Why You Should Still Play Morrowind Today 

I made one video where I was accused of hating on Morrowind and being a filthy casual who accuses people thinking a game is good of being nostalgic. Then I made this video and people accuse me of ignoring all of Morrowind's flaws and of being a nostalgic fanboy. Welcome to the internet, where you can never win.

Reson why: it's the only elder scrolls game my computer can run

"Don't bother, just wait for Skywind, it'll be out soon." And here I sit in 2020 and we still don't have it.

I remember going to the game stop in the local mall with my mom when I was 13. I wanted to buy some command and conquer game but the guy behind the counter convinced me that I HAD to buy Morrowind! He said it was the greatest game ever and would offer me hundreds of hours of playtime. Whoever that was, you rock dude! You were right ;) This was one of the best games ever and gave me so much enjoyment!

Spent the night at a friend's house in 2002. Brought my computer over to play Counterstrike, and he forced me to install the Elder Scrolls. I never ended up playing Counterstrike, but I did stay up and play Morrowind for 13 straight hours that night with bathroom breaks. Took the computer home, and spent every waking hour playing through the main+side quests. I lost weight IRL, and stopped doing homework. I set my monitor on a box next to the bed with my keyboard and mouse on the bed so I could play without having to sit up. I almost exclusively ate pop-tarts and Dr. Pepper, and occasionally glanced outside, squinting at the daylight. After 3 months, I was tapped out, and I put the game aside after parents started fearing for my health. Every couple years since then, I revisit Morrowind. It still has the same effect, of pulling me in and not letting me go. Every note in the soundtrack draws me back to a certain moment of gameplay. Certain candles at the store will remind me of Pelagiad. To this day, I want a home with carpets hanging from the walls. Morrowind will infect your soul, and if you read this and understand, then you already know.

The thing about Morrowind, is it actually forced you to follow the lore. You had to read your journal and certain books to know what the hell you were supposed to do. Not this "Follow your GPS" garbage they put in games today.

I just feel morrowind was more immersive. Well got to go! *jumps 300 feet in the air*

"it comes out soon" 5 years later ....

Let me see how I see it: - Game isn't dumbed down. - Questing isn't spoiled with quest markers. - Bosses are difficult and enemies are various. - No fast travelling and instead pay to travel and immerse in the land. - Had a climate of its own, especially dwarven stuff. - The Game is long, quests are extensive, to pass the game you have to grind the sh..t out of it. - Economy is worth it. - Epic loot is epic and rare and too expensive to sell. - Sold Items and enemy EQ isn't lvl based and so rare and expensive items aren't devaluated. - No morality or quest relativeness restrains, you kill whoever you wanna kill and you suffer the consequences of killing the wrong guy. - Music still beats the crap out of some modern games still. - You feel accomplished playing it. Today in 2015 the irony is this game has everything modern cRPGs don't have and lacks the only thing they whore themself out to... Graphics.

I JUST found Morrowind GOTY edition at a used bookstore and bought it immediately. I've filled out the information for my first character, bought a spear and some equipment from the local trader, and after hearing rumors of some smugglers hiding in a nearby cave, went off to deal with them... and got killed by the very first bandit as soon as I stepped through the door. All in all, my first session in Morrowind was a pretty exciting experience, despite or perhaps because of the dated graphics and combat engine. I think a huge part of what made it more enjoyable than Oblivion and Skyrim is that there wasn't some long, drawn-out opening mission pushing you into the main quest. Morrowind doesn't drag you along by the nose like Oblivion and Skyrim do with their main storylines. You're not stuck in a prison, there's no sudden attack by red-robed assassins or dragons, and no extended trek through dank dungeon hallways, sewers, or tunnels before the world finally opens up. Instead, you just create your character, learn the basic controls, and the game turns you lose. Yeah, there's a set of instructions I was given to follow and I've got a delivery to make, but I'm essentially a free man and there's nothing keeping me from taking my time and doing my own thing along the way, whereas the later games put you in a situation where, even if it wasn't the case, it felt like you had to get the main quest done as quickly as possible before you could slow down and enjoy yourself. I can already tell that I'm really going to enjoy Morrowind. I've cleared the cave I mentioned and freed the slaves within, and now I'm eagerly awaiting the adventures that lie before me on my long journey to Balmora.

A random thought here, but I think part of the reason why games were more in depth back then, was because they were made by nerds, for nerds. Video games as an entertainment medium were pretty niche, and you were likely to get funny looks if you tried to talk to strangers about video game related things. Which in a lot of cases, got you ostracized or bullied. It was a hobby that many used to keep in the closet. So games were not necessarily being designed for the mass market as a means of appealing to the lowest common denominator (dudebros/casuals). They were designed for a small, fiercely loyal, and hardcore niche. Especially on PC. They also did not have the ridiculous development costs that they do now. So the absence of risk allowed for more creative expression. They also had a firm grasp on what that niche would like. So they didn't have to worry about watering down or moderating the creative aspects. Most developers do not cater to a niche these days, and instead try to create the most simple and accessible (souless) games possible. Which is the type of game needed to pull in as many casuals and non gamers for the $$$. I think part of why Morrowind may hold such a special place in your' heart, is not just because of nostalgia, but because this was a time when your' niche was actually catered to. I know, at least, that I am no longer the target demographic for the modern gaming industry. I do miss the days when I was though. I partially blame the internet for destroying my niche, but that's a different story altogether.

I still remember almost every road of the entire map, its like walking in my hometown. So much time spent in the game.

