/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4255047]

Is there any old RPG that can match the narrative genius and sheer believability of Morrowind?

[Anonymous No.4255051]

>narrative genius and sheer believability of Morrowind?
This some dank meme or you serious?

[babbage's gramps !RATGzMALLY No.4255060]

Morrowind is a pretty old RPG already, and the third in a series all of which have pretty deep lore if that's what you mean by "believability". Most people find the narrative in Planescape: Torment to be pretty good.

[Anonymous No.4255078]

>>4255047
I love Morrowind. Was just playing it actually. Still. Not retro.

Now, if you'd like to talk Daggerfall...

[Anonymous No.4255091]

>>4255051
I'm not joking. Have you played Morrowind? Dunmer culture is the single most interesting and believable fantasy culture ever portrayed in a video game. It's a narrative that is focused on exploring the Dunmer worldview, their stagnant religion and the deep social conflicts that characterize their society. It's a culture in crisis, trying to understand itself facing threats on all quarters. It's multi-layered and complex, dating back to disputed and vague historical events which are interpreted differently according to factional politics. There is no Authorized history in Morrowind, it feels organic, subjective and messy. I've spent dozens of hours tracking down every available in-game book in order to understand the multitude of views in Dunmer society, and I don't regret it one bit. The game sets a huge bar for immersive lore worlds, and I'm not too optimistic that it will be surpassed.

[Anonymous No.4255093]

>>4255091
Again, you do realize Elder Scrolls is a series right? They all have significant lore contained in game in readable tomes - maybe less so in Arena but definitely in Daggerfall. I dunno who sits and writes these things for hundreds maybe thousands of pages but I'm sure they'd be happy to know people like you are still collecting and reading it.

[Anonymous No.4255094]

>>4255091
if you back up one to daggerfall the gameplay is worse but there might more lore, i'm not really sure i wouldn't know like you would, but if you haven't played it im sure it's worth trying for you.

[Anonymous No.4255095]

>>4255091
there are like 120 dunmer in the game that aren't nameless mooks who die by your hand

[Anonymous No.4255109]

>>4255060
>>4255093
Dudes, I'm aware TES is a series, I've played all the main entries to some extent, though the main quests get really boring after MW. I'm asking for something else that may compare in depth because I sure haven't found it.

>>4255095
Most people are nameless commoners because that makes sense. It's fucking stupid that every random NPC walking the town should be a major figure. When you enter a town in Morrowind, you ask around and the commoners will point out things of interest. You then find a more educated dude and he'll tell you a lot more depth about everything. Morrowind is basically class-based, where random grunts of a faction will tell you the same things, and sure it's partly done out of convenience and saving time, but it works.

[Anonymous No.4255131]

>>4255093
The books are written by whichever Bethesda employees feel like it, apparently, and there are a number of them. It is a horrible waste to play TES and not read them; they are all such wonderful additions to the lore.

>>4255094
>Daggerfall
>worse

Daggerfall is simply different. It's a world of total chaos that only real RPG players can stay in for long. For those with the resolve and patience, there is much great content. Casuals need not apply.

[Anonymous No.4255636]

>>4255091
>the Dunmer worldview, their stagnant religion and the deep social conflicts that characterize their society.
>a culture in crisis, trying to understand itself facing threats on all quarters
>disputed and vague historical events which are interpreted differently according to factional politics
So you're saying the setting is basically "what if Muslims had magic"?

Joking aside, great setting. Very alien, yet thoroughly cohesive and believable.

Oblivion and Skyrim also had great world-building, but their world is sadly a tad generic.

[Anonymous No.4255647]

>>4255047
>narrative genius and sheer believability
>Brick dialogues and forgetable books.
Choose one.

[Anonymous No.4255697]

>>4255047
Morrowind is the last great TES game both from gameplay and lore standpoint. The volcano elfnigger world, and the storyline were great, the exploration, the lack of holding hands. It is simpler than Daggerfall, but that isn't bad thing because Daggerfall was too big for its own good. It's more complex than Oblivion, which is were it all went to shit and still is today.

