy being fantastical.
That's not to say either Morrowind or Daggerfall are without flaw; they have many many flaws. But every generation feels like the world is cut down in scale. Morrowind is smaller that Daggerfall (which, for all its crust, I love cities actually being huge). Oblivion has vastly less dialogue, since they added voice acting, and it's 'radiant quest' system added endless procedurally generated busywork quests. Skyrim removed or simplified many mechanics, and made sure the world was always open; its just weird and immersion breaking to me that every character regardless of build can become leader of the Fighter's guild, Thieves guild, and Mages guild.
The real answer is probably that I played Morrowind first.
Alternatively, Morrowind was just more unique. It had tons of weird shit like mushroom trees. You would find completely unique quests and items just by wandering through the world. It gated you from content if your path took you a specific way. Like, if you join the thieves guild and do a mission to steal from another guild, you can't join that other guild. They weren't afraid of players "breaking" the intended path, so you can craft bonkers spells that let you jump across the map or fly.
I also think not having voice acting allowed them toake conversations more interesting. You could really dig into the world via NPCs.
Just a very unique game that doesn't really have mass market appeal.
Oblivion was still really good, but it was simpler. There was less meat to it. This also meant it was more accessible, which is a good thing for a lot of people. Oblivion has a lot of really fun questlines. Skyrim is a lot like if Oblivion had a better built world, but with worse questlines.
Morrowind has the best lore building out of the three later games. It was really rewarding to piece the history together while the main quest tied itself slowly to it. Both the vivec Palace thing and the final heart chamber thing are some of my favourite moments in elder scrolls because of how rewarding they felt after I read every book in the game I could find to just learn more.
it's... not possible.
the last good bethesda game was morrowind and the people that made it good aren't there or in those roles anymore. the things they did to make it good aren't what bethesda does anymore.
the company that has been stripping mechanics out of role playing games in order to sell them to a broader audience for twenty years will probably not do something new or interesting.
No, I'd argue Oblivion and Skyrim were pretty good in their own way Fallout 3 was good too, just not as good as New Vegas. It's cool if you don't like anything past Morrowind, but it's not the general consensus that they haven't made anything good since Morrowind. This is what grinds my gears about fans of morrowind (speaking of morrowind fans in general. not you in particular my dude) any acquiescence towards accessibility e is seen as an inherently bad thing to morrowind heads. I think there's degrees and they find a good balance with Oblivion and to a lesser degree Skyrim (which was pushing it, but still very good imo)
TLDR acessiblity is not always bad, there is nuance.
Not really a fan of Fallout 4 or 76 though they kind of just made them Farcry games in the fallout universe at that point.
I like Morrowind enough my self I just find the writing and Mechanics dated and lackluster compared to later entries in the franchise. It gets irritating when you hear the "latest rumors" from an NPC in town and it turns out to be the same crap you've heard 50 times over from someone else.
any acquiescence towards accessibility e is seen as an inherently bad thing to morrowind heads
No, its just that removing the good parts of the game in order to appeal to more 10 year olds is an inherently bad thing, which is what is meant by bethesda's approach to "accessibility" 99% of the time
I don't know too many 10 year olds interested in Western RPGS in general, Call of Duty and Grand theft auto are more par for the course in that regard. Honestly a lot of the stuff removed from Morrowind I just considered to be superfluous besides stuff like Levitation. If I want something really really deep that's doesn't feel completely dated I would go play Planescape torment, hell for something even more modern Pillars of Eternity or Divnity Original Sin 2 would be better than Morrowind IMO.
What was removed from Oblivion that made the game completely unplayable in comparison to Morrowind for you, if you don't mind me asking?
made the game completely unplayable
When did I say anything like this? Why do people have to be so hyperbolic on the internet? I like Oblivion. I just like Morrowind more, and Daggerfall I like even more than that in some ways. I just think Daggerfall's biggest weaknesses are greater than Morrowind's biggest weaknesses and that Morrowind found the best balance.
Since Daggerfall, there has been a very clear and steady trend of reducing the RPG mechanics to highlight the action mechanics, and Oblivion (taking place in the most generic and uninteresting depiction of Tamriel so far) was hurt the worst by this trend. Skyrim pulls it off better but I still dislike the trend. Morrowind has both the most interesting depiction of Tamriel and the least RPG degradation so I like it the most of the three.
