I’m biased having played Morrowind first, but I’d argue it’s way better than its sequels in a lot of ways, so people are definitely missing out to skip it. The whole game world is hand crafted rather than being procedurally generated, the writing and worldbuilding are better, there was obviously a huge amount of work that went into building the RPG side of Morrowind that felt missing in later games.
I’m so glad I was able to play it first. No game has ever been as immersive to me as Morrowind was. I don’t know if I could say the same thing if I’d have played Oblivion or Skyrim first and tried to go backwards because of how bad the combat system was. I’m also not sure why I didn’t find those two games as immersive as I did Morrowind, most of the pieces are there but something always felt off with them by comparison.
The later games can be immersive if you don’t use map fast travel imo. There’s a few mods like better carriages and boats that give you a lot more travel options, I like sign fast travel too. Find it makes me explore a lot more instead of just rushing to the next objective. It’s not quite the same but I find that + survival helps a lot (and combat gameplay overhaul, but depends how much you’re ok modding core gameplay elements. I totally run combat mods on morrowind when i replay it, I’m not a purist when it comes to how people want to play a game)
My first experience with morrowind was on the xbox and I played the hell out of it, wasn’t until years later I finally bought a pc copy. I found Dread Delusion captured some of that immersive alien world feeling that morrowind did for me as a kid.
My mom got me an OG Xbox around the time that the 360 came out, and a couple of games. The copy of Splinter Cell was undoubtedly my dad’s contribution to the conversation, but I remember my mom telling me later that she had never really heard of this “Morrowind” game but she asked the Gamestop employee for a game that was like Zelda, since we both previously loved playing Zelda on our SNES and N64. The guy recommended Morrowind and I figure it was probably a 50/50 shot that he did either that, or Fable.
I played Fable later on as an adult and it’s a fine game, but I owe a great debt of gratitude to a man I will never meet who allowed me to experience Morrowind in its entirety in my early teens. I went into that game completely blind and knowing nothing about anything other than what was in the game manual. I then went on to play it almost obsessively for the next eight years and continue to play it to this day about once a year or two. It is one of my very favorite games to exist and one of my favorite expressions of video games as art. Michael Kirkbride is a mad genius and I hang on his every word. Vivec is one of my favorite characters in fiction. I remember the layout of Balmora better than I remember the layout of some of my childhood homes. I love this game.
It’s a mix. Most of the dungeons related to quests were made by hand, but every everything else was procedurally generated and touched up by hand later, and some of the minor quest dungeons got the latter treatment.
Almost all of Oblivion’s dungeons were procedurally generated with only a handful made by hand, and only some of the procedural dungeons were touched up at all.
Every single dungeon in Morrowind was made by hand since they didn’t have the proc gen tool for that engine built yet.
Daggerfall generated most of the world via fixed seed procedural generation, which allowed them to make the world massive while fitting within 450MB; the world is generated at runtime, but it’s always the same world. A handful of plot locations were hand-made.
Arena used a method similar to the one used for Daggerfall.
Yeah, they started with Oblivion though, and it’s a very noticeable difference. For instance Morrowind doesn’t have a quest arrow telling you where to go, you follow signs and manual directions based on landmarks, which is possible because of more thought being put into the landscape and making its details a part of the story.
I’m biased having played Morrowind first, but I’d argue it’s way better than its sequels in a lot of ways, so people are definitely missing out to skip it. The whole game world is hand crafted rather than being procedurally generated, the writing and worldbuilding are better, there was obviously a huge amount of work that went into building the RPG side of Morrowind that felt missing in later games.
I’m so glad I was able to play it first. No game has ever been as immersive to me as Morrowind was. I don’t know if I could say the same thing if I’d have played Oblivion or Skyrim first and tried to go backwards because of how bad the combat system was. I’m also not sure why I didn’t find those two games as immersive as I did Morrowind, most of the pieces are there but something always felt off with them by comparison.
The later games can be immersive if you don’t use map fast travel imo. There’s a few mods like better carriages and boats that give you a lot more travel options, I like sign fast travel too. Find it makes me explore a lot more instead of just rushing to the next objective. It’s not quite the same but I find that + survival helps a lot (and combat gameplay overhaul, but depends how much you’re ok modding core gameplay elements. I totally run combat mods on morrowind when i replay it, I’m not a purist when it comes to how people want to play a game)
My first experience with morrowind was on the xbox and I played the hell out of it, wasn’t until years later I finally bought a pc copy. I found Dread Delusion captured some of that immersive alien world feeling that morrowind did for me as a kid.
My mom got me an OG Xbox around the time that the 360 came out, and a couple of games. The copy of Splinter Cell was undoubtedly my dad’s contribution to the conversation, but I remember my mom telling me later that she had never really heard of this “Morrowind” game but she asked the Gamestop employee for a game that was like Zelda, since we both previously loved playing Zelda on our SNES and N64. The guy recommended Morrowind and I figure it was probably a 50/50 shot that he did either that, or Fable.
I played Fable later on as an adult and it’s a fine game, but I owe a great debt of gratitude to a man I will never meet who allowed me to experience Morrowind in its entirety in my early teens. I went into that game completely blind and knowing nothing about anything other than what was in the game manual. I then went on to play it almost obsessively for the next eight years and continue to play it to this day about once a year or two. It is one of my very favorite games to exist and one of my favorite expressions of video games as art. Michael Kirkbride is a mad genius and I hang on his every word. Vivec is one of my favorite characters in fiction. I remember the layout of Balmora better than I remember the layout of some of my childhood homes. I love this game.
Is Skyrim not all hand crafted?
It’s a mix. Most of the dungeons related to quests were made by hand, but every everything else was procedurally generated and touched up by hand later, and some of the minor quest dungeons got the latter treatment.
Almost all of Oblivion’s dungeons were procedurally generated with only a handful made by hand, and only some of the procedural dungeons were touched up at all.
Every single dungeon in Morrowind was made by hand since they didn’t have the proc gen tool for that engine built yet.
Daggerfall generated most of the world via fixed seed procedural generation, which allowed them to make the world massive while fitting within 450MB; the world is generated at runtime, but it’s always the same world. A handful of plot locations were hand-made.
Arena used a method similar to the one used for Daggerfall.
A daggerfall randomizer would be pretty sweet
I guess I’m not totally sure, I know Oblivion used a bunch of procedural generation and I assumed Skyrim did the same.
I think proc-gen with manual adjustments has been the norm for a long time now.
Yeah, they started with Oblivion though, and it’s a very noticeable difference. For instance Morrowind doesn’t have a quest arrow telling you where to go, you follow signs and manual directions based on landmarks, which is possible because of more thought being put into the landscape and making its details a part of the story.
no, they started with the first elder scrolls, arena, and it was like entirely proc gen
ok fair, I didn’t play that one. The point is Morrowind is exceptional.