The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind GOTY Edition

The game shows its age, just like every other 3D game from the time, there's no way around that. As usual from Bethesda since Arena, Morrowind has bugs on top of bugs on top of glitches on top of exploits. OpenMW fixes a number of bugs and also lets you play on current OSes, including Linux distros, so you should DEFINITELY use it. While it's not yet a 1.0 release, it's been stable enough to experience the whole game since v0.37 or so. Morrowind also has a dice roll for its real time combat, which is an incredible turn off if you're used to pretty much any other game with real time combat: you click, you see the sword slashing, you see a message saying "you missed" or "enemy dodges". That is a strong "quit and uninstall" moment and one that almost led me to uninstall the game back when I first played it in 2006. Then I found out about mods, and boy did I mod the game a lot! Back then, the main source for these was Fileplanet. Nowadays, besides the Nexus, you should definitely check MW Modding History. If you can get past the dated graphics and animation and grit your teeth through dice rolling combat, OR mod those things into something decent, you'll find an amazing game that's full of stories that "we're not entirely sure if this is true", NPCs that have their own agendas and don't much care about who you are until you make a name for yourself. You can also simply go ahead and kill everybody. Yup, you can literally kill every single NPC in the game. You will be warned if an important one dies, that you messed up the thread of fate. But that thread is only the main quest as the devs intended it, you can still beat the final boss,

You know how Morrowind's fans view Oblivion and Skyrim as low points in the series? That's how we remaining Daggerfall fans view Morrowind, lol. Friendly jabs at fellow fans aside: Morrowind 'is' a good, solid RPG. It features an engaging plot, good characterization, and a decent, but sadly watered down (in comparison to Daggerfall's) character creation and levelling system. The one sin that this game committed that I will never forgive, however, is Bethesda's insistence on preventing the player from ever experiencing 80% of the land of Morrowind itself. Instead, you are relegated to two islands (Vvardenfel and Solstheim), and Mournhold, the capitol of Morrowind, The latter two added in the expansion packs. Those of us who came from Daggerfall back then were disheartened at this, and still are to this day. But I digress. Morrowind is considered a classic for a reason, and in this new RPG-starved gaming environment (no, Skykiddies: your shallow, vapid, hollow shell of an open-world hack n slash is not, nor could ever possibly be, a Role Playing Game), real gaming experiences that allow you to fully immerse yourself in a fantastical world are as rare as ancient Falmer artifacts (yeah: 'one') shoved into a ham-fisted, 11th hour DLC.

The worst thing about this game is getting it to run nicely. What you should do: Buy this version and invest a day to follow the S.T.E.P. Guide for Morrowind (https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Morrowind_graphics_guide). And it's crucial to install the Morrowind Code Patch (In the S.T.E.P. Guide), Then run the "exe optimizer"(http://timeslip.users.sourceforge.net/exeopt.html) and optimize the modified exe and finally run the "4GB Patch" over it. (https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371). If you plan to mod this game, do yourself a favor and use Mod Organizer 2, trust me. Once you start the game, it might take a minute or two for the game to actually start up, so don't get impatient. You'll get used to it. Game is old and performance is lackluster. Inconsistent FPS outdoors. There is almost no voiced dialogue in this game. The loading and saving may take forever or happen lightning quick, depending on the "mood" the game is in. When you start out, you get frustrated, because there are no animations to convey the concept of "missing" a swing, so it looks like you connect with your hit but you don't. There is no fast travel, unless you work for it. After 50+ Hours, I am wearing a Cuirass that makes me immune to Fire Damage, Legendary Gauntlets and a Helmet that boost my stats, a skirt - AHEM - I mean a VERY MANLY *KILT* that I enchanted to allow me to fly, and Boots that make you go fast but also make you blind, if I hadn't created an "anti-blind" Spell through Spell-making. Morrowind might not be for everyone, but if you are part of "everyone" you should at least try it. It gives you this profound sense of accomplishment, that I have rarely felt in a video game. I truly feel like I earned all that magical equipment, because I was smart, resourceful and because I didn't give up! Skyrim feels like a trip to Disneyland in comparison.. A fun diversion, sure, but all you really do is ride rollercoasters and shake hands with people in costumes. 4½ Stars

Man, there was a huge learning curve the first time I played this game. I never recommend it as a place to start for new gamers. But it's still one of my favourite games of all time, up there with BG 2 SOA and Deus Ex GOTY, and I play it at least once ever couple of years. The graphics are dated but the story, the sheer volume of quest, faction and chracter choices, and the fantastic world to explore are second to none.

Obviously all of the younger gamers who grew up on Skyrim don't seem to understand that Morrowind was the first of it's kind. You can't play the vanilla version today and expect it to be some modern marvel! The entire reason this game is so nostalgic for older gamers is that Morrowind is the first of it's kind. Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Fallout 4 and others have all followed in its footsteps. There was no Dark Souls or any other open world, RPG adventure game in which you could explore and open up the world, story and quests in whatever order you want. It was the first game where you could steal everything that wasn't nailed down, etc. It was one of the first games that I remember having such a big, beautiful sounding orchestra as its soundtrack. I could go on and on but one of the biggest reasons it was so big was that it was available on Xbox! Most of us couldn't afford gaming PC's back then so we were rarely able to experience these types of games on our consoles. tl;dr - This game isn't perfect and it defintely isn't for everyone but it's a classic for a good reason. I guess it's just too difficult for some people under the age of 30 to understand that a 20 year old game isn't going to play like a AAA game in 2022.