Weird hearing someone say ''Morrowind is the best Elder Scrolls game'' like it's a controversial opinion. I thought that was obvious and accepted by everyone.

I once made a pair of pants shooting fucking fireballs. Things will never again be the same.

Can i just say "thank you for making this video"? It really inspired me to give Morrowind another chance, and i've been enjoying every second of it since i watched this. Seriously, thank you.

Never played Morrowind. I'm going to now.

The cool thing about Morrowind is the the fact that there are questlines worth doing.

Upon boot up : 'man, this looks dated as hell.' 10 minutes in: ' *WUZ GUD, N'WAH* '

Early 2009 my brother, turning 10, gets about 7 games and a brand new "Xbox". The Halo Special Edition mind you. He plays all the games including odd titles like "Area 51" and "Halo 1 and 2". After a while he has a game he says he never liked and wants to return in for a new fancier shinier game. My Dad gives it back to the mad and demanding kid and says just give it one more go. I see him playing it and here the cool and eerie startup music and the title "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind". I say something any 8 year old would say; "Looks dumb" My older brother agrees. He then starts up the beginning and my interest clicks like a fire from a match clicking against tinder and dry wood. After about 15 minutes of my brother dukeing it out with a Mudcrab we here an eerie ass noise. As the Mudcrab falls down he collects his spoils; a simple bit of meat. I hear a the music for battle still waging when we hear a caw as were attacked from above. The Cliffracer kills us and we get so mad.

Oh man how I miss Morrowind. Skyrim and Oblivion and the rest are fantastic as well, far better than most games during their times, but Morrowind stood out to me. I think that it has the best story, Skyrim has good gameplay and Oblivion is in the middle

why do people hate Oblivion so much? Oblivion was the first Elder Scrolls I played so I might be biased but I loved it.

Something I don't really approve about Skyrim and oblivion is take it out the skills that used to be there. Like Spears, medium armor and varieties of weapon types and Element type. And you actually can sleep on the ground.

depth, exactly what's missing from tell modern elder scrolls. I loved the dungeon and dragon aspect to it

You really hit the nail on the head. This is exactly how I feel, and I still play Morrowind as well. And as many times as I play, it is a completely different experience. Like you, I've put thousands of hours into the game. I have Mehrunes Razor tattooed on my arm in honor of all the Elder Scrolls games I've played. I bought Morrowind the day it came out. I was at the store looking for something to break my EQ habit with. I have lost 2 and half years of my life to that game and I was burned out, and needed and ersatz to take it's place. I've not stopped playing yet. No matter what great games come out, they just can't seem to provide the highly personal, and so extremely varied adventures I have in Morrowind, and I always "return home". thank you for sharing this. It was wonderful to hear from a kindred spirit.

In Morrowind you can fly (Officially through magic, not mod). You cannot do that in Oblivion or Skyrim.

There is only one thing i have to say to all those diehard-fanboys in this comment section: I played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, and I enjoyed them all, without having the need to bash any of them. Sometimes you can like something without hating something else.

Man, I remember watching this video in high-school. So glad I found it again.

"The best-looking 3D RPG ever" ~ PC Gamer

I fear we will never get to play an RPG as grand as Morrowind was

"There are a few ways we can do this and the choice is yours." Best line ever. Beautiful video. It's with Morrowind that someone my age can understand how old people look so sad and happy thinking about the past. At least with Morrowind, I can always go back and experience it again. For me, a lot of the "magic" of the game would return if they returned the spell crafting and enchanting to it's full glory. Forget balance, this is a single player game. Levitation these days would "break the rollercoaster" but back in Morrowind days it was just a fact of life and they actually hid some items for people who used it. I was in mage heaven with Morrowind. I could do anything I wanted with the right amount of resources and creativity. It was kind of like a mage version of minecraft for me.

if you rage about the combat in Morrowind, I simply do not want to be the DM in your DnD session when you roll a 1. 0-0

I've been thinking about playing Morrowind for a long time, I was tossing up between waiting for Skywind and doing alot of mods but this video alone convinced me to play the original.

At the age of 18, I remember seeing the Xbox version of Morowind sitting on a shelf in Game stop with it's bland uninteresting cover. I thought to myself "The fuck is this bullshit and why is it so cheap?". To this day I never regret buying it. After becoming frustrated with it's limitations because I didn't understand at the time what I had, I took it back the next day. The clerk was rather flabbergasted when I brought it in and asked me why I was returning it. "It sucks" I answered simply. He looked disappointed and I didn't know why. So as I leave, I notice the strategy guide for the game of the year edition. I tend to give games a chance after seeing it win awards at E3. So I start to ask the clerk questions about Morowind and he is gushing about it! Seeing his excitement as he explained the game in his words, I asked him, "Do you guys have the game of the year edition?". "We have one copy in the back, you want it?". I nod. He comes back and presents a brand new copy of the game un-opened and urged me to purchase the strategy guide as well. At home, I'm flipping through the guide and seeing all I could do got me stoked to play a game I initially took back for a refund 30 minutes earlier. As I took to my new character again, I began to understand games like Morowind a little better. I was never an RPG lover, Morrowind's gameplay and open world has shown me that not all RPGs were turn based like FF or Pokemon. I could actually enjoy a fantasy game with a deep story and play it for hours on end. I loved and played this game sooooo freaking much that my best friend who exclusively played sports games, got a copy of his own and traded memory cards to see how each character progress. We've purchased the later versions whenever they were released and pointed out shit that was left out and lamented over it for a bit, but enjoyed those games with the same amount of love and loyalty we had for Morrowind.

