Maybe it’s because I’m really lonely myself that I like characters like Vivec.
 
Achieving Chim can’t be easy.

@Agent Orange  
It doesn’t help the NPCs in Skyrim feel real when they repeat their couple lines of banal dialogue every time you go near them, that’s for sure. Though, to be fair, NPCs in Morrowind frequently shared the same dialogue about topics. It was just easier to ignore with text.
 
The Elder Scrolls series is going to lose my interest if it keeps offering less with each game. I want to see a return of all the undead and daedra Oblivion offered and I want to be able to summon them. I want the rich selection of magic Morrowind and Oblivion offered and to be able to make my own spells. Throwing weapons and spears should be brought back, as should levitation, mark, and recall.
 
The way level determines everything that is available has to entirely revamped. Why should certain spells and items only be available at a certain level? That kind of arbitrary restriction is nonsense and destroys immersion. Let me purchase any spell but let the chance of successfully casting it be determined by my skill in the spell’s school. I’ll take choice with the chance to fail over no choice at all. Make adventuring worthwhile by providing the possibility to get loot not scaled to my level. So what if I can get glass armor at level 10 if I have to fight hard to earn it?
 
Removing attributes was a mistake. I felt more involved with my character when I could choose which attributes to level up instead of only being able to choose whether I wanted to increase health, stamina, or magicka. The perk trees in Skyrim were not a bad idea but the perks themselves are so underwhelming. “Do x y% better” has no flavor.
 
Finally, TES 6 needs a proper UI because Skyrim’s was terrible.
 

@kleptomage  
I agree completely. As much as I love Morrowind, I can see it has it’s flaws. Only recently have I learned about the Alchemy bug to make super potions and it’s insane playing with it (and insanely fun.)
 
But that’s what I’ve been saying for a while, despite the fact that NPCs in Morrowind eternally stand in the same spot or wander the same patch of ground, they felt more alive than anyone in Oblivion or Skyrim. Not all games need such depth as Morrowind has, but RPGs and espectially The Elder Scrolls absolutely needs that level of depth…That’s why I fear what’s going to come next with TES VI.
 
Hell, for a while I wanted to see Morrowind get a remake, if only to update the graphics a bit and fix some of the clunky systems (such as Alchemy being extremely tedious) but honestly, I don’t want that any more. I don’t want that anymore because I know they’ll ruin it, they’ll strip everything out of it that made Morrowind what it was. It’s just so damn depressing where this series has gone…Sure the graphics are better, all the dialogue is voiced, combat has been improved and you can block when you choose…But the soul has been stripped from the series. The characters follow schedules and preform actions, but they’ve never felt more mechanical or robotic. NPCs in Morrowind would update their dialogue when you did different things or when you fulfilled the prophecy. There’s some of this in Skyrim, but it’s done poorly. And people still trash talk you for no reason. “Do you go to the Cloud District often? What am I saying, of course you don’t.”
 
…The other day I even heard an NPC in Morrowind use a voiced line I’d never heard before and that’s after I’ve put no less than 2000 hours into it between my time playing it on the original Xbox, my old PC version a few years later and my current copy on Steam.

Morrowind was not a perfect game. It had serious problems, the combat system being the most egregious. However, more than any other Elder Scrolls game, Morrowind had depth. The world was intricately crafted to feel alive and because of that it was very immersive. I did not feel that same sense of immersion playing Oblivion or Skyrim. Whether it was a monster inexplicably becoming tougher after I leveled up in Oblivion or being unable to kill important NPCs in Skyrim, there was always something to remind me that I’m playing a game.
 
The variety of spells and items has also suffered from Morrowind on. So much has been ripped out by the last two games that I would not be surprised if the only skills that remain in TES 6 are combat, magic, and stealth.

@ghostfacekiller39
 
@Barhandar  
At least in Morrowind, the fast travel made sense in the context of the world rather than a magic map marker that sends you there. Yeah, I realize it’s implied that your character walks to the location with the change of time and all that, but it just seemed silly to me. I’ve started playing Morrowind again after this discussion and I rely a lot on the boats and Silt Strider and mage’s guild teleports, but I still see a large portion of the world. There’s some places that have no fast travel, like Pelagaid.
 
Though I agree with Ghostface about the terrain. Skyrim looks nice, but the scenery gets old pretty fast. Morrowind is a unique fantasy landscape and the following games haven’t tried to replicate such an alien looking world effectively. Cyrodiil is boring forests and Skyrim is boring mountains and snowy plains. I realize a fantasy world should have some more realistic settings in them, but it doesn’t feel like high fantasy like Morrowind does. Each region in Morrowind is unique and recognizable in their own right, Oblivion you have left forest, right forest, snowy forest and not quite swampy forest…Skyrim has snowy, misty mountain, grassy/snowy plain and ice.

@Barhandar  
It really hasn’t, though.
 
The reason I removed fast travel is because I want to remove the temptation of using it. I find the game itself so much more immersive when you’re going from point A to point B on foot, taking in the land around you, running into enemies you have to fight, etc. Fast travel kind of breaks all of that sense of adventure for me, you know?
 
