RPGDot

[kirottu]

Omedetou Ender-san.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Well done Ender   

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[Shryke]

Omedetou Ender-san.

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wow, i can understand that?!

 

i thought my understanding of japanese would have completely atrophied by now

 

anyways, congrats Ender

[EnderAndrew]

Thanks, though I don't know what Omedetou means. It could be something like stupid gaijin for all I know.

[Kaftan Barlast]

RPGdot :D I took one look at their Top100 list, saw that Morrowind was #1 and declared the entire thing moot.

 

 

 

Please do your best to hammer some sense into these imbecilles

[Walsingham]

I actually bought Morrowiind a couple weeks ago, and am eyeing it nervously. Will it drain my lifeforces? Will it giev me supernatural powers? To hear you guys talk I can't tell.

 

Anyway, well done on being made an editor. don't forget you must now chew on an unlit cigar and scream "Where's my goddamn column!?" at people.

[Volourn]

I said it before, and I'll say it again to make it official: Congrats Ender!

[kirottu]

Thanks, though I don't know what Omedetou means.  It could be something like stupid gaijin for all I know. 

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It

[GhostofAnakin]

Ender, your first order of business is to make their forums more lively.

 

I remember registering sometime early this year or late last year and seeing the forums (atleast the ones I visited) almost dead.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I actually bought Morrowiind a couple weeks ago, and am eyeing it nervously. Will it drain my lifeforces? Will it giev me supernatural powers? To hear you guys talk I can't tell.

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You'll be enthralled by the vast landspace of the game and will devote some time to explore all the locations. It will not be uncommon for you to find yourself at 3 AM going "just one more dungeon, just one more, then I'll sleep".

 

Then the boredom will set in and you'll realize just how empty and lifeless it can all feel.

 

I'm sure someone can recommend you a handful of mods that do the job Bethesda should have done in the first place, though. Me, I had more games to play in my spare time instead of trying to come up with reasons to play it or justifications for the team.

[GhostofAnakin]

The funny thing with all this negative response about Morrowind is now I'm intrigued by it.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Morrowind can be fun. Exploration plays a large part of it and treking trough the land can be rewarding, wheter you stumble upon some forgotten, Daedric ruin or you just discovered an uncharted location. Wheter you get a thrill from finding new items or have a sense of dread when walking trough strange and foreboding locations, it can be appealing.

 

Problem is doing these things turns out to be frightfully dull because dungeons are largely about entering a place filled with enemies and ransacking them. That's pretty much all there is to the game's dungeons. And once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Had Bethesda invested in keeping Daggerfall's random dungeon generator perhaps the repetition encountered in Morrowind could have been mitigated.

 

And when you're not exploring the land, you're talking to robotic NPCs, or coming to terms with an unsatisfying combat model.

 

It has its merits, but I found it a pretty shallow game underneath the surface.

[metadigital]

And those blinking cliff racers!

[Diogo Ribeiro]

The Cliff Racers I could tolerate because they would at least give off a sort of warning sign whenever they got close. The minute I heard a certain kind of screech I knew what it meant.

 

I had more problems with other kind of wildlife because I could never hear any sound that would allow me to understand what was going on. I remember being attacked by Alits, Dremoras and Ogrims out of the blue and being given no audio feedback that humanoid-sized or giant creatures were attacking me. It was like "hey that's a nice ruin to explore", then something would suddenly go CHOMP! on my butt.

 

Why I could hear Squibs pouncing around but could not hear something my size make a sound still remains a mystery. At best I had to resort to hearing the combat theme in the background.

[Guest Fishboot]

The funny thing with all this negative response about Morrowind is now I'm intrigued by it. 

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If you were to get it, I'd suggest you hit the main quest hard, considering that you're mostly (I assume) from the BIS tradition of RPGs. Also take Mysticism as a primary skill so you can work the Divine/Almsivi Intervention and Mark/Recall spells from an early age, which make travel much faster. Also read any book you can get your hands on, particularly historical ones - the main quest is enriched 100x when you understand the point of view model of TES storytelling. No account you read or hear of an event is "the whole story". One of my favorite memories in the game was finding an obscure book in a tomb that threw my understanding of an event in Morrowind's history for a loop because it was totally divorced from the "standard" history of that event, and later on my understanding would become even more fractured - the game feels almost journalistic rather than directly narrative.