Still it has flaws, the world feels dead, there is no life outside the cities, quests are too linear, gameplay is basic hack-n-slash, could say it's a beginning of eye candy blockbuster graphics only games that would dominate til early 2010s. Oblivion a prime example of such cashgrab shit.

[Anonymous No.4255714]

>>4255697
>elfnigger

I'd rather call them Ashniggas, ya dig, my N'wah?

[Anonymous No.4255742]

>>4255697
The problem with this story is that Skyrim was a much better game than Oblivion and you could genuinely get into its world. It even reflected pretty much everything written in the First Edition Pocket Guide to the Empire. Oblivion is absolutely the most boring game and the portrayal of Europeandiil is a shameful failure, but Skyrim got a solid 100 hours out of my first character.
They could easily screw it up in the next game, but I remain optimistic.

[Anonymous No.4255772]

>>4255636
>a culture in crisis, trying to understand itself facing threats on all quarters

>So you're saying the setting is basically "what if Muslims had magic"?

But muslims aren't facing threats, anon. They are the threat

[Anonymous No.4255804]

>>4255772
>muh west vs. sandnigger comfortable narratives
You don't know what western culture even is and your views on it are childish and retarded. Go back to your containment board.

[Anonymous No.4255806]

>>4255772
>implying the overwhelming majority of victims of Islamist terror are not Muslims themselves

I will not comment on this any further so this thread doesn't derail and become a /pol/-shitfest.

[Anonymous No.4255927]

>>4255636
>So you're saying the setting is basically "what if Muslims had magic"?

Dunmer are much more like 1st century jews, with a fuckload of trappings of british india thrown in.

The plot is basically that after a district reorganization (1858 reorganization of india), terrorist groups arise (thuggees, sicarii, zealots, bar kokhba -- the 6th house) and harass the empire. Youre there to impersonate their messiah and kill the rebel leader. Hlaalu is portrayed like the herodians of judaea (romaboo jew-kings), and when all things are said and done, the great temple in the big city is wiped out, and the dunmer become a diaspora people who have to cope with the destruction of their former religion.

Your different factions (hlaalu, redoran, telvanni, dagoth, etc) somewhat mirror the fractured nature of 1st century jews (essenes, zealots, pharisees, sadducees, etc).

Its a good believable setting because it portrays imperialism and native rebellions in a historically inspired manner.

[Anonymous No.4255929]

>>4255047
Darklands has the believability factor (its almost historically accurate), but the narrative is pretty boring.

[Anonymous No.4255931]

>>4255927
This post gave me an insight boner

[Anonymous No.4255945]

>>4255931
Yeah, its pretty neat. The parallels can keep going too if you want to dig.

For instance, the prophet veloth...who's basically dunmer moses.

Or the imperial disrespect for dunmer slavery traditions that kinda-sorta mirrors pontius pilate's ballsy trolling of the jews by disregarding their religious laws against graven images.

Even processus vitellius reeks of the cultural attitude about roman tax collectors in the 1st century.

Youre playing 1st century judaea: the game.

[Anonymous No.4255961]

Gothic
Overall the more living world and NPCs who are beyond mere signposts.
Yet the game itself is pretty much the same style and genre as Elder Scrolls.

[Anonymous No.4256138]

>>4255927
Very cool, I never thought about it that way. Some of the architecture and outfits certainly have a somewhat near-east aesthetic about them, so I was immediately thinking more arab, but jewish also makes sense.

That's the thing that makes Morrowind so great, the setting is incredibly unique, but very hard to pin down. Lots of influences that create something unlike any of the constituent parts.

Unlike Skyrim which is basically WE ARE VIKINGS AND THEY TOOK MUH COUNTRY.

[Anonymous No.4256154]

>>4255961
I love Gothic, played through it again this year. The story, setting and atmosphere are great, but without your nostalgia goggles on, gameplay is pretty clunky and awkward.

No other game I've played so far hit the same sweetspot of open-world design where the area is neither too large (and repetitive) to explore completely nor too small and restricting. Gothic is just right, the world is compact without seeming crowded and detailed while still offering large areas to explore.

[Anonymous No.4256174]

>>4256154
>the world is compact without seeming crowded and detailed while still offering large areas to explore
It seems like Breath of the Wild is the same way.

