Oblivion is way better than Morrowind

[ureaditwrong]

For some reason recently, people have been gassing up Morrowind again. While I wouldn't call Morrowind bad, it is definitely way overhyped and worse than both Oblivion and Skyrim.

Idk how anyone can call this peak Bethesda. Bethesda is known for its world design and Morrowind's is the ugliest. It's 75% ash and then there's a small ugly swamp filled with hundreds of filler enemies, some low poly grasslands and a few islands. Dungeons are exactly the same as in Oblivion, just with non-leveled enemies. I will say the towns are pretty cool but offer limited functionality compared to Oblivion and Skyrim, especially considering mods.

Combat in Morrowind is literally just mashing l-mouse. There is no strategy involved whatsoever and no reward for leveling like there is in Oblivion and Skyrim, just an increase in accuracy. All magic except for restoration is trash. No this game is not more complex than its successors, quite the opposite actually.

The characters offer a lot of dialogue but it's mostly just filler, no different from Oblivion and Skyrim. Quantity does not equal quality.

So yeah, just needed to give that reality check to the boomers, ty.

[TheZinc]

I dunno dude, after all these years I’m doing a proper Morrowind play through and just in awe of the game. Oblivion is what I’ve played the most followed by Skyrim. Morrowind has an atmosphere that is unbeatable for me. The towns, the strange landscapes, the lack of hand holding or pointers. The weird UI that I now love. Maybe it’s just quaint, but given its age it’s clearly superior to Oblivion in many ways. Oblivion although fun at the time, seems the most bland out of the three. It’s Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion for me.

[Allwynd]

As I said in a previous post, I played Skyrim first, Morrowind second and Oblivion last. Before Skyrim I hadn't played any TES game so I didn't knew any better, I only knew Morrowind existed since maybe 2003, but never played it, that was all. After finishing Skyrim, I didn't feel anything - no rush, no excitement, not even disappointment, it was just OK. I tried playing it again with heavy mods like removing all the snow to make it summer everywhere or replacing everything with a desert and palm trees, but it wasn't enough to get me to play again as the base gameplay wasn't so exciting to me.

Then I played Morrowind and at first it was very hard to me because I didn't understand the basic mechanics for combat and Stamina. It was only after I watched some YouTube videos explaining why Morrowind does things better than the other that I got some enthusiasm to play it again and only then I finished it.

Then I played Oblivion, but only the main quest and that was because I didn't really like the game from the start, but I wanted to see it from start to end.

And after that I just decided for myself that Morrowind is the most enjoyable. But now I don't play that either, because I think Morrowind is very demanding time-wise and after finishing it once, I haven't had the urge to play it again. I only started several times, remembered how much effort it required and quit soon after. It's a game probably for people with a lot of time and patience on their hands, the newer are more aimed at people with shorter attention spans who want to get in on the action faster, but that sacrifices a lot of depth in the process.

I still think Morrowind is better mechanics-wise, especially, because I think at the times the developers were also excited and full of enthusiasm of creating a game that expands upon the previous ones, but with Oblivion and Skyrim I just don't see how it's expanded - they have better graphics, bigger worlds and better animations, but I can't really say they've done something that's an actual improvement to the series without some massive tradeoff.

[theo]

I never needed any guides to figure out Gothic 1 controls, it's absolutely intuitive. Works by the same principle as combat - it's unusual but if you figure out one you figure out another

[Allwynd]

Publicado originalmente por TheZinc:

I dunno dude, after all these years I’m doing a proper Morrowind play through and just in awe of the game. Oblivion is what I’ve played the most followed by Skyrim. Morrowind has an atmosphere that is unbeatable for me. The towns, the strange landscapes, the lack of hand holding or pointers. The weird UI that I now love. Maybe it’s just quaint, but given its age it’s clearly superior to Oblivion in many ways. Oblivion although fun at the time, seems the most bland out of the three. It’s Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion for me.

