The_Vault_Dweller said:
Yes Marrowind could be one of the greatest RPG's of all time I think. The only reason I cant really claim it was 'cause I never finished it. The game is the best for non-linearity in a massive world of endless possibilities...something I only dreamed of before and now after playing it realises a "boundless" world can actually be overwhelming. Still I like it better than some super-linear console crap. Im glad its the way it is.
No, Morrowind IS super-linear console crap, just like most of the Elder Scrolls games after awhile. Vapid design with pretty eye candy was how it could be released for the X-Brick, and TES will continue to be shit as long as they continue that development schema. I really want to know what they are going to lobotomize next in order to have even SHINIER graphics!, because there's not much left to remove until there's nothing that resembles a game but rather a 3d environment screensaver.
The depth of the world, when you peel back the very thin layer of any real CRPG design style they
should try to rip off from others in order to expand, because they aren't doing too well on their own and should soon drop the pretense of calling it a CRPG. Hell, maybe having to look at Fallout might give them some idea as to how speech should go, rather than sound like characters from a munchkin Monty Hauler's D&D campaign with big chunks of specific information (which, like most of the books and setting background devices, are as dry and relevant as scorpion shit) and then a bit of general location "How do I find?" crap. I just hope they don't pull a BioWare and just half-ass Fallout's speech system, or have it like in Baldur's Gate, where you have one rational line to pick and the rest generally go to combat.
I also want to know what "endless possibilities" you are talking about other than dying from old age from walking forever through shitty pre-generated maps. With the promise of more land mass than Morrowind and how watered down that game was, I think it's safe to say that Bethesda hasn't learned much over the years than to attract a crowd that moos at the graphics as they walk endlessly through the landscape. To make it tolerable or even playable, people have to exploit the skill system.
I have played the TES series since Arena. It was okay. It had a large land, dungeons, and sprawling cities. It was good, the NPCs were excusable to be a little weak then with the size, the gameplay was rather; but then they were nowhere and have instead been going backwards in the core game while offering a construction set so you can play every imbalanced brain turd from any 12 year-old with the same poor sense of design, and polish up the graphics.
Here's *some* the changes between Daggerfall and Morrowind:
-Dumbed down combat system
-The characters, even important ones, are all still pretty lifeless
-The same goes for the world. Bethesda earned praise on Arena for the sheer size of land area, same with Daggerfall. Now only if they could come to the present and DO something with that instead of using an RNG for development in that area as well.
-Almost no depth regarding afflictions, which were one of the most liked aspects about Daggerfall, unless you buy an expansion and even then it's questionable.
-Who was the idiot responsible for that unbelievably poorly-designed pyramid-fetish town? There was no other explanation for how poorly-designed that place was, just to have a "quirky" city design. Next time, they should try "quirky city that doesn't feel like it was planned by a lunatic in City Hall".
-The world progression, contrary to Arena and Daggerfall, is mostly linear. With Daggerfall, you can explore the world fairly well, and if something looked nasty you could run away. In Morrowind, if your run skill sucks, plan on reloading often. (What, did all of the playtesters call in retarded for this project?)
-Daggerfall also had random quests, from guilds and all over. They innovated this to Morrowind, so that even the main quests feel like random quests.
-The graphics are better, though the world design itself still looks like shit for the most part. There are some neat locations, but the world as a whole doesn't really add much atmosphere when the world is lifeless and plays like the 3d and mind-numbing version of ProgressQuest.
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