Chill, I thought you were the other guy who said Bethesda hasn't done anything good since Morrowind. I was mistaken, my bad.
I personally don't think the Elder Scrolls series was ever some sort of Bastion of Western RPG mechanics to really bother me if some of the stuff was taken out to tailor towards a wider audience. That's me though, you like what you like and I like what I like. Aside from that man, I can't really think of anything worse than arguing back and forth about RPGS and video games on the internet. So I'm out, unless you want to discuss something different.
I personally don’t think the Elder Scrolls series was ever some sort of Bastion of Western RPG mechanics to really bother me if some of the stuff was taken out to tailor towards a wider audience.
It doesn't really matter what you or I think the Elder Scrolls series was, the point is that I am part of that narrower audience which the earlier games appeal to, and that things I and others in that audience like were not in later entries because they were pursuing that 'wider audience.' There is nothing difficult to understand about why that means I don't like the newer games as much. They made the active decision to stop making games like the ones I like because they saw more money in making games a different kind of person likes. No one at Bethesda is confused why players like me aren't huge fans of Skyrim and Oblivion, why are you?
I'd also like to say that it is only ever a bad thing for an artist to focus on appealing to a "wide audicence." No one ever tells a romance author their book has too much romance and not enough war or dragons. They just don't read romance novels. Why should I be expected to like it when the romance author I like makes "Romance Novel 2" and it's about battle tactics with a small romance side plot?
You win dude, it's not that important to me. I would only add that if you wish for a game like Morrowind, that it will probably never happen from Bethesda. You're probably better off looking at different studios if you want something that doesn't feel like Skyrim or Oblivion and is more akin to Daggerfall or Morrowind, as I firmly believe the farthest they will look back in their catalogue of games for inspiration is probably Oblivion. Or you can just wait on that Morrowind Remake that independent studio is putting together. Or replay Morrowind again I guess.
Edit: I hope they do make another Morrowind Style game so that everyone's happy. I just doubt it's going to happen.
I would only add that if you wish for a game like Morrowind, that it will probably never happen from Bethesda. You’re probably better off looking at different studios
What? You can do that? I thought I locked in Bethesda under 'game dev studio' at character creation so now I'm just stuck with whatever they put out. That's why I have definitely never played any other games which appeal to my interests and simply spend all day every day waiting for an excuse to complain about modern Bethesda games (I think this is the second thread I have ever discussed a Bethesda game in on this site)
I wasn't sure, you seemed awfully concerned about Morrowind style Bethesda games. I was trying assuage some of that anxiety.
Dude, go back to :reddit-logo:
I'm just having a conversation and you're being so weirdly confrontational about it
I think I've been pretty fair actually. I tried to end the conversation numerous times and basically said "to each his own" and you kept trying to tell me how I was wrong for not caring about Elder Scrolls being made more accessible.
I'll say it again. I like Morrowind enough (I liked it enough to try arguably the most boring build in the game and play through it, an archer build) i've actually put a couple hundred hours into it and I think if it's someone favorite Elder Scrolls that is a valid opinion to have. I just don't agree with condescension from Morrowind fans towards people who prefer Oblivion or Skyrim especially considering Morrowind isn't really all that deep to begin with. You like what you like man, I'm not telling you you're wrong. I just prefer Oblivion and Skyrim myself.
you kept trying to tell me how I was wrong for not caring about Elder Scrolls being made more accessible.
man, stop taking mild criticisms of your favorite treats as personal attacks. you'll enjoy life a lot more if you also have mild criticisms of your favorite treats.
I like Morrowind enough my self I just find the writing [...] dated and lackluster compared to later entries in the franchise.
:jesse-wtf:
Yeah I can only tolerate hearing the same bullshit from 50 different npcs so many times. There's also the fact a lot of the times the quests boil down to "Murder this man for an obscure and weird reason"
Sorry I guess.
Yeah I can only tolerate hearing the same bullshit from 50 different npcs so many times.
Sorry I guess
have you actually played skyrim
yeah but did you know you could enchant a pair of daedric gauntlets to produce a single fireball that can destroy half the npcs in seyda neen with a single large radius blast?
do you mean accessibility as in colourblind modes or accessibility as in removing custom magic spells from skyrim and removing skills entirely from fallout 4?
I like oblivion and Skyrim too, they’re just not good.
I actually don’t like fallout 3, but that doesn’t have any bearing on it not being good.
