/vr/ - Retro Games

he's nothing unless you're playing like a total retard
which to be fair a lot of people do

>>5296212
First he spots you from a mile away and starts shooting fireballs at you.
As you get closer he summons a skeleton to rape you and block your ranged shots while he pokes you with a summoned daedric spear or uses deadly touch spells on you.
Survive until he runs out of magic, he's still got a waraxe and enough skillpoints to cleave your ass with it.
His armor is just enough to halve the damage of the unenchanted worn out shortsword your lvl1 toon is frantically clicking on him with.


Wait! What if you set the view distance all the way down to minimum. He won't be able to see you either so you can sprint across the bridge to where he is and land the first blow.
Someone go test this now. I don't have MW installed.

>>5296209
Make me faggot

Abuse alchemy

> doing the morrowind main quest before you do any exploring or leveling

>>5296593
yep, learned the hard way when first running around the thing on the xbox. However, isn't Morrowind not retro despite it's appearance?

>>5296620
I think it's retro enough, it's almost 20 year old game. Deus Ex is allowed, Morrowind should be allowed too.

I recently started Morrowind again after years of attempting to get into it. Never got much further than the first quest because of the difficulty curve and overwhelming freedom. Guy on the bridge still gave me hard time even though I knew to expect him, I think I used the ring of meduza gaze on him, bashed him, and kept doing that until ring had no more charge left.

>>5296209

Was this the faggot on the bridge to the dwarven ruin?

If so i ripped his ass up no problem i think

Was he supposed to be hard

What is the best way to play Morrowind in 2019?

Talking quality-of-life improvements like increased draw distance and pre-loading cells. HD TEXTUR & GRAPHON mods may not apply.

le not retro faggot

>>5296209
>>5296209
Yeah, what the fuck was his problem? I feel like Bethesda should have added some backstory for him.

>>5296742
Smuggler's. And that group of smugglers are probably the only ones that have anything unique to say if your able to them, although it's just one line and it's usually goodbye afterwards.

>>5296664
Probably just MGE XE + code patch, unofficial patch etc + assorted tweaks of your liking e.g. always +5 modifiers, no glow on enchanted items, instantly pick up flowers etc.

OpenMW is a lot faster than the vanilla engine but still has no proper distant land support and there are still bugs in enemy behavior etc.

>>5296212
he's definitely high risk if youre playing permadeath.

>>5296664
>increased draw distance

its 60% draw distance and 30fps or bust.

off the top of my head a big quality-of-life improvement would definitely be fair magicka regen. The lowest rate esp wont regen much in the span of a fight so it doesnt feel like cheating.

>>5296209
That dude is difficult only if you run straight to him. You have to properly plan all of your characters and play them taking care of how and what you're levelling. Even in the vanilla version. Or you can just take that power that allows you to absorb magic.

>>5296209
He shouldn't have aggroed immediately and it kinda makes no sense he does. Apparently he's a lookout for the smugglers in Arkhangsomething. The player, in his first or second Blades quest, should have been able to approach him. Ol'Snowy then could have asked where he was going. If player answers "Just on my way to Vivec city" or something like that, nothing happens. If the player answers "Arkanwhatever" he attacks. Or even better, he attacks when the player turns the crank to open the door. Instead he's just a wild beast.

Same with the Ash Vampires. It's absolutely fucking stupid that they just immediately attack. They all (at least most) have dialogue where they offer you to take the first swing, as is customary for House Dagoth, because honor and shit. Nope, they're mindless beasts. Good job, Bethesda.

>>5296664
Bug fixes and things like that. I've never used a single graphic or texture mod, it looks fine on its own.

>>5296952
OpenMW does have distant land. Unless you meant it's worse than MGE, which I wouldn't know cause I've never used it.

>>5297834
OpenMW's distant land is generated on fly and pretty bad, also there are no distant statics i.e. buildings, tree etc. MGE is pretty much just like Oblivion/Skyrim etc, you can see everything as far as you want. You can also control the fog distance and how many cells to preload so that the world doesn't feel too small.

>>5297830
>it looks fine on its own
More like your shitty toaster can't run a fully decked out Morrowind lmao. Get a job and upgrade your rig, it's worth it 100%.

>>5298284
Morrowind is literally MGE XE and shaders. Texture packs only make things worse unless you have absolutely no taste.