Lol at 18:45 "the graphics are so good blah blah blah" //bear walks right through a snow pile

I'm glad Skyrim got remastered because Consoles couldn't handle it very well, but a remastered Morrowind would be incredible

I really appreciated this video, although I have wanted to do an analysis video on Morrowind myself whenever I have thoughts or analysis to contemplate on I come to this video which wraps up my thoughts quite nicely. Thanks for that SorcererDave.

A message to morrowind combat haters: So Nearly anytime I try to search for a morrowind discussion I get some video or discussion on how "morrowind's combat is a piece of [censored] because you don't miss your target in real life even if you have low skill" well I am sorry to tell you this but you are, based on my experiences, wrong. A few months ago me and some people I knew would set up fights with practice weapons, I knew a few things about swords so I was decently good with them, however when I first tried using an axes I did hit miss my target quite a bit actually he wasn't even dodging most of my attacks. You see fighting, as an inexperienced, was very hectic and chaotic you are trying your best to flail your arms into someone while at the same time trying desperately to not let them hit you back sometimes they have a big shield blocking them and sometimes you do to. A few months after this I was more experienced in using an axe, one of the people who did this invited his new friend to join us and, he was almost always failing to hit us while we were hitting him at least 75% of the time. You see combat isn't the way the media portrays it, it isn't some overly dramatic slow swinging one hit hobby, IT is chaotic. Morrowind seemed to capture this in a realistic way for me as when my character first started he could barely hit his target, then as my character became a master of his weapon type he now almost never misses his target.

That "special-something" that all people love about Morrowind and can't explain, is called Nostalgia. I love morrowind to, but people tend to ignore its problems, and make it out to be the perfect game, simply because it connects to a certain time in their life. I do the same, with oblivion.

My father's favorite is Morrowind, my favorite is Oblivion, and my girlfriend's favorite is Skyrim. These also happen to be the ones each of us first played. I doubt this is just coincidence. Any of the three you started with most likely will be your favorite, because it's the one where you completely immerse yourself in, learning everything you can. There's no baggage of the previous one. I played Oblivion over and over, front to back doing every major quest and all the guilds, and enjoyed every second of it. When I played Skyrim, everything may have been different, but it was still, at its core, the same. The magic that Morrowind had for you, Oblivion had for someone else, as does Skyrim. Regardless of which one is "better", it won't matter to you. If you already know all this, then disregard this message. This is solely to the people who refuse to accept that someone else can enjoy Oblivion or Skyrim more than they do Morrowind. When it all comes down to it, aren't we all still Elder Scrolls fans?

Morrowind will always be my favorite. Tribunal's ending legit gave me nightmares.

Instead of arguing which Elder scrolls game is best, can we just agree that the series is one of the best if not the best game series.

why couldnt they keep the same combat system, but when you miss, the enemy dodges, or parries, or blocks??

My last Morrowind play through had me collecting every single light source I could pick up, candles, lamps and lanterns, and when I got around to building the player estate. . . . . CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!

I read about the 1 era timeline in the books in Skyrim, and I was fascinated to learn that there is a part of the Elder Scrolls games where you can actually visit the beautiful city of Vivec and see the ALMSIVI with your own eyes. I play Morrowind now and can't get enough of it, there is so much lore to learn, so much satisfaction from developing your character, once you get the hold of the complex game mechanics.

When I was first playing Morrowind, I couldn't for the life of me find Caius Cosades' house, and eventually I just forgot all about him. After a very long while of playing Morrowind with what seemed to me like no plot I finally decided that the entire point of the game must be to free all of the slaves so I made it my mission to do that and ended up killing some crucial characters in an attempt to find the keys to the slaves' bracers. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was a real plot. I love Morrowind for all of its quirks and I will never truly leave it.

I tried Morrowind twice and I really want to get into it, but can't. The world just doens't absorb me and the game feels tedious. I can look past the combat, it's only a small part of the game, if it was the only problem I have with it, I'd probbably love the game. If the game had at least optional quest markers and didn't handicap the beast races, I'd probbably have gotten into it already. But this video made me want to give it yet another shot. I really want to get into it.

I've been intending to sit down and watch this for some time, and I'm glad I finally did. A very eloquent, and dare I say, passionate, love song to a wonderful old game. Like you, I enjoy Skyrim, and I've come to appreciate a (very heavily modded) Oblivion... but Morrowind is the one I always return to, and always will, for all the reasons you state. Each and every time I create a new character, disembark in Seyda Neen, and hear that mournful call of the siltstrider, I feel as though I've finally come home. While I have tremendous respect for the Skywind team, I'm not eagerly anticipating their release. For me, it will never be Morrowind. OpenMW, on the other hand, I'm keeping a close eye on. I had to chuckle when you comment in this video upon those who have often encouraged people to "wait for Skywind," because "it will be out soon." You published this video exactly three years ago, and the same individuals are *still* saying precisely that. Anyway... I know I'm really late to the party here, as is the case with your channel generally, but I just wanted to say thanks for this. I've been thinking of another journey in Morrowind for a while, and as you were talking I fetched the original, boxed in a double CD jewel case, GOTY version from my bookshelf and placed it on my desk. Cheers!

Nostalgia is a double edged sword.

Every quest in Skyrim- Go to this cave kill this thing/find this item bring back the quest item required. Quests in Oblivion- Go inside this painting using a spell, find the man trapped inside, help him get out by fighting painted trolls. Quests Morrowind- Go find this person, so they can tell you to find another person that will give you advice on how to find a daedric shrine. go to the shrine grab quest item, bring back required quest item. I'm not saying skyrim or morrowind are bad games, i just prefer creative quests over prolonged and bolk quest lines.

