Morrowind - after Oblivion and Skyrim?

[Mongoose]

Okay, so I started with Oblivion, and thought it was okay, but not great. I liked the open world but found the setting and most of the quests bland. Then I got Skyrim, which I liked playing a lot better because I loved the game world and found the quests engaging (well there are still a lot of bland ones, but on average it's a massive improvement from Oblivion). Varied dungeons that weren't just really obvious copies was nice, and the better graphics helped too.

From what I've heard, Morrowind also has a cool setting, but I've also heard it has bad controls and an even worse combat system than Oblivion and Skyrim. And of course it's about a decade old, so the visual aspect is pretty dated; I value gameplay over graphics, but in an exploration game, graphics do count.

The Org usually has pretty good taste and judgement, I find, and I know there are some ES people on here, so -EDIT: this got cut-off and should read: I was wondering - has anyone else played Skyrim, and then tried Morrowind, or looked at Morrowind again after the later games? If so, was it fun or were there issues that were hard to get past?

[Cornelius]

Hi, I agree with you 100%. Oblivion was rather average. Skyrim rocks balls due to a great storyline and you get to fight dragons! I started off on Morrowind back when the original Xbox was still riding high. It utterly rocked my world. I had never experienced a game that gave you such a vast world to explore and so much freedom to do it with. I dont want to give away too much as just thinking back about discovering parts of the story gives me goosebumps. Your choices mattered.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Like having to choose between the thieves and fighters guild.

I spent months playing that game. Ruining 2 controllers with a smile. It might not match up to the later games with regards to graphics but it still is a beautiful world with wonderfully designed settlements, towns and cities. A legion of characters and enemies, many of who will be familiar to you after playing the sequels. After 3 months of playing the original Morrowind I saw the Collector's Edition with the Blood Moon (or something like that) and another (can't remember) expansion which just plugged-in to the main game seamlesly. (for me anyway) Like any game there were a couple of bugs and annoying bits but nothing that stood out (except running around with tons of repair hammers). Many more spells and potions (you could fly damnit!) Melee moves (granted hack slash and thrust but still). Have I raved about the storyline? Anyway *RAVE *RAVE *RAVE. Morrowind is the grand daddy of the modern RPG. Do youself a favour and play it, play it all. I hope my ramblings have done the game justice and swayed you to play it and love it as much as I did. In fact, I might just start again...

[Fragony]

Oblivion doesn't NEARLY has such an interested setting as Morrowind, Morrowind has an unmatched sense of wonder. With a few mods it supposedly looks just as good as Skyrim.

[Cornelius]

If you do decide to acquire Morrowind, check out this link http://morrowind2009.wordpress.com/

[Beskar]

I personally feel Morrowind was a product of its time, but if you put it up against Skyrim, it completely falls short. The controls and graphics will impact hard, the lack of dynamic characters is another as towns are populated by statues. I cannot honestly play Morrowind now and get into it, the whole impact is too jarring. A lot of praise is nostalgia, it is down to whether or not you can sit yourself through an old game and whether or not it would bother you.

[TinCow]

Morrowind may well be difficult after Skyrim. It is a superb game, but it has major flaws. More flaws than Skyrim, I believe, and I think that playing it after Skyrim will have an impact. It's not the graphics, but more so the character system. Skyrim did some very clever things to the ES system that really made the game very fun, such as flat leveling and perks. Morrowind utilizes an exceptionally annoying leveling system that made it difficult to develop a character if you chose your starting skills 'poorly.' In fact, it was so counter-intuitive that it was often better to pick starting skills as those you wouldn't be using. The magic system is also very different. While I preferred Morrowind's spell system, the lack of regenerating mana (except on sleep) was crippling for a starting character and pretty much prevented someone from playing as a pure mage. At the same time, while Morrowind had far more skills, many were useless and uninspiring. Some were useless in Skyrim as well, but Skyrim also added Smithing, which was so well done that it would be sorely missed going back.

That said, Morrowind's story and 'world' are superb, and many will still say they're better even than Skyrim's. The use of text instead of just voice acting means that there is a lot more depth to the stories and a lot more information about the world. If you don't mind a lot of text, Morrowind would be great, but if you don't like it or would just skip over it then that aspect wouldn't be a bonus for you.

I'd say give it a try (heavily modded to improve the graphics and remove some of the character annoyances) and see if you like it. If you can't stand it after a few hours, just drop it.

[Fragony]

I personally feel Morrowind was a product of its time, but if you put it up against Skyrim, it completely falls short. The controls and graphics will impact hard, the lack of dynamic characters is another as towns are populated by statues. I cannot honestly play Morrowind now and get into it, the whole impact is too jarring. A lot of praise is nostalgia, it is down to whether or not you can sit yourself through an old game and whether or not it would bother you.

Modders supposedly fixed all that. Skyrim is absolutely a better game in many ways, but Morrowind just has a more interesting setting, really feels like a world with thousands of years of history.

[Kralizec]

I personally feel Morrowind was a product of its time, but if you put it up against Skyrim, it completely falls short. The controls and graphics will impact hard, the lack of dynamic characters is another as towns are populated by statues. I cannot honestly play Morrowind now and get into it, the whole impact is too jarring. A lot of praise is nostalgia, it is down to whether or not you can sit yourself through an old game and whether or not it would bother you.

I haven’t played Skyrim so I wouldn’t know about that, but in Oblivion I wasn’t that impressed by the general NPC behavior that was supposed to simulate daily life. The dialogue lines that NPC’s randomly exchange with eachother are inane and extremely repetitive. That shops are only open during certain hours I can tolerate and understand, but what really bugged me was that certain trainers wander off so that it’s extremely hard to find them during “open hours”. That people will sometimes exchange rumours about quests that the player has completed was a nice touch, but merely adds to the feeling that Cyrodil is an extremely small world.

There’s a mod for Morrowind that makes shop close at night, if that’s your thing, and also a mod that adds a lot of generic NPC’s (townspeople, traveling merchants, bounty hunters, etc) which spawn randomly in cities and disappear after a while. It was fittingly called Morrowind Comes Alive, I think.