Wasn't even playing the main quest and I still accidentally ran into this asshole

Why

>>5296290
>toon
this is why all non-retro discussion must be banned

>>5299119
wasn't even playing morrowind

>>5298634
There's texture packs that are basically just up-rezed versions of the original textures with no artistic changes. Those are the only texture packs I ever use.

>>5296290
>toon

Instantly stopped reading, thanks for that anon.

>>5297347
I agree with you when it comes to the Dagoths, but in this guy's case there's not much reason to cross that bridge except to plunder the Dwemer ruin it leads to. Any pilgrims in the Molag Amur region would be starting from Molag Mar much further east, and the only other place of note someone would have good reason to cross that bridge for is the abandoned Dunmer stronghold of Marandus. Anyone going to the Ghostgate would be taking the foyada running beneath it, and anyone going to the Ascadian Isles and Vivec would have go south at Moonmoth.

>>5296593
the early guild quests are too fucking boring

>>5296212
>minmaxing on a casual rpg
Just enjoy the ride, anon. There's so much to see if you take your eyes off the numbers for a minute.

>>5300757
I think he's just talking about when people run around and try to do combat in Morrowind with an empty stamina bar then they think the combat is shit because they can't hit anything. If you claim not to have done this, you are lying.

>>5297024
>morrowind
>permadeath
holy shit that's horrible

>>5300796
I was 8 or something when I first played Morrowind. Of course I did that. I also got annihilated by those Orsimer bandits who live in the swamp on the border of Seyda Neen on my first attempt at the game.

In one of my playthroughs I made a point of visiting him each day, beat him senseless, then leave.

> Snowy Granius! Are you ready for your daily beating?!
> Let's see what you're made of!

100 h2h after three weeks of this

>>5300824
Uncanny valley Putin.

Oh lawd, now I'm itching to make a mod where you start as Snowy Granius. The game starts with you standing by the bridge and some faggot dark elf scum on the other side aggroes and attacks you. On his body you find the directions to Caius Cosades and the package... and a new adventure begins.

Oh, are we allowed to talk about Morrowind now?
It's not that good of a game. Baldur's Gate is the greatest computer roleplaying game of all time, and Morrowind fails in every possible comparison

- characters and locations have no personality, it;s all copy and paste dialogue and graphics

- the lack of location specific music and weak ambient sound effects contribute to the feeling of sameness everywhere you go

- completely static world, there are almost no "scripted" events in the game, day and night make no difference, you don't need to sleep

- utterly broken game design. magic weapons cheaper than normal weapons, over 50% of the population of any urban centre offer instant training, levelling gets EASIER at higher levels, etc etc

- the levelling system is nothing but perverse incentives that either lead to you deliberately ignoring the levelling mechanics, or doing stupid and boring shit like wading into lakes so you get bitten and your armour skill goes up, or walking for 5 hours to the nearest village so you don't accidentally level up your Athletic skills

- too easy and too unbalanced. by the time you can afford the fancy enchantments that allow you to approach confrontation situations creatively, you are already in de facto god mode, at level 12 you can routinely beat the shit out of the "spooky" daedra and harvest 12,000 GP swords

>>5296290
>waaah waaah he's too hard
>toon

>>5296290
Please never post here again.

>>5296209
STOP! Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.

>>5302483
the trick to leveling up weapons and armors in morrowind is to never hold down the mouse button when attacking

>>5302483
The original Bauldaurs Gate isn't even in the top five CRPGS, it's a buggy mess with puddle deep cookie cutter D&D lore. Opinion discarded.

>>5296209
Don't think I have ever encountered him, even though I finished Morrowind years ago.

>>5300757
it's just a matter of knowing the basics and getting your feet wet beforehand like caius says
snowy is just the first idiot test

>>5296952
>always +5 modifiers
nigga are you trying to break the game, that shit just ain't balanced for that

>>5296290
i pick him off with a single arrow while sneaking every time

Any other autists here feel the need to color in every cell on the world map when they play through this game?

