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[Africa]

I'd like spears. They're not a peasant's weapon, they're a Greek hero's weapon. How many of the Iliad heroes used swords (don't actually answer that question. But I'm pretty sure they all chucked spears around constantly.) In general, I'd like to see a fantasy game that's set in a bronze or iron age period rather than medieval, just to mix things up.

Anyway, gameplay elements aside, the only thing that matters in terms of this game being good (imo) or not is whether the world is immersive. Morrowind was immersive because it was a really alien, original setting. Sure, it borrowed elements from all over the place - the province is sort of a "fantasy version of Palestine" as someone said earlier in the thread, mainly in its history. The setting is so analogous to the time and place of Jesus, its ridiculous - the Dark Elves' mythology even resembles the history as told in the Jewish bible. But they also mixed it up; you have nomads that look like Mongolians, you have ancestor worship as well as polytheistic demon worship and several established religions, you have Sumerian-like names, you have lava-flow canyons that serve the same geographical and logistical function as river valleys, and oh yeah, you have giant bugshells used as building materials and huge mushroom towers, and the Dwemer and Daedric architecture ain't bad either.

So go ahead and make Skyrim look like Norway or Alaska, but for Chrissake make it as bizarre and unearthly as Morrowind at the same time.

Then the other thing is to have a background and world that's as deep and complex as Morrowind. Just like in real life, you hear multiple different versions of past events and nobody's version is ever shown to be authoritative. The religious history might well be mythology and the prophecies could well be self-fulfilling. There's no established good guys and bad guys and everyone's motives are illuminated by their version of past events. And, there's tons of weird political and cultural nuances that are mentioned in passing and detailed in in-game books, that make the game world seem like it could be a real place in terms of its complexity and depth. Oblivion didn't have any of that (and that's all I'll say about Oblivion). But basically, those two things are the reason I still like playing Morrowind 9 years later and if attention is paid to them, Skyrim could potentially be the same kind of experience. It probably won't, but hey.

Oh yeah, the other great thing about Morrowind is how fun exploring was. That was probably the majority of the fun in the game - running around the wilderness, finding cool things, and the wilderness was actually packed with them.

[Sordid]

Yes, thank you for getting the point! Finally someone with a lick of common sense. Agreed 100% with everything you said. The gameplay mechanics like skills are there purely to enable you to grow stroger, it doesn't really matter how they're organized as long as they actually work (ie. aren't broken they way they were in Oblivion). Hence why I said earlier that I don't really care how skills are grouped and outlined a few other issues that I hope they finally get to fixing with their spiffy new engine.

In general, I'd like to see a fantasy game that's set in a bronze or iron age period rather than medieval, just to mix things up.

Wasn't there a Conan MMO? Or did that die already?

[Raze]

Oblivion also has quite a few fun things hidden out in the wilderness. less intrigue and politicking though, the actual setting is a bit more mundane. The aedra/deadra were not covered as much in previous games (obviously) so it still has a good bit of lore.

I honestly got tired of morrowind pretty fast though, because I had to take those long treks everywhere if I wanted to save for good equipment for a powerleveled character or one with a diverse skill set .

I could learn lore through my friends and some of the elder scroll history books much faster.

 the combat system annoyed me to no end

and spunking was about the same quality as it was in oblivion with shivering isles installed for variety (and that's all i'll say on morrowind  )

If I wanted to play an elder scrolls to date that wasn't oblivion I would just jump back to dagger-fall.


speaking of broken, look up the "mundane ring" in oblivion sometime, most powerful defensive Item drop I can recall in one game. 50% magic reflect/resist IIRC? I have one with my apprentice-sign Breton. have two but somebody seems to have approved it and hard capped you at only having one equipped at a time.

[Sordid]

I honestly got tired of morrowind pretty fast though, because I had to take those long treks everywhere if I wanted to save for good equipment for a powerleveled character or one with a diverse skill set .

Wait, what? Save for good equipment? You can't buy good equipment in Morrowind. Not that money is a problem at all anyway, there's a very easy way to have essentially unlimited money right from day one. Travel to Caldera mages guild, on the top floor you'll find a very good alchemy set. Take it, then use mages guild transport to Sadrith Mora mages guild. Altmer guy has ingredients for Restore Fatigue potion, buy a few and make the potions, then sell them back to him for some starting cash. Now this merchant unlike any other that I can remember restocks his inventory instantly and doesn't restock to some preset level, instead he restocks to the level he previously had. This means that if he has 10 of an ingredient and you buy it, next time you speak to him he has 10 again. Now you sell the first 10 back to him, now he has 20. You buy the 20 and next time he has 20 again. You sell the first 20 back to him and from now on he has 40. By buying and selling ingredients from him (while occasionally making potions to get the necessary cash), you can multiply his inventory into the thousands. Keep making restore fatigue potions until you're at your encumbrance limit, then use mages guild transport back to Caldera, go into the orc manor, and sell your potions to the scamp on the second floor for 5,000 gold. Merchant gold resets every day, so repeat on a daily basis or when necessary.
If you need even more money, you can buy mark and recall spells and use them for easy access to the mudcrab merchant for an additional 10,000 gold per day.

[TwilightWalker]

I honestly got tired of morrowind pretty fast though, because I had to take those long treks everywhere if I wanted to save for good equipment for a powerleveled character or one with a diverse skill set .