Morrowind actually has an UI built for PC. The UI in Oblivion and Skyrim is built for consoles and then they added a mouse cursor. I don't remember how it was in Oblivion, but I remember the mouse cursor in Skyrim didn't have hardware acceleration or something and was always lagging behind, it became more noticeable when I experienced some bug in windowed mode and my cursor from the OS showed underneath the Skyrim cursor and when moving the mouse around made the game cursor lag behind so much that any fast movement made them detach from one another for a brief second.

I also like Morrowind's UI because it feels like the UI of an operating system, I don't think it's weird, it's very thorough and detailed, you can move windows around, pin them, resize them.


Now in-game UI's look so simplistic and also bloated - they have so much empty space, so much bloat in terms of ornaments that serve no purpose, only take up space. Maybe the other RPG that had semi-good UI, but very console-oriented was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

Also, Vanilla WoW's UI also feels a lot like that of Morrowind, only a bit more modern and the way it displays equipped items in a separate character paper doll window and they don't take up space in the inventory is much better.

Another semi-good UI I can think of is that of Old School RunesScape, a bit confusing since I probably have less than 5-10 hours in a lifetime, but it looks simple, good and old school. It gives some cozy feeling with how items and everything looks.

New UIs try to be so flashy and modern that they look downright unhelpful. Maybe it's a bit of nostalgia, but I've always been open for new games, regardless of genre and for the past 5+ years, I've been very disappointed with almost everything that releases, because it feels so unfinished and lazy. At one point, I just stopped caring about new games, barely even watching few seconds of video from real in-game footage from players, not promo stuff and that's it.

I think once people find their sweet spot for games and find several that they like for years to play, like Age of Empires 2, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Worms Armageddon, Vanilla WoW are for me, they can just stop being frustrated with new games being not to their liking and just be happy playing the few games they enjoy.

[Icedfate]

i tried playing heroes of might and magic demo on steam and the Ui is horrible. especially at higher screen resolution, it's so tiny. the text is almost microscopic. completely unplayable.

in fairness, i don't remember which one imtried the demo of, because there's at least 5 of them. i see heroes 3 HD doesn't even have a demo, but there's icons on it showing that i deliberately ignored it, which suggests that may have been the one i tried, maybe it was one of those "free weekend" things i tried it and then went eff this and clicked ignore on it

[theo]

Not the UIs fault that your screen is too big. it wasn't made for modern high res wide screens

[Jakob Fel]

I began my TES adventures with Morrowind. It was the first time where I played a game that presented me a world where I could just live in that world. To this day, it's one of my all-time favorite CRPGs.

However, I do have to say I prefer Oblivion overall. I won't say Oblivion is better because I think Morrowind's game design is objectively top-tier stuff; I'd say from a pure design perspective, Morrowind definitely wins overall.

Nonetheless, Oblivion took my reasonably obsessed fandom of Morrowind and ended up making me into a megafan of the series. It took all that I loved about Morrowind, gave us a gorgeous world to explore, streamlined some of the more obtuse aspects of Morrowind and had, bar none, the two greatest game expansions ever made: The Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine. Its soundtrack is perfection, the setting might get grief for being "generic" but I found it downright gorgeous, and it really is just a perfect middle ground between the complexity of Daggerfall/Morrowind, and the more accessible design of modern RPGs.

I know a lot of Morrowind fans poo-poo on streamlining/accessibility, opting to deride it as "dumbing down" but I really do disagree. I'm a series vet at this point, and like I said, I started with Morrowind somewhere around 2004/2005 (IIRC), I put innumerable hours into the non-Steam PC version and the Xbox version (I also put innumerable hours into the non-Steam PC version of Oblivion). Even with all the immense love and appreciation I have for Morrowind, Oblivion is the one that remains my favorite game of all time.

All of that said, OP, I'm working on a Steam guide that tries to help newcomers not only get into the game, but learn to appreciate it as well. If you're willing to have an open mind on us vets' reasons for loving this game, that guide might be helpful for you. Feel free to add me if you're interested and I'll let you know when I drop it. Otherwise, no problem, but I really would encourage you to go in again with an open mind, maybe some mods to address your biggest complaints (Accurate Attack is a big help for the combat)... maybe even give this SorcererDave video a watch, because it's an awesome exposé on why Morrowind is so great.