[Anonymous No.4256190]

Not an RPG, but Thief 1/2 has a similarly alien and extremely interesting setting which you get very immersed into.

I really like the Order of the Hammer.

[Anonymous No.4256221]

>>4255806
You mean the Muslims that are still in Sunni vs. Shia conflicts even after Europe settled that shit 500 years ago and managed to go into the Enlightenment, whereas the tribalistic and pretty personal liberty-unfriendly attitude in the Middle East is still pretty prevalent outside in most parts of the region (barring places like Tunisia and Morocco and Algeria)? Honestly if you want people to accept Islam, you should force these countries that have a majority Muslim populace to stop being an antithesis to Enlightenment values. We don't have to invade them in any sense, but you can't say anyone should tolerate that bullshit.

[Anonymous No.4256228]

>>4255927
Interesting post. Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.4256821]

>>4256138
>Some of the architecture and outfits certainly have a somewhat near-east aesthetic about them, so I was immediately thinking more arab, but jewish also makes sense.

Ah, I wasn't even thinking about their material culture. Just their narrative and mythology.

If I were to look at their material culture, I'd say the house dunmer very much resemble indians (dot not feather).

[Anonymous No.4256827]

>>4255047

babby's first fantasy setting

there's tons of rpg's out there with settings that aren't generic and it's the norm in the realm of books (which /v/ doesn't read). try arc the lad; twilight of the spirits

[Anonymous No.4257076]

>>4255047
technically every other Final Fantasy game or D&D game.

like, I think with any game series that has a huge budget you can at least expect them to put in a lot of effort to build an authentic setting like that.

also I'd be very very reluctant to give any game the predicate "narrative genius".

I think Planescape Torment comes rather close and that is a D&D game. But Elder Scrolls is more interesting if you read the in-game books like that narratively. I think Skyrim did well narratively imo. Morrowind was not super interactive and rather dull and so the narrative didn't really bring out what it actually deserved on a gameplay level but they did the best they could at the time. I'm not super crazy about Elder Scrolls narratives because you know exactly what reputation Bethesda has when it comes to writing especially comparing Fallout NV to Fallout 3 or 4. Guess what's better narratively? it will always be F:NV thanks to Bethesda not fucking it up.

[Anonymous No.4259114]

>>4255047
Albion - it has that alien world and very different culture feeling as well.
And Ultima

[Anonymous No.4259186]

>>4255047
Final Fantasy IX

[Anonymous No.4259375]

>>4257076

>Final Fantasy game
>D&D game

The stories of the first five final fantasy games are pure shit.

Planescape: Torment is the only D&D game with a good story.

I'm curious, though, if you like Myst and/or its sequels, because TES in general (of which Morrowind has the best story) is essentially what Myst would look like if it were an RPG instead of an adventure game.

[Anonymous No.4259393]

>>4256154
>I've played so far hit the same sweetspot of open-world design where the area is neither too large (and repetitive) to explore completely nor too small and restricting

Like the other dude said, you can just play Zelda, as that has several games that BTFO of every existing RPG in that regard. MM has even more in depth NPC schedules.

[Anonymous No.4260248]

>>4259393
Dunno man, I love Zelda games, but the world maps aren't really open, they're rather a network of interconnected linear submaps. Twilight princess comes close, but BOTW seems too large to explore completely.

[Anonymous No.4260315]

>>4259375
please fuck off back to /v/ and stay gone.

[Anonymous No.4260402]

>>4255047
No. Even if you reach the bottom of the barrel, hack through with an axe then get a shovel and start digging, survive the molten core and come out in China you will never reach those depths of "narrative genius and sheer believability[sic]"

[Anonymous No.4260421]

>>4255697

I love Morrowind, but you should play the Risen sequels, or Gothic 4, or Amalur, or Two Worlds. It makes it easier to see what Skyrim and Oblivion got right..

[Anonymous No.4260431]

>>4259375
Oh boy it's another "muh planescape" kid

[Anonymous No.4261228]

Moronwind looking back is at best a 6/10 game. And I say that as someone who played it in his youth and has nostalgia for it.