Just my opinions and criticisms on this topic and not intended to offend. I love morrowind, but not as much as skyrim, and found many issues with this video and with the points you made. This will be a list breaking down your video piece by piece as I deem necessary. 1. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with the wood elf story. If the point was that you recognized that morrowind did not conform to most contemporary fantasy elements? Because wood elves still live in trees/forests in the elder scrolls series and that would not be a point about morrowind, but of the series as a whole. Can someone clear up what he meant? 2. About alduin and dagoth ur. I find that the setting around dagoth was wonderful and fun to play through but the introduction to the area when playing through the main story felt rushed and the battle was over quicker and more anticlimactically than the battle with alduin. Dagoth wasn't even a physical part of the story and was in the shadows as just a motivation and plot device until the end. most of the plot was the main character getting help from others he didn't need and did not involve dagoth ur until towards the end. On the other hand, Skyrim's plot revolved around the dragons, alduin, and the quest for power needed to destroy him. The objects that you get in the plot where needed and used to proceed and you could not finish the story without multiple Items and spells that were nearly always directed at the end goal. Also both endings where anticlimactic but skyrims tried to be more involved and cinematic. 3. The issue with comparing movie remakes with skywind is that usually movie remakes change characters, plot, dialog, pacing, and design. With skywind the changes will be only to the engine, menus, and models. I find that to be wonderful because the morrowind engine was even more buggy then skyrim's engine. The new menu design is more streamlined than the old game and much easier to use. Morrowind also had an atrocious "roll of the dice" combat system - which you mentioned - that was instantly modded away for good reason. It was clunky, less realistic, and often immersion breaking.You tried to defend it but it was annoying and completely unnecessary. For a lot of people it was very easy to get lost or confused due to horrible instructions on where to go or what to do, and its predecessors fixed that by giving more detailed instructions on what to do or where to go. However I will say that the later games sometimes did not do this and you could not find your way without a map marker - which I hate -. People also say that npcs in morrowind had more intractability/dialog with the main character, when that is simply not the case, and is the same copy & pasted paragraphs said over and over, and very few npcs had any personality. All of which I stated has a very large probability of being improved by skywind. The conclusions you are making are very biased, not very well thought out, and nostalgia riddled. 4. all of the "you are the one points" could be said about skyrim. And while the enchanting system had more depth it was at times silly and overpowered. you're trying to put an emotional spin behind it by chanting "you are the one" but that doesn't give it any more factual credibility and can be easily considered pandering to the audience. 5. "One feels like a playground and one like a theme park"... Opinionated, biased, Overloaded with nostalgia. "That kind of gameplay depth never ages"... Same could be said about skyrim... which was - from an unbiased opinion - better and more thought out than morrowind. 6. You should never talk about mods for a game when comparing base games and a remake of one. If we are including mods, then skyrims enchanting system could be deeper then morrowinds, the areas to explore would be exponentially larger than skyrim and even larger compared to morrowind, and the systems for nearly every game mechanic could be improved vastly due to skyrim/skywinds engine. 7. Once again, literally every aspect of the story, characters, and exploration, will stay the same in skywind. It will just be polished and many hated features will be improved. So everybody, the conclusion is that this review IS verry nostalgia heavy and you should take this with a grain of salt before buying so as to not be disappointed when buying the game. Thnx for reading, Mr.SunnyD

I copped "Boots of blinding speed" in my playthough back in the day, when i put them on it glitched out and only slightly dimmed my visibility. i then created a ring that allowed me to levitate and was basically a god that could fly across the map at the speed of sound (disregarding the constant loading screens)

This has to be the most beautiful homage to a videogame I have ever seen. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Germany :')

For all its flaws, the attachment people like myself have for Morrowind can be summarized in four main points: 1) The world of Morrowind is truly foreign. The geography, lore, and story do not follow typical fantasy tropes. You still have your elves, magical spells, dungeon crawling, and all that good stuff. But for every Tolkienesque attribute, we have two-legged triceratops, corrupted elves with elephant trunks growing out of their faces, giant mushroom trees, fire breathing beetles, mechanical spiders, scrolls that let you leap through the clouds... you get the point. Morrowind had an atmosphere that was truly unique. It wasn't a cookie-cutter RPG by any stretch of the imagination. 2) Gameplay had depth. Oh yes, a lot of it was absolutely broken and could be exploited (*cough* alchemy *cough*), but the sheer amount of material you had to design your character and progress through the game with him or her is almost unrivaled. Some of it has aged poorly, but mods allow us to smooth out the rough edges that we've outgrown. Compare this to Oblivion or Skyrim, where everything is very streamlined. Don't get me wrong, Oblivion and Skyrim made a lot of improvements to the gameplay, but it still lacks the sheer scope of possibility and potential that Morrowind had. 3) You actually *grew* in the world. The world didn't scale around your strength. This is the one thing that aggravates me most about Oblivion and Skyrim. Wherever you go, monsters and enemies will scaled up with your level, rendering the whole leveling process almost pointless. This was not the case in Morrowind. If you wander up to the Sheogorath region without high quality weapons, armor, and the skills to use them, you'll quickly be running back to the ship in Dagon Fel to safer territory. But in your head you tell yourself, "I'll be back, you filthy orc bitches." 4) The world is yours to experience and shape. There are so many political factions and quests in this game, it's ridiculous. Oblivion and Skyrim have drastically reduced the number of factions you can join to a mere four. In Morrowind, you had the Temple, Imperial Cult, the Legion, Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, Mages Guild, the three Great Houses, the three Vampire clans, Morag Tong, Blades, and Twin Lamps. That's FIFTEEN factions! With the exception of the vampire cults and Twin Lamps, every faction had a minimum of 25 quests each. In Skyrim, you settle for about a dozen meaningful quests for every guild. This doesn't mean that Skyrim is not an excellent game. But Morrowind takes the cake when it comes to the vastness of content when it comes to conquering the land of Vvardenfell: an unheard of 600+ quests in total.

