Skyrim - Remains in the Shadow of Morrowind

Aubrielle

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For so many RPG fans, the name "Morrowind" is a holy word, a bar that Bethesda has yet to reach again. VICE examines why Skyrim and other later Elder Scrolls titles remain in Morrowind's shadow.


The differences between Morrowind and its immediate successor are vast. While Oblivion is recognizable as a sequel, it tossed out a lot of what made the series so appealing, much of what connected its predecessor with a passionate audience. The Eastern-inspired, alien world of exotic fauna and giant mushroom trees was cast aside in favor of a distinctly Tolkienian setting, with its European architecture, European wildlife, and European forests. This was a disappointment for many of the preceding game's admirers, and the differences were more than cosmetic. Oblivion's job was to be The Elder Scrolls but accessible, palatable to a wider, more general audience at a time when the big-budget cinematic adaptation of The Lord of the Rings still felt fresh. It didn't matter if some of the old magic was lost—it was all about bringing extra punters to the party. For the first time, Bethesda was genuinely gunning for the console market—however, these guys achieved it, they had to sell The Elder Scrolls to living rooms, not desktops.

And the gambit worked. The accessibility of Oblivion propelled The Elder Scrolls from a niche PC gaming pastime to a sat-on-the-sofa phenomenon. The game sold 1.7 million copies in a month, a figure that's since risen to closer to 10 million, and critical coverage was incredibly positive. Skyrim followed five years later and preserved that accessibility—and yet the fifth Elder Scrolls game proper also attempted to return the series to what made Morrowind special, pulling back where Oblivion had been so keen to push away. Because, despite being the least commercially successful of the 21st-century Elder Scrolls games—the original, Arena, and its sequel, Daggerfall, date from 1994 and 1996 respectively—Morrowind dominates the fanbase's discourse. Skyrim struggles with itself to invoke Morrowind, and emulate it, at every possible opportunity—but it's difficult to understand why unless one examines Bethesda's relationship with its "core" audience.

...

However, Skyrim would almost allow people to return to Morrowind in its final expansion, Dragonborn. Revisiting the island of Solstheim, the location of Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion from a decade earlier, it gave fans a tour of old haunts, a chance to wander the ruins of places they once visited and—perhaps most significantly—a front-seat view of the smoldering remains of Vvardenfell.

It's tempting to think, as I do, that this was symbolic. Bethesda wants to move on from Morrowind. It wants its fans to move on from Morrowind. But you can only see the ruins of Vvardenfell from Solstheim. The journey comes full circle. The Elder Scrolls remains locked in a Morrowind-shaped prison, doomed to keep referencing itself for eternity. You can visit Morrowind in The Elder Scrolls Online. You can even run into M'aiq the Liar. For Bethesda, it's impossible to escape, and perilous to ignore.

Maybe it should remaster Morrowind.
More information.
 
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Unfortunately the economies of scale at Bethesda wouldn't adapt to a Morrowind remake. Also the gamers waiting something new, over the gamers that want a remake is exponentially much larger. Skywind is coming along great. Might as well wait for the best of both worlds.
 
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I am not getting my hopes up for Skywind until it is released. I have seen too many ambitious projects fall apart. If it is ever released I will be happy to say I was wrong. I wish Bethesda would do a remake of Morrowind and spruce up the combat.
 
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Skywind will give us everything we've ever wanted!

At least when its finally released my toddler will be all grown up and moved out of the house so i'll have lots of time to play it.
 
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I really don't want Bethesda to attempt another game in the vein of Morrowind.
They would fail. Clearly, they just don't have the right people to go in that direction any more.

Let other developers have at it.
Smaller developers, not aiming at the mass market.
 
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I never thought morrowind was that great to begin with.

I thought it was an excellent fantasy world simulator for its time, but I agree that the game was a bit lacking.
 
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Skywind cant fix

- shadows
- sloppy code
- console UI

despite everything

I hear the shadows are improved in the Special Edition, and the shift to the 64bit engine might have cleaned up the code a little bit. I wonder if they'll shift development to the new version.
 