>>5296952
>still has no proper distant land support
Distant land and infinite view breaks the soul of the game. I use the max OG Morrowind settings and that's that. Tried once with distant land and shit and it was depressing to see balmora all the way from vivec

>>5302483
>levelling gets EASIER at higher levels
Most of the rest of your complaints are ones I share, but this particular one is a good thing and is exactly how it should be in any skill-based leveling system. Teaching yourself a new skill from scratch is supposed to be difficult, which incentivizes you to actually use the skills you're good at (you know, playing your chosen role). You CAN try to grind out a skill you've no experience in if you want but it's going to be rough until you get the fundamentals down. A better use of your time would be using the wealth accrued from effective use of your skills to buy training, getting the new skill you want to start using to at least level 15 so you can start using it properly.

>or walking for 5 hours to the nearest village so you don't accidentally level up your Athletic skills
That's never an effective use of your time in Morrowind. In fact the whole "efficient leveling" thing is a misnomer to begin with, because the only thing it accomplishes is getting you higher stat boosts per level up. But while you dick around getting the obligate extra 20 misc skill increases for your next level up and do what little you can while actively avoiding using the skills that you're most effective with, I'll be using my class skills to complete more quests, loot more shit, and ultimately level up more and get more total stats with my x2-x3 bonuses than you got with your x5 bonuses in the same amount of time. It is possible to eventually gain 100 in every attribute by the time you reach the soft level cap even if you are getting suboptimal multipliers, so there's not even a payoff by the end; the only actual benefit you get with your min-maxed level capped character and a normal level capped character is a whopping +25 more max HP from maxing out endurance 10 levels earlier.

TL;DR carefully controlled levelups are not worth it and playing slower on purpose to accomplish them is literally just playing the game poorly.

>>5296209
Just playing Morrowind for the first time. Decided to do the Mage's Guild quests first and came across this guy who randomly attacked me on the bridge. It was a close thing, but my default Dunmer burn spell does a ton of damage and I kept dancing around him to keep him between me and the skeleton.

Why does he attack? Did I fuck up a quest?

>>5303869
He's not involved in any quests specifically, but the first main quest tells you to cross the bridge so he was most likely placed there as a way to challenge low level characters on their way into the nearby dungeon.

>>5302483
>locations have no personality
could not possibly disagree more with that. the locations in morrowind are oozing personality out of every pore, that was always one of the most highly praised aspects of the game both on release and to this day. the dramatically different architecture of velothi, ashlander, temple, hlaalu, redoran, telvanni, and imperial settlements. the forts in relation to the major cities and imperial guards in the ebony mines showing the empire's enroachment into vvardenfell. the layout of the island city of sadrith mora with the gateway inn acting as the literal gateway from the port and giant mushroom tower dominating the area that cannot be practically navigated without magic, and a little corner where the imperial interests and guilds are forced to pack themselves into wolverine hall, demonstrating clearly how the telvanni see their guests. the giant crab shell in ald'ruhn housing an entire district of the city with several manors, shops, and guilds. the girth of red mountain and the ghostfence sealing it off, and the debilitating blight storms within that cut off your vision with thick clouds of red dust, even slowing your movement when you try to run against the wind. it's such a fucking well-realized fantasy world.

but to your first point it's not really retro by /vr/ standards so I'm not sure this should be allowed. or is it time for another generational shift? i'm not in favor of making exceptions for specific games, should be consistent rules imo.

>>5303965
The sticky is from 2014 and says games from 1999 or older, so 15 year old games. It's CURRENT YEAR so games from 2004 and older should now pass.

>>5302483

Baldurs Gate is alright but Morrowind is easily better.

>characters and locations have no personality, it;s all copy and paste dialogue and graphics

I can give you that the characters are a bit bland, but the locations blow the ones in Baldurs Gate out of the water, and they OOZE atmosphere

>the lack of location specific music and weak ambient sound effects contribute to the feeling of sameness everywhere you go

Granted, though the soundtrack is literally 10/10 so that can be forgiven

>completely static world, there are almost no "scripted" events in the game, day and night make no difference, you don't need to sleep

How is "no scripted events" a bad thing? The game is open and never locks you down. You need to sleep to level up, forcing the player to sleep at night would be boring as hell

>utterly broken game design. magic weapons cheaper than normal weapons, over 50% of the population of any urban centre offer instant training, levelling gets EASIER at higher levels, etc etc

This one's just plain false, and training is a core component of the game, it's there to be used

>the levelling system is nothing but perverse incentives that either lead to you deliberately ignoring the levelling mechanics, or doing stupid and boring shit like wading into lakes so you get bitten and your armour skill goes up, or walking for 5 hours to the nearest village so you don't accidentally level up your Athletic skills

The levelling system is peak immersion since you level the skills and attributes you use most (with some leeway). You don't have to go full autist and get "perfect numbers", the game isn't that hard honestly

>too easy and too unbalanced [rest cut]

How can you in one paragraph say that you have to do autistic things to min-max, and in the next say that it is too easy?