I always hated remakes excreted into theatres by the likes of Micheal Bay et all, I guess we're guilty of the same thing at Skywind, albeit blissfully lacking that megan bint. Skywind is essentially a snowball effect, born of nostalgia, and a dose of self indulgence. Final installation will require morrowind to run, so we'd expect many players to have tried morrowind. When it comes to design changes, 3 reasons: 1. Self Indulgent personal artistic license. Cant be helped. We all add something of ourselves when we concept or model. 2. Original concepts of Kirkbride. A lot of K's ideas didnt make it into morrowind, perhaps due to time or engine limitations of creative differences. We want to bring these ideas back (within reason) 3. Diminishing returns [environments] Quite simply, there is nothing to recreate from morrowinds original landscape in terms of rocks, one of the things i'm working on, so you can personally blame me for this part. MW's land was a blanket of colours with spheres of badly uvd rock texture dropped ontop. Without reimagining the island of vvardenfell based on original formations, colours, and a ton of reference to realistic geology, we were completely stuck. (Beth did this. Go compare solsthiem from MW to DB) As someone doing a game design course, I'm sure Dave can understand these points, and hopefully respect the need and desire for changes where appropriate. We will never achieve the same charm of morrowind. We want Skywind to be as amazing as it can be, for a group of unpaid workers outside the industry, but we know it will never be morrowind. Play Vanilla, play overhaul, play OpenMw, Play skywind. Entirely personal preference.

This is the best video I have ever seen about the Elder Scrolls series. It really captures the underlying problem with the Elder Scrolls more recent titles. The game engine. As good looking as Skyrim is, graphics was never Morrowind's strongest feat to begin with. Sure you can buy a car because it look good. But there will always be some people looking for that special car that make you shivers every time you turn the key to start it. To me Morrowind is the equivalent of that special car.

I think I will start playing this game tomorrow. Great video.

Morrowind is still the best game I have ever played. Oblivion had this Paradise Forest where nothing felt threatening. Skyrim have these snowy, gray and brown, boring plains where you just Sigh when you see a dragon for the 500th time. In Morrowind, the world is out to kill you, wander into the wrong cave and you are a goner. Yes, I am a Morrowind Fanboy and I don't understand what the hell developers are doing these days. There have been no good games lately, its just all about the money.

This video literally forced a tear of sheer nostalgia down my cheek. Thank you. Thank you so much for explaining why this game is still worth it. Why it's still worth it, why it's special, why it's lasting, why it's unique and why it's beautiful.

Morrowind is the best game ever. Still to this day in August 2019. I'm playing it again on the xbox. Bite me.

I keep coming back to watch this again and again. It’s tremendous. Well done, and thank you.

Following up the criticism of the combat system being "godawful" with "Yes, the game is hard, deal with it." seems a bit misguided. The combat system certainly makes the game more difficult, but it's not really _fair_ difficulty. In fact, I'd say it's more unfair than I Wanna Be The Guy, because in that game, the traps at least never _change_. Once you've seen a trap trigger once and died, you know what triggers it and how to avoid it. When you win a fight in early-to-mid game Morrowind, it's just because you were lucky. If you're unlucky, you might just die with no fault of your own. Not to mention that it's entirely possible to create a game where the player always hits, but which is _balls-hard_ and the stats still matter. I don't feel like having that chance-to-hit combat system actually makes Morrowind any better, either. In my opinion, if you ripped out the chance-to-hit combat system and replaced it with one where you always hit, you'd just straight-up have a _better game_ without sacrificing any of Morrowind's qualities. I also feel like you glanced over one of the most important points of Morrowind when compared to its successors and that is the (mostly) lack of level-scaling. If you go into a cave in Oblivion or Skyrim, you'll mostly fight level-appopriate monsters and grab level-appropriate loot. You'll get a fair fight, but that also means that you'll rarely get the feeling of a monster just being _too powerful_ or too weak. The world changes according to you. As you said, it's a theme park. Morrowind's world, on the other hand, doesn't care about you. It's a brutal world where you have to tread carefully or you'll just get murdered, so you might find a cave that has loot that upgrades your equipment twice over, but is guarded by monsters that you can't just ram your face into and win. It's a nice risk-reward system which is mostly absent from the later titles.

Morrowind was damn hard, I wasn't sure if if was young stupidity or the game's fault. Unlike Skyrim, Morrowind didn't hold your hand along the way, it pushed you out of your home and told you to follow your destiny, Skyrim pulls you along for a bit until you get the hang of things. I'm not sure if they didn't have the tech to make the game hold your hand or they just wanted it to be hard, but for me, I lost intrest in morrowind because of the lack of help from the game, I had no idea what to do the whole time, I was constantly being pushed around by guards because I stole something in an empty room with no one there, so I guess Balmora had CCTV or some shit...

I remember deploying for the Iraq war in the navy, I was able to smuggle an Xbox on-board my ship with a copy of this game. I explored every nook and cranny of Vardenfall when I was not on watch.

You, sir! You've spoken everything I've tried to tell my friends since getting the game about 10 yrs ago as well so eloquently. Great video, thanks. Subbed.