 

As far as gameplay, you have to go out of your way to keep Morrowind difficult. You have to not abuse the merchant system, not abuse alchemy or enchanting (both very broken in terms of ROI), and crank up the difficulty of your enemies using the in-game difficulty as you grow in levels or use mods that target particular enemy stats. The game gives you plenty of tools to ruin it with, and you definitely have to "work with the game" to keep it reasonable, so if you're the kind of RPGer that derives satisfaction from breaking the game's system (Hi! I have Fast Shot, Bonus Ranged Attacks, Better Criticals, Sniper, 10 LK and a Laser Gatling!) then you'll be done with MW in a day.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Also read any book you can get your hands on, particularly historical ones - the main quest is enriched 100x when you understand the point of view model of TES storytelling.

 

While the books are a good mean to expose and explore the lore of the gameworld and this feature works well in other games as well, I don't think it hardly merits saying they enrich the main quest. Perception of the gameworld, though, I'd agree.

 

 

As far as gameplay, you have to go out of your way to keep Morrowind difficult. (...) so if you're the kind of RPGer that derives satisfaction from breaking the game's system (Hi! I have Fast Shot, Bonus Ranged Attacks, Better Criticals, Sniper, 10 LK and a Laser Gatling!) then you'll be done with MW in a day.

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It's a pity that it has to be the gamer to go out of his way to make the game challenging instead of playing it how he wants and not stumble upon poor balance.

[Dhruin]

RPGdot :D I took one look at their Top100 list, saw that Morrowind was #1 and declared the entire thing moot.

 

 

 

Please do your best to hammer some sense into these imbecilles

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You do realise the Top 100 is voted by the public, don't you? If you take a look, you'll see there are more votes for MW than any other game by a big margin - I would say someone from the MW community mobilised their supporters. In the end, it's just a bit of fun.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Lots of people like Morrowind - it sold well and spawned two expansion packs, after all. It's definitely worth playing - you're bound to find something in it that you like. For me, the key to overcoming the weak main storyline is to have a clear idea of your character's personality in your own mind, and to take a stance on the politics of Morrowind early on, even if that stance is to play every group for your own interest. Factions are fun.

 

I'd advise getting at least one of the expansion packs, because it makes such a difference to the journal.

[EnderAndrew]

I don't think Morrowind is the greatest RPG of all time, but it does have its merits. It certainly has its flaws as well. I consider it a near miss, a game that could have been truly great.

 

Some people have questioned RPGDot reviews but they make an effort to be sincere. We do get review copies of games, but not always. No one is buying our reviews with ad space or donations. And we're not cynical asshats either.

 

I'll gladly do some reviews, but I have to see what falls in my lap.

 

Thanks for all the support!

 

As far as the forums go, I'm going to try and liven up traffic. The webhost started doing annoying pop-up ads a while back which destroyed traffic. They are gone thankfully. The forums also load slow, so I am going to check with the forum host (Jolt) to see if they are using precompilers or optimizers for PHP like Zend.

 

Some people also expressed to me that they didn't care for the forums where console RPG fans and CRPG fans might clash in the same areas. Rest assured, many major games have their own areas so you don't have to listen to Morrowind fans if you don't like, and CRPGs and console RPGs have their own areas.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

And we're not cynical asshats either.

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That's why it's called RPGDot, not RPGCodex.

[GhostofAnakin]

That's why it's called RPGDot, not RPGCodex.

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[Baley]

Too bad,

 

Codex reviews>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>RPGDot reviews

[Dhruin]

Too bad,

 

Codex reviews>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>RPGDot reviews

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Ah well, everyone has their opinions. I would be pretty happy to stand my work up against anything written at the 'Codex but not everyone will see it that way.

[Baley]

Heh,I like your reviews.

 

On the other hand I belive some games deserved lower scores(Beyond Divinity).

 

Then again,I'm not a fan of scores\scoring systems.

 

Anyway,I'm looking forward to more of Ender's work.

[metadigital]

Heh,I like your reviews.

 

On the other hand I belive some games deserved lower scores(Beyond Divinity).

 

Then again,I'm not a fan of scores\scoring systems.

 

Anyway,I'm looking forward to more of Ender's work.

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I agree with Baley!

 

Seriously, just so long as the reviewer gives the reasoning behind their marking, then I can determine if I wiegh the merits and flaws similarly, differently, which and why.

 

A naked number is pointless, except to draw sensational attention to the extremes.