>>5303690

You use distant lands WITH fog, but set the fog to farther away

>>5304202
>Half Life 2 and DOOM 3 are now retro
I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for that. One year per year is way too fast for me. But I do love Morrowind and it's nearly impossible to discuss it on /v/ so maybe that's a compromise I'll have to take.

>>5304795
KOTOR I & II are now also retro. God do I feel old. I should start looking into pension plans.

>>5304202
>Oblivion will be retro in 2 years
Are you sure about that?

Since early 2000's apparently are now retro, can we discuss this game?

>>5304947
Just because console gaming has stagnated in several areas of development doesn't mean the incredibly antiquated ps2, xbox, and cube will never be allowed here. When most other sites consider them retro as of a years ago, it is sort of lame that 4chan is so far behind.

Autism time:
I've been playing a speechcraft character on and off for a while after I discovered a mechanic I had no idea existed after ~400 hours of gameplay. Turns out "intimidate" isn't just a way to get a temporary disposition boost. It also lowers the aggression of the target permanently, meaning you don't have to re-cast calm or hold sneak as you explore the area around them.

Pic related is how it works.
Notice how the hostile NPCs in the dungeon prevent you from resting nearby at first, but no longer do so once intimidated. One even offers training. This works on nearly every NPC in the world. There are just a handful of quest-related people that you can't persuade due to their unique greetings that end dialogue.

With little exception (ash slaves, vampires, some ashlanders and a few rare quest NPCs) you won't hear anything interesting or new from the enemies you pacify, but it's a nice way to explore dungeons while avoiding combat as they'll let you loot everything around them once intimidated.

I never found much info about this mechanic online and there's no real guide on it, so here's the nitty gritty I've worked out:
>every NPC has a hidden "fight" personality stat that ranges from 0 to 100
>an NPC with over 70 "fight" has the potential to attack on sight if they don't like you
>an NPC with over 90 "fight" will ALWAYS attack on sight at some range. More fight = higher aggro range
>intimidation reduces "fight" by at least 10
>taunting increases "fight" by at least 10
>admires/bribes do NOT affect "fight"

There's a decent amount of content for my speech-focused dude to tackle. The Imperial Cult has the almoner branch which is solely about soliciting donations from various groups, with the final two quests in the sequence being a bit more complex with mysteries to solve through interrogation and/or blackmail. Hlaalu has more diplomacy and intrigue than the other two political factions, often letting you solve quests solely with persuasion as well.

>>5296209
>not posting Ultima 9 troll instead
get a load of this nu-alternative-lifestyle-man

>>5305305
I didn't know anything about intimidate, other than disposition dropping after leaving dialog.

I think Fight and disposition gets measured against your personality stat. If your personality is high enough no NPC will attack you unless you hit them first. If you have maxed personality and Masque of Clavicus Vile for instance.

Maybe uesp or OpenMW will have a relevant formula.

There is also an "alarm" stat that might be relevant.

>>5304973
If you don't mention the year and actual discussion happens, you have a shot. Deus ex almost always gets a pass, Diablo 2 as well if you mention the first Diablo in the thread title. /vr/ can be weird with pc games.

>>5300202
You can explore then

>first playthrough
>doing mage's guild quests in balmora
>on the sulipund/punabi quests
>somehow make it there with a shitload of rats, cliff racers and a golden saint chasing me
>still low level so anything except the rats will 1-shot me
>get chased all the way back to balmora
>hoping a guard might help
>nope, not our problem
>all the monsters are waiting outside the guild for me
>not sure what to do
>maybe rest and try to escape somewhere else
>go over to beds for some rest
>accidentally steal a pillow
>immediately expelled from guild
>every guild member rushes over to exact their revenge
>rip

>>5305580
That's weird behavior from the guards, in vanilla Morrowind they have a pretty huge aggro radius when it comes to monsters. Did you mod it?