Idk what you’re talking about when you say accessibility. Usually I think about like screen reading or colorblind modes or whatever when I hear that.
Saying you find the writing and mechanics of morrowind dated and lackluster compared to oblivion and Skyrim is some weird shit. Surely I’m misunderstanding you.
Joke's on you, I tend to (somewhat) enjoy Bethesda turds. :hahaha:
Except Fallout 76. Fuck that grift and fuck the whales that keep it going.
No, I like bethesda too. Just their good games which I consider their stuff up to Skyrim to be pretty damn good. Skyrim is 10 out of 10 to me. Fallout 4 is where the quality really dropped off and id give that game like a 7 and Fallout 76 is pretty damn bad, i'd give it a 5 on a good day. I agree the people who excuse Bethesda and lick it's corporate boots and pay for micro transactions in Fallout 76 are partially enabling this anti-consumer behavior, the other part of it is just Bethesda being greedy and a corporation.
I'm hoping Starfield is more like Morrowind and Oblivion in space and less like Fallout 4 in space if you catch my drift.
I do, I do.
Horse armor in Oblivion should have been the beginning and end of microtransactions in full price games. :disgost:
Shivering isles and expansions in a similar vein are the baseline for what they need to make in order for them to expect us to fork over more cash. They can fuck off with trying to charge for different colored armor and stupid shit like that.
Yo, you and I need to play Starfield together day one and share impressions back and forth. Seems you and I might be the only ones here even cautiously optimistic about it lol.
I like that idea, except that I usually don't get new games until they've been laying around a few years, patched, and modded where applicable.
I'm averse to hype waves and wait for sales.
Every Bethesda game has been worse than the last, and this is a new genre they have no experience in, so my expectations are on the floor. It wouldn't be hard for it to end up surpassing them, but I still doubt it will.
People can grumble and bitch all they want, i'll buy it an enjoy it for the flying and exploring experience - especially because scifi is absolutely my thing. I have hundreds of hours on Cyberpunk just because I like to cover all the map and look for shit, doesn't matter that most of the time there isn't anything but half the delight is getting there. Did the same with Zelda BotW - just walked everywhere to take in the scenery - the whole end of the world thing? That can wait because I want to climb up on that hill and look at the light. Similar with No Man's Sky.
So having planet hopping between a gazillion planets in my own flying rustbucket? I don't give a shit that most will be empty apart from a few identikit bases or trading stations - the fact that I can go there is the appeal for me.
Depends on how it is. I'll reserve my judgement, if it's similar to Fallout 4 or Fallout 76 I will be severely disappointed. However I'm not one of those people who's automatically going to hate it if it isn't Morrowind in space.
It’s going to suck ass and sell a bajillion anyway. Valid criticism will be met with armies of frothing fanboys ready for war.
This is how AAA works now.
I expect it to be a complete trash fire barely better than Cyberpunk 2077, but I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if I am. I really would like it to be good, because then I could be optimistic about TES6
I fully expect it to be buggy as hell at launch. That is something that Bethesda games can not escape. It will eventually be good in the long term due to the modding scene.
That's most games these days. Years ago I remember "it compiles, ship it" being a short and quirky programmer joke. It's common practice for a lot of Studios rn
It will probably have a better gameplay loop because its not taking on the pretensions of cyberpunk aesthetics and not based on a much better RPG with real mechanics. Seems like it'll focus on shooting and customization of ships and guns and stuff with a limited scope beyond the "there's thousands of planets" thing.
The skill trees, crafting and character creation I got a glimpse of looked levels of magnitude more complicated than anything I'd ever seen before.
Also, I felt like Cyberpunk 2077 was a really fun game with a decent story, once they ironed out the technical mess. I never played pen and paper cyberpunk, though.
Of course not, even if it's not Fallout 76 bad it wont be worth playing until far after launch anyway.
I don't really get excited for games anymore, but I'm cautiously optimistic that Starfield will be worth playing... someday. Maybe on release, but most likely after a ton of patches and mods.
if it continues the tradition of being extremely moddable, i'll probably really like it
i use modern bethesda games as a mod platform more than a game in itselfIt's going to be, It's Microsoft big game pass selling point for 2023.
The tech market, and videogame consoles especially, have pretty much always operated at a loss for their launches (well...Nintendo aside I mean). The idea is to get people deeper and deeper into the platform/ecosystem to turn a profit long term.