Is there anything more overrated in gaming than TES lore? I mean the game is neat as a hiking simulator where paying attention can let you infer details about the world. But fuck the books; they are the least important part of the game. No one who gushes about muh lore actually explored the 3 different skellington tombs opposite ends of the island on single save file and collected all "volumes" (2 pages each) of an `epic` (short story) to read in their Balmora house.
They just read them all on UESP and they think they have studied something profound and meaningful. DESU videogame stories are fucking pitiful compared to IRL literature. Ever since I read Don Qixote I mostly just play Shmups now.

Another problem with Moronwind is once your character becomes strong and you have gotten all the equipment and spells needed to dominate there is no point in plundering yet another bandit cave for bland loot. Most people retire their character before they clear a third of the dungeons.

The expansion content is not as good as the main game. Tribunal and Bloodmoon feel like Oblivion 0.1 and Skyrim 0.1 respectively.

The melee and marksman combat is barebones even when you stop missing all the time. The stealth is very basic and half broken without the code patch. Only the spells, enchanting, and alchemy are fun to play with but NPC enemies are utterly unable to use these in a threatening manner.

The dialog is autismal wiki link infodumps.

Contrary to popular belief there IS level scaling in Morrowind. At level 2 you will fight rats and nix hounds in the wilderness and the bandit will have chitin war axe. At level 20 you will find Winged Twilight and Golden Saint in wilderness and bandit will have enchanted dwarven battleaxe. Even by medium low levels you will find many fish replaced by dreugh and cliffracer upgraded to twice as strong blighted racers.

[Anonymous No.4261654]

>>4260431

>muh Planescape, Fallout 1&2, Arcanum, VTMB, and Morrowind

fixed it for you

Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 are not impressive for their story (despite being good games), and Icewind Dale doesn't even try to be interesting in that regard.

[Anonymous No.4262150]

>>4261654
You are kind of delusional

Bg2 has an excellent story. It is epic in the greek sense, the villains have tragic flaws, it is decently structures AND half of it is open world

It isnt 2dep4yoo and the side chars dont have 50 minute dialogue trees where they talk about their deep experiences with anal fisting. That means its not good?

You arent very smart

[Anonymous No.4262295]

>>4255742
Both Skyrim and Oblivion are generic as fuck.
The only good thing about them is the lore, but even that is a carry-over from previous titles.

IDK about TESO - I'm not really into online.

[Anonymous No.4262303]

>>4260421
Couldn't get past Amalur's gameplay that incorporated theworst of MMOs while being singleplayer.

[Anonymous No.4263214]

>>4261228
>Ever since I read Don Qixote I mostly just play Shmups now
>Don Qixote

[Anonymous No.4263254]

>>4261228
You pretty much missed the whole point. There is no masterful prose in Morrowind texts, they're occasionally good but obviously can't compare to the fucking western canon. The most interesting books are always historical debates and scholarly articles about philosophy, that you find written by fictional researchers. It gives the world a genuine feeling that's unlike anything else out there. None of these historians are giving you objective information about Tamriel, they are biased and working from incomplete information and mythological accounts. Collecting books in TES is like a minor research project where you seek to cut through all the bullshit to reach some kind of true history, but it's always disputed. It makes perfect sense that it would be like this. It's like if Tolkien, after writing LOTR, wrote a bunch of follow-up refutations by smug historians saying how the account is full of shit and makes no sense.

There is also nothing wrong with dialogue in Morrowind, it works better than anything else they've tried. I'd love to go back to these topic-based dumps after modern RPGs, they keep me engaged much more.

[Anonymous No.4263761]

>>4263254
>There is also nothing wrong with dialogue in Morrowind,
There is. They are dull and less interesting than reading wikipedia.

[Anonymous No.4263796]

>>4262150
Another anon here. Played BG1 and a bit of BG2.
BG1 deffinetely didnt have interesting story, just typical run of the mill fantasy setting with a few sensible chuckles set here and there.

>It is epic in the greek sense, the villains have tragic flaws
interesting

>it is decently structures
Sorry, I did not understand.

>AND half of it is open world
And how does that concern our story topic?