I remember so much as dipping your toes on the coast of Seyda Neen would make them pile on the slaughterfish. It wasn't uncommon for a crowd to gather around a cliff racer that wandered (but refused to land because fucking cliff racers) into Caldera or the residential district of Ald'ruhn.

>>5305629
It would have either been the Xbox version or an unmodded PC version. Maybe I'm misremembering though. I don't suppose I would have stood around for long in the open with that swarm nearby.

Nowadays when I play the guards do react to monsters though. I just assumed the code patch or patch project did that.

>>5305654
They attacked even on the original Xbox version, though if you had a golden saint chasing you it's very possible they just got slaughtered by it leaving you just as fucked.

>>5305654
I don't know. IIRC, guards tend to pick what they want to attack and gang up on it before moving onto another creature. But then, this is also the game that warns against summoning creatures in town, lest the guards attack it and you, but that never happens at all. I have to test the guard creature mob later...

Playing Morrowind it becomes clear what's wrong with Bethesda. They can make a good backstory, write tons of books but they can't make an actual plot or characters in the present. I mean, almost everyone in Morrowind just dumps exposition in response to key words, most exposition is unchangeable.

And it worked to their strength because it was all about uncovering some ancient shit. But go into the present and it's dull as fuck. And what's up with shopping run for Mage's Guild?

>>5306090
If you stop a stranger and ask him what time it is, will you get different responses describing the peculiarities of the person you are talking to? If you ask for directions, will the responses differ much? Which game allows you to stop anyone on the street and ask for directions when you are lost? This is what the dialog system is meant to represent - the ability to get information from everyone, even from people who are just a face in the crowd, about any of the topics.

>>5296209
I have hundreds of hours played in Morrowind and never once encountered this guy.

>>5305305
I love experimenting with Morrowind's mechanics.
>I never found much info about this mechanic online and there's no real guide on it
A lot of information on the more subtle "under the hood" mechanics is either incorrect or just not very accurate. Which sucks because people will read about some "bug" or exploit, not actually try it, and just post about it online assuming it's true, which leads to more people thinking it's true.

Another issue is that so many people are playing different "versions" of the game. Some people just by default use the code patch and other utilities, patches, and mods, and just assume everyone else does the same. And OpenMW, while it does a great job at replicating most of the surface gameplay (quests and such), has many subtle differences in AI and other mechanics.

>>5307185
Yeah I'm with you there. My personal pet peeve is when people talk about pickpocket being broken. This was perpetuated because the author of Morrowind Code Patch described it as 'broken' when he meant 'designed in a way I disagree with' and people thought that since he's this guy fixing all these Morrowind bugs, his use of 'broken' must have actually meant that it somehow doesn't work. The truth is that, despite what the wiki states, Morrowind's pickpocketing mechanics work exactly as designed and properly account for both your character's and your victim's stats (sneak skill - agility - luck - fatigue) in every calculation. It's just very very difficult to steal more valuable items from people, and there's always a substantial chance of getting caught even if you do successfully steal an item.

More generally, people seem to treat "getting caught" as a game-over state in TES games which is mind boggling to me. Everything is so much more interesting when you live with the consequences of your actions. There's nothing wrong with going to jail once in a while if you're playing a criminal, letting a quest or two fail (there's always hundreds more out there), or having some NPC stay dead. Roleplaying games are all about playing out your own story, and I have no fun with a story where everything goes perfectly right 100% of the time. The Daggerfall manual said it best (pic related).

>>5307185
>I love experimenting with Morrowind's mechanics.

when you reached for the Recall potion i thought you were about to teleport in front of the dart and get in trouble with the guards for attacking yourself. i don't know if this is technically possible or not but it's Morrowind so maaaybe

>>5307251
I'd never thought about that, in regards to the pick pocketing mechanics, but it's true. Another "incorrect" idea that is spread by the code patch comes from its "Merchant Equipping Fix". It "fixes" how merchants will equip some items they buy from the player.
I can understand how this could annoy a player, but I don't see it as a bug, I always thought it was just a neat feature. These merchants aren't like a modern chain store or something, where clerks have little say in what happens. They own the store, and they live in a dangerous world with monsters and wizards. I think it's sensible that they might use it themselves.