I prefer Morrowind’s landscape because it’s so much more unique and interesting - give me mushroom forests and volcanic ash deserts over pine trees and tundra any day - but Skyrim has a lot of beautiful scenery to miss out on if one fast travels.

@ghostfacekiller39  
@Pagan  
I’ve thought and let me rephrase. Removal of fast travel isn’t enjoyable when the game has been built from the ground up with reliance on fast travel.

@ghostfacekiller39  
I completely forgot about the horse carriages I have a mod that puts portals near all nine holds but maybe I should just use the carriages again… then again they do cost money and I’m penny pincher.

@Barhandar  
Horse carriage was enough.
 
I really like to look at the scenery in these games :V

@ghostfacekiller39  
Removal of fast travel is not an enjoyable element without, uh, a variety of alternatives Morrowind was rife with. Just off my mind - silt strider, ship (between coastal cities), Mages Guild portal, and Icarus Flight.

@Agent Orange  
Oh yeah I completely understand about the puzzles seriously a toddler could solve them and treasure in the ruins really didn’t make any sense sometimes I also hate that game trope where when you kill things like wolves you’ll find gold and gems in them, what the fuck?
 
Yeah I love riddles though did you ever play metal gear solid I think it’s the third one? SPOILERS you are at the end of the game and you see all the previous bosses as you walk down a river and you finally come upon the ghost of the final boss and to beat it you have to die and take this revival pill you get at the beginning of the game like 20 hours ago and it’s only mentioned once, seriously I was stuck for like a day trying to figure out how to beat him.

@Pagan  
I still want to play them for the sake of completeness, you know?
 
I agree with you on Oblivion, on it’s own it was alright, but Shivering Isles completely saved it for me.
 
I do love the lore of the series, don’t get me wrong and crafting was a nice bonus, but to me it just feels more like an unrelated game with TES lore and name slapped on to it. That said, it’s not a horrible game, I’ll probably play it again later this year or early next year, but it just doesn’t feel like a TES game should.
 
It’s also worth noting that the puzzles are dumbed down, even if there are more of them. In Morrowind you get a riddle about breathing water and you literally have to drown yourself to death to open a pathway, all Skyrim really has is picture matching games.
 
And I guess it’s a nitpick, but it’s just so immersion breaking to be delving through an ancient ruin that hasn’t been opened in thousands of years and you find fresh fruit or gold coins from the Empire, which didn’t exist back when the ruin was sealed.

@Agent Orange  
They’re on GoG and just about any system from 2007 onward can run them, seeing that they’re about Morrowind level graphics. Very good series, though, I think you’d enjoy them quite a bit if you like Morrowind.

@Agent Orange  
The first two games of TES were pretty awful in my opinion but Morrowind was amazing I lost so many hours of the day playing it, Oblivian was also amazing and loved it once I got the DLC’s for it, Skyrim though not as good was different and I love the Nordic lore of it and found the crafting a little better I still really like it even if it’s not the best.

@ghostfacekiller39  
I’ve heard of it, but never played it, I’ll have to check it out sometime.

lol double post

@Agent Orange  
Just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of the Gothic series?
 
They’ve got the strong RPG elements of Morrowind as well as the voice acted NPCs with daily schedules that Skyrim has on top of having a great story and interesting world. Criminally underrated series, if you ask me.

@Agent Orange  
Just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of the Gothic series?
 
They’ve got the strong RPG elements of Morrowind as well as the voice acted NPCs with daily schedules that Skyrim has on top of having a great story and interesting world. Criminally underrated series, if you ask me.

@ghostfacekiller39  
I never played the first two, I do want to play them some time, but for me, Morrowind keeps drawing me back. It’s THAT game for me, it’s the game that made me want to make games, it was the first really open world game I had played and as a kid it amazed me, I thought it was an entire world to explore and I wanted to be able to make the same for other people. Morrowind has a sort of a boomerang effect on me, I keep coming back to it every year.
 
Oblivion was decent, but it wasn’t as good. I’ll replay it sometime.
 
Skyrim is just kinda depressing to me at this point, they gutted the skill system, they completely removed the attribute system and made everything bland and boring. Sure, the characters have schedules and voiced dialogue, but they feel more robotic and empty than the characters do in Morrowind. At level one you can kill a dragon in Skyrim, at level one in Morrowind you struggle against a rat. In Morrowind you start off as some nobody that everyone hates and work your way up into a hero everyone praises, in Skyrim you immediately find out you’re a prophesied hero and the guards chase you around to tell you to stop shouting. In Morrowind you actually had to level up the skills and attributes to advance in a guild, in Skyrim you can become the head of the mages college without casting more than maybe one or two spells.
 
 
I both anticipate and fear the next Elder Scrolls game.

@Agent Orange  
While my original comment was kind of pushy in jest, it’s really kind of bad how the series took a downturn since Morrowind.
 
At least I could mod in some Morrowind-esque elements into Skyrim to make it more enjoyable, like a leveling and class system that actually matters, outright removal of fast travel, etc.

@ghostfacekiller39  
Nothing beats Morrowind in the Elder Scrolls series. It actually kinda hurts just how bad Skyrim really is. Can’t even call it a proper RPG, it’s a fantasy action game with RPG elements.

Did you know that there’s a TES game better than Morrowind?
 
If you thought you did, you’re full of shit.