Morrowind - after Oblivion and Skyrim?

[Kralizec]

I have to use a mouse to slowly that in a gaming setting it's an extreme hinderance, not a help. I never finished Diablo 2 because I'd end up running in circles around the bosses and they'd kill me. And to bring it back toe ES series I never used ranged combat before they made it work right in Skyrim. In Oblivion and especially Morrowind it's functionality is extremely low.

The problem lies with you, not with the game. Ranged combat, wether spells or marksman weapons, worked well enough in both Morrowind and Oblivion. In combination with sneak it is simply deadly.

The way gear has always worked in ES games "breaks emersion." In all of them you go from basic iron and leather, to steel, to ancient meric, to super fancy. Why is it daft that the rules that apply to everyone else? It's not. Daft is when rules only apply to the player and not the world at large.

Dude, the number one source of super-armor are those bandits and marauders in the first place! Also the Dremora in the plane of Oblivion at higher levels, but Ive never encountered anybody else there scavenging for armor.

They could have done the same levelling system, more or less, without giving all bandits elven/glass armor. Simply give them a complete set of lesser armor and maybe some non-equipment perks like increased strength and so on. It is daft that every petty criminal in the province owns a suit of armor that is vastly better than what legionaires or members of the blades wear.

[Conradus]

You tell me. I'm head of the assassins' guild, head of the thieves' guild, completed the imperial quests and was working on the fighter guild's quest (forgot the name in the game) when I realized that working my way up hardly yielded any real, believable benefits for me. Either the game spams you with random miniquests or people lost all interest to talk to you or they behave just like they did when you were a member.
You'd even think getting to the top of organizations that oppose one another is a bit weird but it worked just flawlessly because your rank in any organization has no real tangible effect on anything. I admit it may be hard to program otherwise but it does make me a bit sad and reduces my willingness to replay since I can do all the quests with one char who is so strong that nothing can stop her/him.
RPGs that make you choose a faction, align with it and then live with your decision may be less sandboxy in that regard but they create a more believable world where choices matter and you can replay them aligned to another faction to get a different experience. What they all lack though is the aspect of actually using the influence you get in real life once you're at the top, only Mount&Blade Warband (and possibly other M&B games) seems to have such mechanics as far as I can tell.

Morrowind had this in some respects. It was impossible to join all three Houses (except by a glitch). There were also problems to finish both the Thieves and Fighter Guild questlines, but by a sidequest this was still possible. Loved how they handled it there.

[TinCow]

Morrowind had this in some respects. It was impossible to join all three Houses (except by a glitch). There were also problems to finish both the Thieves and Fighter Guild questlines, but by a sidequest this was still possible. Loved how they handled it there.

Vampire: Bloodlines had a bit of it as well, in the form of the vampire clans. Each one had exclusive content that you couldn't access unless you were one of their members. It was a character-creation choice rather than in-game, but had a decent impact on the game.

[rajpoot]

Vampire: Bloodlines had a bit of it as well, in the form of the vampire clans. Each one had exclusive content that you couldn't access unless you were one of their members. It was a character-creation choice rather than in-game, but had a decent impact on the game.

Now that was a really great game. They really need to do a sequel. And they'd better have Jack in it.

[Slyspy]

The idea of playing Oblivion, Fallout or Skyrim without mods is crazy IMO. Oblivion especially became pointless after a while. If the whole world scales up with your character then what is the point in discovering and exploring RandomDungeon#101 when all you get is a series of fights that you will win easily to be rewarded with household items and a midly enchanted ring of which you already have a dozen?

Currently running Skyrim with mods which improve stability, graphics, sounds, magic, combat, companions, potions, wildlife, lighting, kill moves, crafting, GUI and leveling as well as some adding extra content.

Did the same with Oblivion because it was just so boring without it (Oscuro's was essential in making the game interesting IMO). I also used masses of mods to do the same sort of things with Fallout, vastly improving every aspect of the game.

Edit:

Vampire was a great game. But since they never really finished it I doubt there will be a sequel!

Edit#2:

Totally agree with the ideas about end game content. If I'm head of the Companions or Mages in Skyrim then I should be a major player in the game, not just a subject for idle chatter.