And yet, it's listed under the "Bug Fixes" section of the code patch! As if to say "Nah, this is obviously a bug, obviously the developers did not want this to happen, I can just tell".

Another cause of misinformation is because some people just guess. Someone tries to explain a mechanic, and when they come to some minor circumstance they don't actually understand, they try to use their own logic to "fill in the blanks" and guess at what the game would do, without actually testing the idea, because it's just "obvious".
For example, on UESP's page for the Disintegrate spell effect, it states
>If the armor or weapon is damaged to the point of breaking, it will immediately be unequipped, and the target will automatically equip the next-most-valuable item of that type in their inventory (if they have one).
But as I show in my little webm here, the NPC does not use that logic. After her axe breaks, does she choose to equip the other axe (or the club she has by default)? No sir. I've had the same results with armor breaking.

It's a tiny, minor little detail, so who cares right? But people take UESP as fact. People working on OpenMW use it as a reference at times. Lots of wrong little details can add up. (I guess I should just edit the page instead of whining about it...)

>>5307343
In my own experience, my projectiles never hit me, even if I teleport in front of them. I haven't extensively tested it, though, so maybe it's possible and I just haven't done it right.

>>5307445
I don't think they can, if I shoot an arrow straight up into the air where an NPC is standing, it eventually falls and hits them, but if I do it to myself it does nothing.
You need to levitate up to follow the projectile so it doesn't despawn when it gets too high of course, just make sure it doesn't last too long since you want to be able to drop back down, as when it starts falling it gains speed quickly.

>>5305305
Oh hey so I guess thats how you can get training from the enchant master sitting in front on that old dunmer fort.

>>5307251
>pic
it's kind of ironic since daggerfall is notorious for how easy it is to completely break the main quest for the littlest things. like there are some quests where even talking to certain npcs at all while you're on them will make the main quest uncompletable. some fail if you put them off too long. dont think they ever fixed the gothryd (daggerfall kingdom) ending being impossible to get since giving him the totem breaks the last quest. best advice possible for daggerfall is save early, save often, and save backups of your saves just in case.

>>5307507
thank god for daggerfall unity, can't wait for it to be done.

>>5307471
That reminds me, I've noticed that, if an NPC shoots an arrow at me, and then another NPC enters the path between me and the arrow, the arrow will just go through the NPC and hit me. I don't remember if it worked the same with spells.
I think the game might be set up so that NPCs can't accidentally shoot other NPCs. If the spell explodes, the AoE damage can hit unintended targets, but I don't think an NPC can "accidentally" shoot other NPCs. I think they only hit their intended target, a static object, or nothing.

This would require more testing though.

>>5302483
>It's not that good of a game.
Agree.
>Baldur's Gate is the greatest computer roleplaying game of all time
Awful opinion and everything you say I will take with a grain of salt.
>characters and locations have no personality, it;s all copy and paste dialogue and graphics
Agree.
>the lack of location specific music and weak ambient sound effects contribute to the feeling of sameness everywhere you go
Agree.
>completely static world, there are almost no "scripted" events in the game, day and night make no difference, you don't need to sleep
Agree.
>utterly broken game design. magic weapons cheaper than normal weapons, over 50% of the population of any urban centre offer instant training, levelling gets EASIER at higher levels, etc etc
Agree.
>the levelling system is nothing but perverse incentives that either lead to you deliberately ignoring the levelling mechanics, or doing stupid and boring shit like wading into lakes so you get bitten and your armour skill goes up, or walking for 5 hours to the nearest village so you don't accidentally level up your Athletic skills
Agree.
>too easy and too unbalanced. by the time you can afford the fancy enchantments that allow you to approach confrontation situations creatively, you are already in de facto god mode, at level 12 you can routinely beat the shit out of the "spooky" daedra and harvest 12,000 GP swords
Agree.

Maybe I should replay Baldur's Gate...

