User blog comment:Lab Coat Billy/The Good Ol' Days/@comment-5469467-20130725011526/@comment-3152761-20130731231333

Morrowind has some problems...okay maybe a lot. Heres a list: Combat, Learning Curve, Quests, Dialogue (oh boy), Unknown Rules, Spells, and its story.

First off, Combat. Combat in Morrowind consists of hit, hit, hit, spell, hit, hit, hit, spell, dead. No joke, it runs on a D20 system and combat is you literally standing there hitting eachother. Few weapons are interesting to use, this means ranged weaponry. Unfortunately theres about a dozen of them, though the throwing weapons are the exception. However throwing weapons are more or less a gimmick and too expensive with virtually no damage. The combat is insanely boring and dull.

Next, Learning Curve. Huge to newer gamers or ones that have no experience in how merciless older games are. The learning curve is too high for so little reward today in comparison with other games you could play. It hasn't aged well in this regard.

Quests, ugh. The quests in this game are 90% fluff with few interesting quests involved. The Factions, as TheAnomaly said, are generic with mostly filler until midway or the very ending. The main quests are decent with some good ones along the way, especially in the expansions. However again its a matter of if you can tough it out the reward is not bad. Heres a huge blatant flaw, the directions system for them is absolute garbage. Theres many points in the game where you'll be told "OH ITS JUST *DIRECTION HERE*" and you'll have found yourself about a third across the map over some mountains where you're supposed to be...that's if you even know where you're going. You will slowly get the hang of it however and realize west might not always be west haha. This is another aspect though that the game, at the time, did well in because no other RPG's had this many and no other rpg at that time had varied from these types of quests. We simply didn't know there was something better. Another aspect the game hasn't aged well in.

The Dialogue, this is one of the biggest fallacies you'll see "There was so much more to talk about in morrowind, you could talk to anyone about virtually anything." This is a lie, there were 1-3 preset dialogue pieces for every option with every NPC. Again, filler...to make the game seem in-depth or large, there was no need to talk to 90% of the NPC's. Also everyone immediately knew EVERYTHING you did past a certain point in the game, rumors apparently travel like roots and at the speed of light in Morrowind (Skyrim has this problem with every guard knowing exactly what skills you've leveled.) It makes you feel popular but at the cost of immersion and realism. Morrowind is like a giant highschool in that regard.

The Unknown Rules of the Road, theres a lot. You start your character right? And unbeknowst to you, you've now limited yourself to half of the game's content. Forget about one playthrough and you're done, nope you need to do several and go through the whole tedious process of doing the same quests and dungeons. If you enjoy that, by all means. But only someone with a lot of time on their hands can appreciate that or someone with a lot of dedication. All the game you'll slowly be limiting yourself to content. If what I've read is said to be true then the game needs an astonishing 7 playthroughs of the game to do all the content. I don't have that much time to blow on a single game when I could get more fun out of playing 5 other games in that time. Thats why this has been rectified in newer games, Jack of All Trades playthroughs as most call them.

Spells, no. Don't. Half the spells are useless. Thats why most of them have been removed by the time Skyrim came around. I will however say that like Skyrim, a full mage playthrough is viable...unlike Oblivion...mainly due to the simplistic combat. There are a lot of gimmicks and hilarious spells that do make the treking for them worth it but again most of the spells you could never really use.

The Story, this is more down to personal preference but to me it's bland. To some it's amazingly good, but to others it's generic. Because it is generic. But the lore is very very good.

Overall, I loved this game when it came out and I still do. But I recognize it's flaws and put aside my nostalgic feelings for this game, many do not. Honestly this game is only for a select few nowadays, coming down to TES fans and previous players. Otherwise theres no value in this game.