I like skyrim most (just my opinion though) because it's got good graphics, gameplay, animations, mechanics, the GUIs are easy to navigate and the lore goes back centuries, it has an entire history and you're a part of that. There's even an entire language you can learn! And it has a storyline of your adventure, not just the history and lore.

I've downloaded Morrowind just now while watching this video. I'm a younger person that plays a lot of the 'newer' games, and it amazes me the depth with some of the older games. Even with Oblivion.. it's hard for me to realize that I don't always just have to go in and slaughter everyone, like in Skyrim. I never really enchanted or crafted things in Skyrim, because it seemed kind of useless to me. So, uh.. Morrowind will probably be a very new adventure for me.

This retrospective finally helps me realize why I, myself, have never fallen in love with Morrowind like virtually every other Elder Scrolls enthusiast I have met. In fact, it helps me understand more thoroughly why I strongly *dislike* it as a game. Morrowind was my first experience with the Elder Scrolls series because I bought it only a few months after it came out, and built a PC specifically so I *could* run Morrowind, so I can attest from personal experience that while Nostalgia has a giant factor in people's enjoyment of the game, it's not the chief defining factor. The realization hit as soon as you started talking about the game mechanics and how the game presents itself as a "toolbox" for players to experiment, and then go on to list a bunch of *magically focused utilities* for the game mechanics. I never liked Morrowind's "intricate" mechanics system, let alone the spell crafting and magic system. I think it's clunky, difficult to use and thoroughly aggravating to even attempt to engage with. So I deliberately never do. I don't want to bother with enchanting items. I don't want to bother with learning and crafting spells. I just want to swing a sword, throw a fireball, kill a dude, sneak around, take some loot and advance the main plot line. However, Morrowind actively *punishes* my playstyle by waggling its finger and saying "Ah ah ah, you HAVE to engage with and deliberately try and undermine the clunky and terrible mechanics of this game if you want to move forward, so you better min/max those abilities/spells/enchantments whether you like it or not!". I have tried at least three dozen times to play through Morrowind, and each time I hit a point and realize I'm bored to tears because A) The Game won't let me advance because of a "you must be this tall to adventure!" sign posted at that point in the main quest (Balmora comes immediately to mind and how the game *will not* let you even attempt to advance the main quest until you do a bunch of random boring errands and "advance" your standing in a guild and character level) or B) Whoops, didn't bring a way to fly/teleport/jump really high/insert cheesy game breaking exploit here? well have a heaping helping of "THOU SHALL NOT PASS" until you do, peon! To this day I don't think I've ever even gotten a quarter of the way through the main quest line, despite all my best attempts at trying to actually experience it. When a game with world building and history as rich as Morrowind that I absolutely adore and love constantly pulls me out of the experience because I'm not playing it the way it wants to force me to play, it becomes the most frustrating and disheartening thing ever. I *want* to experience this game. I *want* to enjoy it. The game itself just wasn't designed in a way that lets me do that, therefore I don't think I ever really can.

Imagine releasing a video and 8 years later it influences someone to play a game 21 years old.

Well done and well said Sorcerer. When creating a channel (speaking only for myself) it is hard to not get caught up in the race for subscribers or more videos for the sake of uploads and while I caught myself being a product of that a little more than a month ago before announcing that I would not make a certain type of video anymore and that I would make less videos with better quality to give my viewers maybe not what they wanted at the time of telling them but giving them what they deserve when taking time from their lives to view my "creativity".... this video that you have made is grounding and inspirational to not just the game/world of Morrowind but to the heart of creativity itself. Even humanity, perhaps, if one looks at it with an experienced eye. For the same reason that most of the best books were written long ago, that most of the best movies have already been created and that most of the best philosophy's to live by have already been written down as well as what has sadly been lost by too many and even scarier, what too many will never experience as more and more generations pass into the speedy, give it to me now societies that our ever culture merging earth is becoming: individuality, "heart and soul", and attention to detail beyond simple "fast food" ascetic cravings. Sorry to ramble, but it was nice to be shown this video and I'm happy a buddy of mine sent it to me. Well done and appreciated.

13:03 Reminds me of a Ring I once made in Oblivion that, by having the enchantment be slighly off, caused me to burn to death at 25 points of Fire Damage

That last clip was such a great note to end on. So many times I've heard it just to keep making a new character to finely craft into something I could finally work with to over come the need to put my foot in to say that yes, I can overcome the challenge set before me and beat this game once and for all.

brilliant, this video was absolutely amazing and Strikes on so many things that I never even considered. but they are all things that make me love modeling and I found your videos because I recently started playing the game again. Thank you so much.

#1 reason why to never play morrowind ever again. I could go on and on and on about a lot of things, but I really only need to say one thing. There's only really one reason why I don't fucking play this game. Fucking. Cliff. Racers.

I think what Skywind is trying to do, and what it will probably succeed at, is bringing Morrowind's lore and story to those that don't enjoy the oldschool RPG mechanics and don't want to play Morrowind because of that. I can think of plenty of people that I know that really liked Skyrim, but that would be bored out of their minds after playing Morrowind for a few hours because they find it too slow, ugly, or just indeed boring in general. Heck, I'd say the majority of the people that played Skyrim probably feel like that. It's a shame, but it's just the way modern games have shaped gamers into expecting fast and easy to grasp entertainment. Complex game mechanics? No thank you, throw some dragons and unicorns in there and it'll be fine. Which is of course detrimental to the experience of those that really do appreciate a deep story and complex gameplay.