>>5307563
To actually mention some complaints of my own:

1. Morrowind's quests are fairly shit. What they have going for them is the lack of quest markers. What this also means is that once you have successfully completed a Morrowind quest, you are on autopilot the next time you replay Morrowind.
2. Caves, mines, tombs... they are all very generic. Daedric shrines... the loot offered is too overpowered, you break the economy way too easy. The game effectively becomes easy mode once you do the thing that should feel like an achievement. The game rewards your hard work by essentially saying "fuck progression, have all the gold you will ever need in goods".
3. The user interface is absolute garbage. There's a mod that makes a great job at improving it. It was released a few months ago.

I used to really like Morrowind when I first played it a couple of years ago. Even when I replayed it I enjoyed it. But my last playthrough, even though I tried to keep it fresh by going to Solstheim (and getting some really nice pics out of it)... it was just boring. Morrowind is unironically souless, it really feels like a primitive Skyrim in how big yet how shallow it was.

>>5307570
3 is surprising to hear. I found the user interface a dream to use compared to so many other RPGs, especially all the other Elder Scrolls games.
The menus are super convenient and customizable, everything has a useful tooltip, almost every action is quick and easy, and the 10 quick slots + the next/prev hotkeys make it a breeze to handle large spellbooks and/or inventories with minimal to no menu navigation.
And unlimited map notes are amazing, especially since when I use them in dungeons they become a part of the dungeon entrance's tooltip, allowing me to keep track of what I've cleared out and what I might want to revisit.
Besides some minor nitpicks (more sorting and filtering options would be nice) the only major thing I'd change is the journal layout, because having to click each letter of the alphabet to look up topics is extremely slow and annoying. Needs to just be one big list with the option to search by label and content.
Also the windows for the crafting skills are way too small, they should have been customizable like everything else.
That aside I would overall rank Morrowind's UI as one of the better ones out there.

Got a link to that mod by chance?

>>5307570
Why the fuck do people praise Morrowind for its "lack of quest markers"? That's like praising a bicycle for having two wheels. Of COURSE quests shouldn't have goddamn markers showing you where to go. The entire point of a quest is that you GO QUESTING, it's nothing to fucking well brag about.

>>5306139

>If you stop a stranger and ask him what time it is, will you get different responses describing the peculiarities of the person you are talking to?

You don't get out much do you

If I ask a peasant in the street for the time, then a shitfaced drunk in a tavern, then a nomadic cat man high on cat cocaine, and then I levitate into the King's bedchamber through an open window and ask the Queen what the time is, you bet I expect to get different responses.

Fucking dismal. Every tavern in Athkatla has its own music, ambient sound FX, unique hand-drawn artwork, its own patrons and owners with unique dialogue, gossip, potential sidequests. *You can tell where you are in Baldur's Gate 2 with your eyes closed by listening to the music and sound*. THAT is personality. That is something Morrowind does not have.

Is that the guy who tries to kill you on the way to the dwemer ruins after you first meeting with Caius Cosades?

People actually have trouble with him? That's a thing?

I think he killed me the first time I encountered him on my first play, and never, ever again.

>>5307570
>The user interface is absolute garbage

But it's literally the best UI in the whole series.

I do feel weird seeing Morrowind classified as a retro game. Not just here, I mean, anywhere online. Seeing is considered an "old game". I guess I just have a personal connection to it. Played it when it was brand new and have played it off-and-on ever since. It's always been the same to me but other people look at it and think "that's from a different time". I've always just considered it a "game" and not an "old game". Is this what it feels like to get old?

>>5308530
You're not alone there, it does throw me off too. Morrowind never felt retro to me and I doubt it ever will. It and GTA 3 form the beginning of "modern" games from my perspective, but that's definitely a personal thing based entirely on my history with them.
I upgraded to a geforce 3 specifically for Morrowind back when everyone was drooling over the water, sky effects, and graphics in general, and it was what ultimately got me started with building PCs. That same machine has been ship-of-theseus'd ever since and is still my main PC today, so in my case that's probably why it feels like the beginning of 'now' when it comes to games.

But then I look at it objectively and see that the game is about the same age now as the NES was when it was new. Fuck.

>>5308459
Saying Morrowind has the best UI in the series isn't saying much. Neverwinter Nights has good UI. Morrowind has a poor UI.

>>5308271

Because shortly after Morrowind quest-markers became the standard, so Morrowind stands out as one of the latest games that didn't have any, showing that just because a game is 3d and "modern", it still doesn't need them

>>5308294

>Every tavern in Athkatla has its own music

All 6 of them

>>5308530

Yes. You are literally talking to near adults who were born after 9/11

>>5308774

There's LITERALLY nothing wrong with Morrowinds UI. In fact, it's one of the better UIs out there.