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Skywind cant fix

- shadows
- sloppy code
- console UI

despite everything

Well,
- shadows are being fixed in SE,
- Morrowind's code was sloppy, too,
- UI is completely redone by mods already.

I think this is a phantom discussion. When I first arrived at the Codex it was common knowledge that Morrowind was crap, especially compared to what Daggerfall (and to a lesser degree Arena, too) tried and partially achieved. Morrowind tried too hard for me to be special (think PS:T done wrong) while retaining the flaws of its predecessors, like feeling utterly generic.

Skyrim on the other hand is the only ES game I had/have "fun" with - silly, mindless fun, yes, but still fun. Skyrim solved most of the ES problems by just removing everything related - "operation cleansweep" like. This is much different from Oblivion, which tried nothing and achieved just that.

Just my 2 cents.
 
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I really don't want Bethesda to attempt another game in the vein of Morrowind.
They would fail. Clearly, they just don't have the right people to go in that direction any more.

Let other developers have at it.
Smaller developers, not aiming at the mass market.

Smaller developers who also grew up with Morrowind, Gothic, etc, or at least thoroughly studied them. If the developers have not really played those games much or studied them then you are not going to get a similar style of game from them, IMO.
 
Why would Bethesda want to move on from Morrowind? Who have said it? Bethesda wants to move on, naturally, but why from Morrowind? Anyway.

To be honest, I don't care about Morrowind or Might & Magic or Gothic or Wizardry or Ultima anymore. I even don't care about Skyrim because it's all history. Nostalgy is normally doesn't bother me.
Luckily, unlike 20 years ago, there's so many new games around. Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Wasteland 2, Original Sin and many other games are doing great. I have no doubts that coming years we will get new amazing titles. I hope that we'll see TES6 soon.
 
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To be honest, I don't care about Morrowind or Might & Magic or Gothic or Wizardry or Ultima anymore. I even don't care about Skyrim because it's all history. Nostalgy is normally doesn't bother me.
Luckily, unlike 20 years ago, there's so many new games around. Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Wasteland 2, Original Sin and many other games are doing great. I have no doubts that coming years we will get new amazing titles. I hope that we'll see TES6 soon.

Sadly this is the attitude that many typical gamers (and people in general) seem to take today. No care about the history. No real studying of it. No one recognizing that today's things are here because of the things of yesteryear.

It's cool to like today's things and it can also be cool to study the past, learn from it, build on it. It seems to me like the typical way of many people now is "past = trash. new = shiny and new". Once the shiny and new gets old it's trash, discarded and forgotten. It actually saddens me to see this.
 
Sadly this is the attitude that many typical gamers (and people in general) seem to take today. No care about the history. No real studying of it. No one recognizing that today's things are here because of the things of yesteryear.

There's a shoemaker and me who wears shoes. Why do I need to study shoe history?
Come on. I prefer to study something else, wearing nice shoes made by someone who know all about shoes including shoe history.

Besides, I know a thing or two about RPG games since I play RPG about 30 years, but it seems that my attitude towards RPG still makes you said? Ha-ha :)
 
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There's a shoemaker and me who wears shoes. Why do I need to study shoe history?
Come on. I prefer to study something else, wearing nice shoes made by someone who know all about shoes including shoe history.

Besides, I know a thing or two about RPG games since I play RPG about 30 years, but it seems that my attitude towards RPG still makes you said? Ha-ha :)

I just used your quote as a chance to say what I wanted to say. But ya know, you can do whatever you like. I happen to like history, etc., and many people seem to just "not care", as you put it. Do and like what you like.
 
I thought it was an excellent fantasy world simulator for its time, but I agree that the game was a bit lacking.
Yeah, the graphics were GREAT! The game needed help, though. What I mostly remember is having to restart the game because I hopped/sneaked too much and found myself facing level 10 critters with level 2 combat skills. Also finally getting to the point where I could make my own magic weapon and suddenly the game was on easy mode.
 