Wait, what? Save for good equipment? You can't buy good equipment in Morrowind. Not that money is a problem at all anyway, there's a very easy way to have essentially unlimited money right from day one. Travel to Caldera mages guild, on the top floor you'll find a very good alchemy set. Take it, then use mages guild transport to Sadrith Mora mages guild. Altmer guy has ingredients for Restore Fatigue potion, buy a few and make the potions, then sell them back to him for some starting cash. Now this merchant unlike any other that I can remember restocks his inventory instantly and doesn't restock to some preset level, instead he restocks to the level he previously had. This means that if he has 10 of an ingredient and you buy it, next time you speak to him he has 10 again. Now you sell the first 10 back to him, now he has 20. You buy the 20 and next time he has 20 again. You sell the first 20 back to him and from now on he has 40. By buying and selling ingredients from him (while occasionally making potions to get the necessary cash), you can multiply his inventory into the thousands. Keep making restore fatigue potions until you're at your encumbrance limit, then use mages guild transport back to Caldera, go into the orc manor, and sell your potions to the scamp on the second floor for 5000 gold. Repeat as often as necessary.

Even better. I forget who sells the ingredients for them, but it's ridiculously easy to become a total powerhouse with alchemy. Create Fortify Intelligence potion. Drink. Create another, Drink. Continue on until you think your Intelligence is ridiculously high enough, then start creating other god-tier potions.

[Sordid]

Well yeah, but then you completely break the game. Having lots of money just removes a lot of the annoyance, but since you can't actually buy anything worthwhile it doesn't really spoil it.

[Africa]

Wasn't there a Conan MMO? Or did that die already?

I have no idea, I don't really play many games. I also didn't know Conan (the Barbarian I assume) was bronze age.

Either way, sure Morrowind was broken in a lot of ways, but it had an immersive game world. I don't know how many other games I've ever seen where the game world itself made it fun to play.

[Sordid]

Conan's set in the 'Hyborian Age', which is supposedly between the fall of Atlantis and the rise of the known ancient civilizations. Sounds about right.

[LoSboccacc]

Well yeah, but then you completely break the game. Having lots of money just removes a lot of the annoyance, but since you can't actually buy anything worthwhile it doesn't really spoil it.

depending to who you ask, allowing cunning player to obtain ridiculous power was pretty much the fun of morrowind. you are the nerevarine, after all.

also, it was by design that player were allowed to become as strong as gods and easily overpower everything else. you ad to fight god, in the end.

[Sordid]

Eh, to me the fun lasted about three or four instakills, then the omnipotence just became boring.
Also, you do not fight a god. Well you do, but he's holding back. Then you fight him again for real and he's invincible (or he's supposed to be, due to technical limitations he just has a crapton of health and regenerates instantly, but is still killable if you can dish out enough in a single hit - just like, oh, Dagon in Oblivion!) and the objective isn't to kill him but to run past him (just like... oh nevermind).

Also, having played a bit of Oblivion just now: God I hate, hate, hate the stupid, annoying Havok! Completely pointless! I really, really, really wish they'd bring back the item placement system from Morrowind. It was so much easier to put things on display with it.
On the other hand, it did promote somer rather serious compulsive hoarding in some of us...

What the hell, man? What is all this shit? I can't even take two steps without cutting my feet off on something! You're lucky this house is built out of mud, otherwise the fire safety people would have your ass. And where am I supposed to sleep?

[G-Flex]

depending to who you ask, allowing cunning player to obtain ridiculous power was pretty much the fun of morrowind. you are the nerevarine, after all.

also, it was by design that player were allowed to become as strong as gods and easily overpower everything else. you ad to fight god, in the end.

I agree with this when it's actually done via methods that seem to suit the game world. I don't agree with this when it's because of bizarrely implemented systems (alchemy, anyone?), poor balance, a totally screwed up world economy, and bad AI that lets you get away with rather strange things.

That stuff bugs me mostly because I like to do what you're saying. For instance, I wanted to make a sort of graverobber character who would brave out-of-depth areas using sneaking and trickery to infiltrate places and loot things. However, then I realized that there's almost no difficulty in it at all in Morrowind; plenty of places just have loot there for the taking, more or less.

Basically, I like trying to play an unlikely hero and doing the best job I can, but that gets subverted when the game's systems are unbalanced, poorly-implemented, buggy and broken, because then instead of doing the best I can do, I have to intentionally limit myself or wind up breaking the game in ridiculous ways unintentionally, which just takes me out of it entirely.

[Ampersand]

Also, having played a bit of Oblivion just now: God I hate, hate, hate the stupid, annoying Havok! Completely pointless!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkc9IpdHLF0

Havok allows you to climb into the sky on paintbrushes. That's not useless in my book.

[Shadowlord]

Havok allows you to climb into the sky on paintbrushes. That's not useless in my book.

Not if you patched the game.

[Omegastick]

Oh well, I'm sure that someone will have modded in a new menu anyway within the first month or two.

I wouldn't be so sure of that, AFAIK this kind of stuff tends to be hard-coded.

It was modifiable in Oblivion (and probably Morrowind, but I hardly played that)

[Vattic]

With, apparently most, people being in favour of swords I think it's a shame spears won't be included; a foe with a spear posses a serious threat to one with a sword after all.

Edit to add: Bethesda have said they want to change the pace of combat and have watched people using real weapons. Spears would add more variance to the combat in my opinion even if you never used them yourself.