>>4263254
>The most interesting books are always historical debates and scholarly articles about philosophy, that you find written by fictional researchers. It gives the world a genuine feeling that's unlike anything else out there. None of these historians are giving you objective information about Tamriel, they are biased and working from incomplete information and mythological accounts. Collecting books in TES is like a minor research project where you seek to cut through all the bullshit to reach some kind of true history, but it's always disputed. It makes perfect sense that it would be like this.

What's the point of creating such vasts quanities of lore, made up languages, races, social structures and civs, if the delivery is so poor. If we were discussing movie industry Morrowind would get worse acting, scenario, directory, and editing awards and most of the games would get all the Oscars. I don't get the appeal, honestly. Does it attract all the people that loves to read about their own little words, with everything made from scratch? I don't get it. Just like I don't get Sonic the hedgehog appeal.

[Anonymous No.4263940]

They should have kept Kirkbride at any cost and slowly phased out or fleshed out some of the more obvious tolkien dick-sucking and fantasy tropes (vampires? werewolves? come on, let's not excuse them for that)

[Anonymous No.4263952]

>>4263940
>TES6 won't have cities built on the backs of giant moths that travel between Nirn and Secunda
why live

[Anonymous No.4264419]

I found a way to improve Morrowind by fixing many problems including:
Game too easy
Character becomes a god after 20 levels and all starting character builds eventually blend together as you approach master of all trades
Money is too easy to get, high level weapons too easy to get
Can train every skill to 100 with this money
Level scaling less than oblivion but still present
Excessive amount of cliffracers and slaughterfish
Character leveling system is obnoxious and promotes abnormal/autistic immersion breaking play of grinding and training skills you don't normally use
Enemy mages are too weak because they are not improved by scaling like warriors who get scaled weapons and armours

Just stay level 1 forever.
Do this by one of three methods
a) putting ten forbidden skills in your class skills and never use them or open books of them
b) selecting atronach and nevers sleep. Use engraved healing ring to heal and absorb magick from shrines
c) use the morrowind construction set to set amount of skillups required to level up to 999999

It's very challenging and rewarding to play like this. You have to master the game mechanics (much more interesting than boring lore) to be able to complete the hard quests and dungeons. If the expansions are too difficult then just turn down the difficulty slider.

As another handicap try making a maximally gimped character and making him beat the game.
I like to use a female High Elf with the Lord birthsign and class skills filled with useless shit like armorer, block, heavy armor, acrobatics, h2h, and mercantile.

Another fun challenge is making your character do a complete circumnavigation of Vvardenfel along its coast as soon as you exit the census office. You may spend your initial money at Arrilles for supplies but after that you may not speak to anyone on your journey. The Sheogorad region is skipped in this challenge unless you are hardcore then pick alteration as major and start with waterwalk spell.

[Anonymous No.4264438]

>>4263254
>There is also nothing wrong with dialogue in Morrowind

I got ten minutes in and I was already thoroughly fed up with everyone just randomly blurting out MUTHSERA and AHEM all goddamn day long.

[Anonymous No.4264453]

>>4264419
Lastly try to do a single region challenge for a smaller world that feels more like the Gothic games.
Select a geographic region and teleport there with console command after you exit the census office. You must never leave this region or you will be killed by a lightning dome. You must complete all quests and dungeons available in the region using only the resources found there.
Bitter Coast seems easy but is larger than you remember and has no spellmakers or enchanters and only one armor repair shop.
Ascadian Isles has all the resources you could ever want but the final boss is very difficult.
Red Mountain seems like it would be hard but it is the smallest region.
Mastery of the game mechanics are required to beat the expansions in this style.
Tribunal has more resources but harder bosses than Bloodmoon.

Bonus points if you play on the OG Xbox which has an invisible countdown timer to accomplish the challenge in the form of save file corruption after too many saves.

[Anonymous No.4264456]

>>4255047
>elder scrolls

[Anonymous No.4264519]

>>4255095
That's the thing. In Morrowind, each and every mook- even the randomly generated ones- have their own values for how much they like certain factions, how likely they are to get violent, how much they actually *want* to fight, etc.

[Anonymous No.4265053]

>>4264453
>in the form of save file corruption after too many saves.