[ReluctantSamurai]

RPGs that make you choose a faction, align with it and then live with your decision may be less sandboxy in that regard but they create a more believable world where choices matter and you can replay them aligned to another faction to get a different experience.

This. One of the reasons Baldur's Gate has such a continuing attraction to me is that there are consequences for everything you do. You cannot play a "goodie two-shoe" Paladin and go around killing innocents or stealing goods. You have to accept what a Paladin is and role-play it. Conversely, you will not make a good rogue/assassin type if you are constantly giving money to the needy, and go about the country-side doing good deeds. You have to watch your status like a hawk if you wish to keep all your party members happy.

So yes, in Morrowind, it would have been much better to restrict the player to non-conflicting guilds, and to open up a whole new storyline when you reach the pinnacle of any single guild.

And that's why all the mods suck. The bigger ones are in fact the worst offenders of being useless drivel.

Denial is such sweet bliss...["I can't play these games on PC, therefore the PC sucks as an RPG platform, and since I can't mod the console version, all mods are irrelevant and add nothing to the game."]

This despite the fact that virtually everyone replying to you here play on a PC and have a wonderful time doing it

[Beskar]

You cannot play a "goodie two-shoe" Paladin and go around killing innocents or stealing goods. You have to accept what a Paladin is and role-play it. Conversely, you will not make a good rogue/assassin type if you are constantly giving money to the needy, and go about the country-side doing good deeds.

Robin Hood wants to have words with you.

[johnhughthom]

I don't remember seeing Robin Hood in Baldur's Gate?

[Beskar]

I don't remember seeing Robin Hood in Baldur's Gate?

I am saying that the RP is a possibility and citing a folklore example of a hero who did that.

[johnhughthom]

Yeah, you have to go to folklore, because you can't give a real example. Doesn't exactly strengthen your argument.

[Beskar]

Yeah, you have to go to folklore, because you can't give a real example. Doesn't exactly strengthen your argument.

Kochunni, Tadas Blinda, Eustace Folville, Juraj Jánošík, Claude Duval, Ustym Karmaliuk... there are other real life examples, but they are not as popular and universally known as Robin Hood.

[johnhughthom]

Googles 'real life Robin Hood'....

Fancy that, look at these names I found.

Disclaimer:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm not really this much of a knob, just love mocking Beskie.
Further disclaimer

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I refuse to call him by that silly name.

[Husar]

Did anyone say real life Robin Hood?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Oh wait, that's not meant to be him.

[Fragony]

......
That's kind of a basic requirement for using most GUI based OSs today on a PC. Moving the pointer to icons and clicking them, is more or less the same as using the mouse to aim in an RPG.
Also I'm pretty sure that many people like me find it impossible to aim with a controller. Aiming with a mouse is so much more organic and intuitive.

Depends, I prefer using a controller personally and I was a hardcore pc fps gamer. It's just different, once you got a shot lined up vertically you have much more precision horizontally because of analogue control. Some people can't get used to it but I wouldn't be at a disadvantage when playing against a pc-player.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I am saying that the RP is a possibility and citing a folklore example of a hero who did that

Might work in folklore, but not in the world of D & D. Just choosing the class of Assassin or Paladin requires a choice for either evil or good...there is no multi-class Paladin-Assassin character possible (and no, Blackguard to me, is an anti-paladin...not the same).

But back to ES...didn't anyone at Bethesda ever think that to even join the Mage Guild, let alone become Archmage, you had to first be a mage? My MW characters are always fighters and every one of them has made Archmage....to my way of thinking, that's just not right

And even though I train my characters in some of the different schools of magic mostly in order to meet Mage Guild advancement requirements, my characters have never cast a single offensive spell......

[Conradus]

Well considering you had to level up some magic abilities to gain rank in the Mages Guild I thought they did a pretty good job of forcing you to be at least a parttime mage. Not all mages are destructioncasting deathdealers. And how would you determine what made you a mage? You couldn't be a mage and fighter and thief at the same time then. Hell, I opened most locks for the thieves guild using Alteration(?).

[Beskar]

But doesn't that fall under the "gamey" territory?

