[Zazezizozuzy]

Morrowind was the first and only game I had on my Xbox for the first couple years I owned it. Definite bias and rose-tinting due to that, but here's what I would suggest:

The magic of Morrowind is in the discovery of the world. Modern RPGs like Skyrim might give you an arrow to follow that points directly to where you need to go for a current quest. Leading the player to ignore most things outside of that objective arrow. Morrowind instead says "Go Northeast of the village to find this cave". By doing this, the player organically stumbles onto things and events that build out the world.

A good example of this is the early mission to travel from the starting village (Seyda Need) and head to Balmora. One option you have is to walk there, which takes a bit of time and offers multiple encounters along the way. One that quite literally falls into your lap. When it happens, the game doesn't explain anything. You have to piece it together. That discovery is part of the intrigue.

Even if you're not interested in the characters or culture, the game offers a lot. You could alternatively delve into the empty steam-driven ruins to find who built them and why they are empty. Perhaps instead you see an unknown cluster of plants to pick and practice your alchemy. Maybe you stumble onto a wrecked ship full of pillows and want to track down the owner listed on the shipment invoice.

If you feel like you're walking from point A to B to C, you may be following too close to that arrow. Trying to find what you're pointed to without seeing what else is happening around you. Stop and look around every once in a while. There's probably something or someone nearby. Anything that catches your interest should be investigated. What may seem like minor events often become the most memorable moments.

[buttercraft]

I probably have on rose-tinted glasses, too, but I still remember the sense of exploration on discovery in Morrowind. The vast, ash-blown landscape was fun.

Oblivion felt like a slog because of the auto-scaling, but I finished it.

Skyrim felt exactly like Oblivion but with more rails and even fewer voice actors, even though there might have actually been more voice actors. I have only made it a few hours each time I try to get into it. The voice acting alone ruins the immersion. Everyone looks and sounds the same!

[DubiousPusher]

It's not rose colored glasses. That would be if you were claiming the combat was good... But they definitely made design choices in the subsequent games that made them feel less enchantin. Mostly by taking any real work out of the game. Which is ok. They are just seeking a different audience.

[buttercraft]

Yes, a different audience... and that is fine! They obviously found a recipe that works for a lot of people. I am still waiting for the next Morrowind, though.

[DubiousPusher]

Yeah, same. I really enjoyed it above any of their other games. The obscurity of the setting was wonderful too. Skyrim and Obliviom we're impressively realized worlds but a little too rote fantasy.

[Cthulhu_]

+1 on the rose tinted glasses. In retrospect, I'm still quite bitter about Skyrim. In many ways it's the best TES game so far, definitely in terms of environment etc. But even at the time, it fell short; voice acting is one, bad animations is another. I think it's the engine and core technology, which at the base is still the same as Morrowind's.

I mean I get it, they have a staff that is experienced in that engine and a heap of modders. But it's past its prime, and I hope (but doubt) that for TES VI they make big changes.

[bitwize]

I know, it's like how many adventuring careers can be ruined by arrows to the knee? The sheer density of forced retirement by knee-arrow in such a small land area is highly unlikely.

[mbg721]

It's not just the number of actors, it's that there are a couple of very distinctive voices, and they're associated with characters you interact with frequently. It's distracting when roughly one out of every eight NPCs is Tigger.

[account42]

> Oblivion felt like a slog because of the auto-scaling, but I finished it.

Agreed. Thankfully, there are mods that replace the level-based scaling ith location-based scaling.

[kqr]

I agree in principle, but disagree about specifics. In Morrowind, I would argue that there's probably not something or someone nearby. And that's part of the beauty of it. That's realistic.

When you do stumble onto something, it gets all the more interesting -- of all the nothingness, why is this here?

It's a drawn out form of gratification, compared to the every-other-step-you-run-into-a-procedurally-generated-cave type of instant gratification I felt with e.g. Skyrim.

Morrowind is more aimed at exploration than later games, and some amount of nothingness in the world is required for this.

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Of course, nothingness is relative. In absolute terms, I'm sure Morrowind has less nothingness tran later games, but the limited graphics and draw distance and smaller populations makes it feel more empty.

[iamacyborg]

> If you feel like you're walking from point A to B to C, you may be following too close to that arrow. Trying to find what you're pointed to without seeing what else is happening around you.

This is true, but with the default draw distance it's very hard to apply in the base game. Mods that improve draw distance are critical to enjoying Morrowind, in my opinion.