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I think the thread's topic heading is somewhat questioned by the simple fact that we have projects like Skywind and Skyblivion rather than Morro-rim or Oblivi-rim. :)

Considering that the skill systems have become gradually more stripped backwards over time (rather than built upon) in Elder Scrolls games, this arguably represents somewhat of a devolution from a role-playing or character building perspective. Players attachment to Morrowind over Skyrim in this department is definitely understandable. (27 in Morrowind, 21 in Oblivion and then 18 in Skyrim is a significant drop.)

That said, I do enjoy the setting and adventurous spirit of Elder Scrolls games, but they continue to fall frustratingly short in providing strong impacting choices and a compelling story component.

Without new content to supplement it, the Skyrim upgrade does very little to motivate me to return to playing to be honest, as I'm very rarely driven by the mere act of looking at pretty or even prettier pictures. :)
 
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Considering that the skill systems have become gradually more stripped backwards over time (rather than built upon) in Elder Scrolls games, this arguably represents somewhat of a devolution from a role-playing or character building perspective. Players attachment to Morrowind over Skyrim in this department is definitely understandable. (27 in Morrowind, 21 in Oblivion and then 18 in Skyrim is a significant drop.)

That said, I do enjoy the setting and adventurous spirit of Elder Scrolls games, but they continue to fall frustratingly short in providing strong impacting choices and a compelling story component.

I strongly disagree with the story comment. The Elder Scrolls games are RPGs that have a "do at your leisure" story (for the most part). Morrowind specifically is meant to actually have you explore the world, see the sights and get stronger before even tackling the "main story". It is an "old-school" story. It doesn't rush you, it begs you to explore the world and get to know the area before proceeding.

With Oblivion they tried to "fix" what wasn't broken and had you as a hero from the first quest and minutes of the game. Ultimately this just made the game feel rushed and too action-oriented in comparison to Morrowind. Skyrim tried to mix a bit of the 2 and it was cool overall, but in overall story and the vibe from the story I feel Morrowind is the number 1 in Elder Scrolls. Not to mention the creativity and wild lore that they introduced with Morrowind's story. It is…magic.

"Impacting decisions", well, does every RPG need this to be enjoyable? I don't think so. While it is cool to have some decisions in the game, it ultimately is not a "change the world with each quest" type of game. There are occasional choices in dialogue, but Morrowind also has quests which you can handle in multiple ways (and more of this type of clever design would be great!). I prefer the game decisions being the game giving you a huge toolset and lets you figure out how to finish the quest your own way. Choose yourself how you want to tackle something, rather than seeing a dialogue chart and choosing "NICE RESPONSE", "EVIL RESPONSE", etc., and gaining points for these choices, etc. Then it feels way too clinical and scripted. Keep it natural and let the player discover clever tactics that aren't glowing with a bright arrow to point you towards them.

However, I do agree that the "stripping" of certain RPG features and mechanics is a problem. Making the game "more efficient" (as devs would likely tell you) ultimately means stripping, stripping, stripping away until only the mere essence remains. While this makes things easier for new players and the younger generation who aren't used to RPGs, allows them to "put more characters on screen at once", etc., it also strips away some of the creativity and "endless playground" feel of the previous games.

I don't think a game needs the tightest, clinical balance to be great. Morrowind certainly wasn't balanced that tightly and I consider is a super-classic of the PC RPG genre. Sure, you could make things a bit tighter here and there, but keeping a bit of a "rough edge" is part of the charm. If you try too hard to balance it you become clinical again and the game loses its appeal because of that.

The thing I love about Morrowind is that is a big playground. You can create all sorts of different characters who do feel different for most of the game. Even walking speed is regulated by stats and that makes the game feel different (very basic example, but you get the idea). You can create many different classes, ponder which stats to upgrade, and the game generally feels unique for a long time until your character becomes God-like. I continue to create new characters in the game to this day just messing with different stats and classes, building interesting characters, trying out different loot, spell combinations, etc. etc. It's a huge RPG playground.

So, ultimately I could write a book but I'd just like to see a hungry development team with a lot of knowledge and passion for Morrowind take a chance at their own open-world megalith of an RPG. Take Morrowind and add even more clever attributes to it. Give us a playground of experimentation and creativity within the game like Morrowind provided. I think if someone did this it could be quite interesting.
 
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