Whenever I play Skyrim, I usually make Mages and do Mage things with them, I don't need ingame limits. If I am an Orc Beresker charging through the battlefield, my next thought is not "become Archmage of the Mages guild" then complain about being able to do so because I started buying tomes from vendors and leveling up my magicka abilities, even to pass rank restrictions which is meant to encourage you to basically be a mage by learning magic

There are logical restrictions in the game, like unable to be a Stormcloak and an Imperial supporter and do both questlines. But 'class' is an abstract thing defined by the player and their ability to roleplay.

[TinCow]

Yeah, I agree with Tiaexz. One of the things that has always made the ES games unique is that you are never limited in what you can do by a 'class' and very minimally by character stats. In the ES games, if you want to do something just work at it and you eventually can. Some characters will be better at some things instead of others due to race and level up choices, particularly in Skyrim with the new perk system. However all characters tend to be an amalgam of classes. When was the last time anyone played an ES game and didn't use magic a few times, use melee weapons a few times, use ranged weapons a few times, pick a few locks, and brew a bunch of potions? In any other game, your character would be restricted to one or two of those actions at most, but in ES it's rare to not do all of them. It's freedom that makes ES so special, not just freedom of movement and exploration, but also freedom of character development.

[johnhughthom]

My current Skyrim character has only used a weapon once, and it wasn't actually to attack an enemy but part of a quest. It's still listed as my favourite weapon.

[spankythehippo]

In Skyrim, I only use swords, greatswords and the bow.

The class system, in my opinion, was vastly improved in Skyrim than in Oblivion. I initially chose Dark Elf when I got Skyrim on the release day. Several weeks ago, I made a new character as a Nord. I found it incredibly difficult to use magic as a Nord in contrast to a Dark Elf. In ES games, I never play a specialised role, i.e. warrior, archer, mage etc. I mix them up so I can comfortably handle any situation the game throws at me. I have used many spells to get me out of tricky situations. I constantly use Atronachs as distractions, because my follower is severely retarded, although a great fighting partner. Stealthwise, it would be better if I just charge right in, which is what my follower does.

I have a new question.

When there is a certain glitch in the game, do you exploit it? For my Conjuration, I used that Soul Trap glitch, where if you Soul Trap a dead body you level up the skill.

My most shameless exploit was the Ebony Blade glitch. For those who don't know, the Ebony Blade is a Daedric artifact which grants life steal depending on how many friends you've killed with it. What I did was I completely leveled up my Conjuration (using the Soul Trap glitch), completely finished the College of Winterhold quests and obtained the Dead Thrall spell tome. I sold some cabbages to that Pelagia guy outside of Whiterun (for those wanting to use this glitch, I recommend the Pelagia guy. He dies anyway in the Siege of Whiterun... Spoiler alert, by the way). I then promptly killed him and his partner. I used Dead Thrall to revive him and then killed him again with the Ebony Blade. I repeated this until Mephala was satisfied and granted me the complete lifesteal potential of this sword. Do you guys think this is considered "cheating"? I don't, since I used my magic skills to level up my blade. What's wrong with that?

EDIT: Upon reflection, my most shameless glitch exploit was the Urngeir one in Riften to level up Speechcraft.

[TinCow]

When there is a certain glitch in the game, do you exploit it? For my Conjuration, I used that Soul Trap glitch, where if you Soul Trap a dead body you level up the skill.

...

What's wrong with that?

No, I don't, at least not anymore, but there's also nothing wrong with doing so. IMO, it is NEVER wrong to exploit a glitch or otherwise cheat in a single player game. You're impacting no one other than yourself, so there's nothing wrong with playing however you want to play. The only time I've done something like this is in Morrowind, where I would regularly jump up large staircases. There was something about the nature of movement in that game that made jumps while moving up staircases very, very short. So, you could rapidly bash the jump button and easily jump about 10-15 times up a short staircase and several dozen times up a large one. That enabled rapid leveling of Acrobatics, which was also a quite silly skill.

[Conradus]

Acrobatics was very usefull imo. Let you get on higher grounds and you moved faster. Not to mention the scrolls of flying. Sometimes I put my acrobatics at 200 or 500 to travel faster by taking large strides :D

[Sir Moody]

Might work in folklore, but not in the world of D & D. Just choosing the class of Assassin or Paladin requires a choice for either evil or good...there is no multi-class Paladin-Assassin character possible (and no, Blackguard to me, is an anti-paladin...not the same).