I'm currently watching this video for the third time. It reflects my thoughts and fascination with the game so well - and I just love listening to your calming voice. Thanks.

I've never played Morrowind, yet I've always been aware of the significance of it. This is an excellent video to introduce new people (such as I) to the history and background of the game.

Great video, pretty much agree with everything you said! And that was a great explanation of Morrowind's combat system, people often don't understand just how complicated the combat really is in Morrowind. What is also quite often overlooked due to the amount of hype surrounding Skywind, is that Morrowind still has to this day a very active modding community. Major projects like Tamriel Rebuilt, Province: Cyrodiil, Skyrim - Home of the Nords, Lyithdonea, and Jarvik offer massive expansions to Morrowind and are still being worked on by active modders every day. And let's not forget OpenMW, which promises to be an exciting opportunity for Morrowind going into the next decade. Not to mention the countless other Morrowind modders out there that still, to this day, release new mods for Morrowind every week. Morrowind is a great game with a great community, and it should certainly be played in 2014, and for that matter, in 2024 as well! #MorrowindForLife

I really enjoyed your commentary, it's well reasoned and without verbal fumbling or tedious side comments about the kind of day you have had or the life of the cat next door! You also have a pleasant voice which really helps to want to listen to the end.I loved MW and would still play it if I could do so without being forced to use STEAM which I bitterly resent, having bought 2 copies (sequentially) on disc!

I caught a few of your let’s plays with Fathis Ulven and I was enthralled from the beginning. I was already no stranger to Bethesda games, having Fallouts 3 & 4 under my belt, and Oblivion & Skyrim. Then I watched this, and you had me convinced. I got a copy of Morrowind August of last year and I’ve been playing it since. I’ve fallen in love with the game. Thank you for such an excellent recommendation and thank you for your work.

Dave, do you feel the argument of "If you didn't start with Morrowind, you won't appreciate it." holds any merit?

Well done, Jingles! In this 23 minute long video you provided all the answers to why Morrowind was, remains and is going to remain one of the most unique experiences in the fantasy role-playing. It seems like it is a time for me to re-enter the province of Morrowind and continue exploring the latest lore friendly additions, provided by the most wonderful team of Tamriel Rebuilt project.

This is the video that let me to your channel. I found this with in a week or two of when you posted it. :) BGS take a lot of pointers from this video lol

I like how this video is now old, but I'm still playing Morrowind.

I nostalgia'ed so hard watching this. I entirely agree. Morrowind gave you personal freedom. My first playthrough, I didn't understand the idea of quests (first RPG) so I just decided to travel. No particular goal. And it didn't matter! No forced storyline. No expectations. Go be, and enjoy being. Take in the scenery! It was the most excellent thing ever.

Morrowind is the most magical game I've ever played. The game was in some way "hostile" to the newbie players; it was hard to had to find your place in his world. But the game recompensed the players who gave him a second chance. As a great song that gets better with the listenings, the more you played Morrowind, the more you love it. There was always something new to discover. Nowadays is just the opposite. Games are accesible for all the audience, so the more you play, the more you get bored, they have no depth. They are not magical as Morrowind. Oblivion and Skyrim were a step backward.

Decidedly one of the best, most coherent and articulate arguments to sway people into giving this title a chance I've seen to date. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and making this video.

I think this is my favourite youtube video about a game. Your voice and inflection are fascinating.

Ah... Morrowind. The land where everyone hates each other, but they hate _you_ more.

Hit the nail on the head; it did not hold your hand at all. This was my first ever RPG growing up. Instant love for the genre. It made you really learn the world you were just dropped into.

I thought you will talk about the fast travel options you have here including mark and recall (another awesome thing, making your own teleport paths) some more, and quests where you actually have to think and what an accomplishment it is to complete quests without having a GPS for it, it is a satisfying experience to do everything yourself, figure out things, not having lazy options like fast travel or GPS, but still it is a very good video, thanks for making it :)

This video... you hit me right in the sweet spot with this video, man. All this talk and all these posts and all the hype about Skyrim remastered and i.. I'm going home. I'm going back to Morrowind. Thank you.

Wow. I didn't expect something like this. Are there actually people who don't want to play Morrowind or wanna play Skywind instead? For shame. Ah well, their loss.

I remember when I used too play morrowind on the Xbox.. Was in the woods walking around killing some mud crabs when I found a dead body had a scroll on it so I used it, next thing I know is I'm flying in the air across the map and die hahaha

Great Video mate, very well done, Im looking forward to playing again, just bought game of the year from Amazon, brand new £50 quid I played to exhaustion when it first came out cant wait to boot it up again

I've watched this video several times in a row and I keep coming back to it.

Quite a few days ago, I did a quest in Skyrim about a Dunmer who was trying to figure out why his past was somehow connected with Hose Telvanni, I got the location of a book, and that was it, therefore I lost any sort of interest on that character's past. The ES community is giving too much importance to the combat system in Skywind, when the real Game-breaking factor would be the "marked-direction mode" from Skyrim.