>>5308840
Not the guy you're responding to but there's a lot of areas it could improve. Especially if you do alchemy or carry a lot of scrolls and end up with so many similar icons in your inventory as a result. It's all sorted alphabetically which is fine but I would find weight and value based sorting to be more practical, since usually when you're looking at your inventory you're trying to find something to drop or sell. The journal could be a lot better; the information it contains is great but actually sorting that information is annoying.

But yeah I agree that on the whole it's very functional and you're always two clicks away at most from whatever you need, I found it to be very nice as far as PC game UIs go. There might be a learning curve especially if you're used to more keyboard-driven menus but it becomes second nature after a while, and at any point whatever you need is two clicks away at most.

>>5308861
To follow up on that: one thing about Morrowind's UI that adds to that learning curve is that a lot of its functionality isn't taught to the player, you just have to find it by chance from clicking random stuff. I don't remember the manual going over all of it. Maybe they did somewhere and I missed it. Either way, here's some of the less obvious features:

The top right corner of each window has a square you can press to pin it to the screen, which will keep it open when you resume play. This is useful for a lot of things. For example, if you use the next/previous spell hotkeys a lot, you can pin the magic window so you can see what spells and enchantments you're cycling through. You can pin the map to the screen to make a custom minimap of your desired size and position, or keep your stats open in the corner so you can immediately notice when your attributes get buffed or debuffed.

You can toggle a window's visibility from the pause menu by clicking the associated HUD element: status bars will show/hide your character sheet, weapon will show/hide your inventory, spell will show/hide your magic menu, and minimap will show/hide your map.

F1 brings up the quick key menu with 10 buttons to be assigned to any spell, enchantment, usable item, or equipment. So if you're playing an alchemist mage who makes a lot of mana potions, you would use this to assign your potions to a hotkey so you don't have to open the inventory and drag them onto your character to drink each one. Using some slots for your spells is also great in combination with the magic cycling described above, since you can space the quick keys out through your spellbook make it natural and quick to navigate to any of your dozens of spells without ever having to look at a menu or pause the game at all.

Double clicking anywhere on the local map places a custom note there. You can type any message you want in the note and it will stay there indefinitely. You can place as many notes as you want.

>>5308834
So that's 4 more unique pieces of music than in the entirety of Bore-owind

>>5308840
They really could not think of a better way to do magic than to scroll through a text list of magic spells in alphabetical order by name. Uh-huh

Nice 'retro' game.

>>5305305
Excuse me what the fuck?
this is awesome

>>5309008
>They really could not think of a better way to do magic than to scroll through a text list of magic spells in alphabetical order by name. Uh-huh
Well... yeah. I'm not seeing what problem you're seeing with that. Why wouldn't you want a complete list of your spells? It uses the full height of your screen and can easily fit 60-70 entries without scrolling, and the scrolling itself is quick and comfortable with the scroll wheel. Picking a spell is practically instant if you know its name, which you should since you literally name the spells yourself. What system are you arguing would be better here? Separating them into categories of some kind with their own individual lists?

>>5309034
wtf I hate morrowind now

>>5308861

Yes, of course it's not perfect, but it is a very solid UI (with some oversights, mainly potion/scroll management)

>>5309008

>They really could not think of a better way to do magic than to scroll through a text list of magic spells in alphabetical order by name. Uh-huh

So? What do you want? A cutscene of a little magic fairy flying up where you have to voice out the name of the spell into your headset?

>>5302483
>Baldur's Gate is the greatest computer roleplaying game of all time
>generic fantasy setting
>point'n'click exploration on a flat surface
>boring character progression with nothing exciting going on for warriors
>uninteresting battles in which you spend most of your time watching pixels whack each other if you don't invest heavily in magic

>>5309442
See Neverwinter Nights
Drag n drop anything doable into a quickbar
Hub and spoke system for actions
It all makes perfect sense

>>5309034
I am a pcfag, and relatively speaking there do not seem to be many pc game threads. If newer console games were retro, would it be more likely to crowd the catalogue?

>>5296209

Chuck Schumer?

>>5310857