D&D has a 2 part alignment system and very few class restrictions - Robin Hood would have been a Chaotic Good Rogue (possible multi-class Ranger) - it is entirely possible to be both a Rogue and Good and isn't even hard to role-play - Robin Hood after all stole from the "Evil" rich to give to the poor - its very much easier to play the the selfish thief but that's true of all D&D - Neural and Evil characters are just easier to role-play

[TinCow]

Acrobatics was very usefull imo. Let you get on higher grounds and you moved faster. Not to mention the scrolls of flying. Sometimes I put my acrobatics at 200 or 500 to travel faster by taking large strides :D

Sure it was useful, but it was also ridiculous. Not only was it kind of odd that you could jump on top of houses, but it was also a totally absurd feature to qualify as an actual trainable skill. It was possible to go all the way to level 10 by doing nothing but standing still and jumping up and down. That's... weird.

Athletics as well was a bad skill. It increased just by running around. Combined with acrobatics, you suddenly had two skills that went up just because you were walking around the game world. You really couldn't even stop them from going up even if you wanted to. In a game where it really mattered which skills you increased on each level (to get your stat bonuses), it was a bad idea to include skills that you couldn't really prevent from increasing.

[Kralizec]

In Oblivion I would often use an exploit to raise my acrobatics, mostly for increasing the speed attribute during leveling. At the sewer exit where you first enter the outside world, there’s a wooden pier. Underneath and at the end, I would have “always move” (Q) toggled on while pressing the jump key repeatedly – because the wood above is just above your head, the jumping and landing takes zero seconds and you can jump repeatedly as fast as you could press the key.

I was quite fond of the alchemy exploit in Morrowind where you’d first use potions to boost your intelligence and then make increasingly powerful potions. I used it sparingly though, among other things for potions that made you absurdly fast to travel large distances faster.

[ReluctantSamurai]

And how would you determine what made you a mage? You couldn't be a mage and fighter and thief at the same time then.

There are mages (those who depend on their casting skills to survive); there are fighters (those who depend on their weapons to survive); and there are fighter/mages (those who use both to survive). My Morrowind characters all live and die by the point of spear and blade; magic is used only to remove status anomalies and for healing. This would place my character types in the f/m category, strictly speaking, but I certainly do not consider them to be true mages.

Robin Hood would have been a Chaotic Good Rogue (possible multi-class Ranger) - it is entirely possible to be both a Rogue and Good and isn't even hard to role-play

That's probably where I would categorize Robin Hood in the D&D system, and I'm well aware that you can role-play a rogue on the good side of things. What I am speaking to is that there are advantages and disadvantages to being either good or evil, and the system used in BG was superior, IMO, to that used in NWN, and in the Elder Scrolls. Ones alignment in BG even determined what NPC's you could use in combination with each other, and you had to keep your reputation within certain bounds to keep everyone reasonably happy. Also, some of the major fights were easier or harder depending on your alignment and party composition. In playing ES, I never have the feeling of my character having any sort of alignment, good...neutral...or evil.

Athletics as well was a bad skill. It increased just by running around. Combined with acrobatics, you suddenly had two skills that went up just because you were walking around the game world. You really couldn't even stop them from going up even if you wanted to.

Actually, you can stop both from leveling. First, I always leave those two in the misc. skill category to slow their growth. Then, when my character is strong enough to soul-trap a Golden Saint, the first thing I do is to enchant a piece of equipment with 1 pt. of Levitation (and some other effect that fills the remaining enchantment pts.), and from that point onwards neither Athletics nor Acrobatics increase except when I choose to be on solid ground. I've never had a character end up with more than 50 in either skill (and usually much lower---mid 30's to 40).

[spankythehippo]

I have another Skyrim confession to make.

In Skyrim, I am not interested in any of the marriable(?) NPCs. The only person I would marry is Olfina Gray-Mane, because she said "Can't stand the sight of a strong Nord woman?" At which point, I said "Ooooooh yeaaaaaaah". So in the Creation Kit, I made her join the Potential Follower and Potential Marriage faction. I'm not making the game easier, I'm just modifying it a bit.

Oh yeah, Eorlund saved my life on multiple occasions. I got into a fight with everyone in Whiterun, and Eorlund joined my side. I could use a father-in-law like that.

[CountArach]

Morrowind was the greatest game of all time and always will be.