While I do acknowledge and agree that Morrowind's combat isn't perfect, and is much more deep than the other games... I still despise it to this very day. The fact that you can literally NOT DAMAGE enemies with weapons you lack skill in has always seemed outrageous to me, and leveling the skill isn't even made any easier to compensate this. While the combat does improve along with your skills, the beginning of the game is always such a painful experience for me. Depth in combat is not an inherently good or bad thing. Skyrim's combat system is comparitively simple and trivial when compared to Morrowind's or even Oblivion's, but it's the simplicity that makes it so instantly addictive for me. Morrowind's combat early game was and is an utterly unsalvagable experience for me, but mid to late game it managed to redeem itself well enough for me to start liking the game. Morrowind's combat is like pouring salt on a wound for ten hours in the early gameplay, and just a light slap on the wrist mid to late game. I don't like the combat very much, but I will agree that Morrowind does have a very strong talent in emphasizing the danger of gravity of a situation. It did feel far more climactic and triumphant when I defeated Dagoth Ur then when I defeated Lord Harkon. Oblivion's combat is quite stiff, 'tis true, but I can get used to it fairly quickly. I guess part of what made me hate Morrowind's combat so much is just the random variables. In Morrowind, most fights early and mid game were utter hell for me. Whereas in Oblivion, there was at least a comparatively good difficulty ascent. Granted, even second or third bandit would be wearing Daedric or Glass armour at higher levels, but it least it was easy in the beginning, allowing me to figure out what the flying f*ck I was doing, then getting difficult later. By allowing the player to have a mace and shield in one hand, but also have a Health absorption spell- ready to be cast at anytime- was something that I really loved about Oblivion, and it was fun seeing all the different weapon and magic strategies you could come up with. Again, not as deep as Morrowind, but still quite a bit of room for creativity. Skyrim's combat is definitely the simplest... But it's fun. It's simple, and graspable. Bows and shields and better than ever, and the introduction of the One-Handed and Two-Handed skills were gifts from heaven to me. This finally meant that if I was using a sword, and was skilled in Blade, I no longer had to sacrifice as much swinging speed by using a Greatsword. If I wanted to, I could switch out to a mace, or a war axe, or maybe even both! By allowing weapons to be dual wielded, combat in the Elder Scrolls was given a new outlet for combat options. Did you want to be a sneaky assassin with two daggers and the Assassin's Blade perk? Go right ahead. Did you want to be a crazy Nord berserker with two maces? What's stopping you? Did you want your conjurer to have a melee option aside from a dagger? Surpise your opponents with dual Bound Swords made as strong as Daedric weapons by perks. Being unable to block, however, was a drawback for a lightly armored character with little defenses. Why not grab some Alternation flesh armor spells? The variables in combat were drawn down to your Stamina for any power attacks and that of your opponent, your health and armor rating and those of your foe, magicka and regeneration rate and those of your enemy, and how close you decide to be your attacker. Skyrim's combat system, on its own, seems pretty simple. And if you put a single player in a world where enemies didn't fight back, it would be a button masher. But seeing these different styles and play clash and mesh is what makes Skyrim such a replayable game. How will an archer approach a necromancer? Do you rely on your skill with a bow, or do you bide your time and carefully dodge incoming spells to wither away the mage's magicka then to rush in with a dagger or a surprise warhammer? And sure, this can be said of any Elder Scrolls game, or any RPG really, but Skyrim is a forgiving game, and doesn't punish you for being indecisive about how you want to play. If you started off as a lightly armored sneaky thief, but then decide you want to be a warrior instead: In Oblivion, the game would say no. In Morrowind, the game would definitely say no. But thanks to Skyrim's perk system made even better by the Legendary system, you can take as much time as you like or need to change things up. If you've got Perk Points, then you can save them for later if you want. Skyrim is admittedly a much more simple and easy game, and while I do respect the changes it made, I do wish it had a bit more of that classic Elder Scrolls challenge. With years of Elder Scrolls under my belt, and I'm afraid I just can't force myself to play Morrowind anymore. I can see why some people are willing to stick through the initial slog, but I can't force myself anymore. It's too slow, and I've done it too many times just to get to good bits in the game. Also, is a compass marker for quests really so difficult? Skyrim got it right, hell, even Oblivion- the supposed black sheep of the franchise- got that right. Getting from Point A to Point B in Morrowind outright pisses me off. If the minimap even had so much as a compass on it, then I would okay, but sweet Jesus... All in all, I'd say Oblivion has probably aged the best for me. It's not a perfect game by any means, its true, but I feel that it gets rid of things I hated about Morrowind and leaves the things I liked largely intact. Oblivion having a quest marker on the compass (HAIL THE COMPASS) was such a beautiful thing to me. Because I actually knew where the f*ck I was supposed to go without asking NPCs where to go and looking at my journal and pausing to look at the map fifteen thousands to memorize which way. While Morrowind certainly isn't my favorite game, in fact, it's one of most frustrating things I've ever experienced (maybe I just have really bad luck, or don't know a masterpiece when I see it). But I can accept why people like it. I like Oblivion most for its cohesion and organisation, but still giving you the opportunity to go anywhere and find an adventure. And having a map marker for quests doesn't hurt. And if you still like Morrowind, that's cool. More power to you, you're more patient than me. I just prefer how I can coordinate myself in Oblivion and actually know that my sword won't miss when I swing my sword within pointblank range of the enemy, with Skyrim's combat freedom coming in at close 2nd for me.

I actually just finished modding the game a few days ago, and I'm finally ready to fire it up for a new playthrough. So excited to play Morrowind again! Excellent video!

I love Morrowind! You talked about the Boots of blinding speed. I remember finding them and thinking it was a joke. But, i carried them with me and used them as a form of fast travel, using the map to guide my way. And after a long long time, i started to see some faint shadows using them. I then realised that i could conteract the blinding effect to some extent by raising my stats or using an item. This is a great game!

Dude.. This video. Your thoughts. How you presented everything. Your reasoning. The feel of it all. Dude.. This is beautiful. It's incredible. And I haven't even played Morrowind (yet, but I have now, thanks to you, started feverishly looking for). Thank you mate.