At the end of the day, Morrowind IS a difficult game for newcomers to sink their teeth into. I don't think it's beneficial for either side to diss each other here. Preferences, the state of the modern industry, and the mindset of people in general are very different now than they were back in 2002 and, for better or for worse, we can't change that.

To my fellow vets: remember, we're talking a game with immense complexity, obtuse gameplay mechanics and very little up-front help for new players. I mean this respectfully but many modern gamers don't have the patience or the wherewithal to learn this game from the ground up; this isn't entirely their fault, it's just the way most games (even RPGs) are today.

And to newcomers: just because you don't understand how the game is meant to be played, that doesn't make the game trash. You may or may not ever come to appreciate games like this but regardless of that, this game is beloved for a reason. It's similar to the love for Fallout: New Vegas. On the surface, you might think, "Is this it? This is the game everyone claims is a masterpiece?" but when you start to dive into the systems, the game's history, the impact on the fandom and more, you start to appreciate it for what it is. Sure, it's still reasonably buggy and sure, its gameplay isn't nearly as polished as 4's was, but there's still a reason for the love.

In the case of Morrowind, most people come into it expecting it to play more or less like Skyrim, or even Oblivion, but that's not the case. This game was the one that saved Bethesda, they were on the verge of bankruptcy so they decided to go all-in and throw every bit of their ambition at making this game the way it is. And at the time, there wasn't anything like it. Previous TES games were either a procedural early 3D dungeon crawler (Arena), spinoffs in different genres (Redguard and Battlespire) or a highly complex yet procedurally generated sandbox RPG with a game world the literal size of Great Britain (Daggerfall). Morrowind has to be appreciated as a different experience, a prototype for what TES would eventually be known for. If you accept that and go in with an open mind (and maybe some help from my eventual guide or that video I linked), things might just "click" so you can, at the very least, start to grasp why people love this game so much, even if you yourself never come to enjoy it quite that much.

[🆃 🆈 🅻 🅴 🆁]

OP is definitely troliing.

[Allwynd]

Publicado originalmente por Icedfate:

i tried playing heroes of might and magic demo on steam and the Ui is horrible. especially at higher screen resolution, it's so tiny. the text is almost microscopic. completely unplayable.

in fairness, i don't remember which one imtried the demo of, because there's at least 5 of them. i see heroes 3 HD doesn't even have a demo, but there's icons on it showing that i deliberately ignored it, which suggests that may have been the one i tried, maybe it was one of those "free weekend" things i tried it and then went eff this and clicked ignore on it

The Heroes of Might and Magic 3 version on Steam is a scam by Ubisoft. It prays upon people nostalgic about the game seeing it on Steam "with updated visuals". It lacks two expansions - Armageddon's Blade and Shadow of Death. One of those added the Conflux faction and Random Map Generation (or RMG). They are crucial to the game, without them would be something like a limited version of Morrowind where you can only use fists for combat.

The versions that are Complete (as they have the word in their name) are on GOG and Epic Game Store. There is the possibility of getting it from original CDs bought online, but would be much more expensive. The versions on GOG and EGS sometimes sell for just 4 EUR/USD.

There are two tools that people use who want to play HoMM3 properly in 2025:

- HD+ Mod
- The Horn of The Abyss

HD+ Mod is basically a QoL that allows the original game to run in any resolution, you literally have an option to type in the resolution you want. I'm on a 1920x1080 screen, but I run the game at a much lower resolution so it looks upscaled and not straining to look at.

Here is a screenshot of the settings:

https://i.ibb.co/DDXTJmTG/image.png

There are other options to select a renderer that can change things like sharpening or animation smoothness so it's more pleasant to look at.



The Horn of the Abyss is an unofficial expansion for the game and it's 100% lore-friendly - all the additions are based on the HoMM and Might & Magic series and their lore. Currently they have added two new faction - a pirate themed one called Cove, which appears in the RPG games and a wild west/steampunk one called Factory, also features ini the RPG games. They have full-fledged campaigns, heroes, artifacts, new creatures, new adventure map buildings, even some critical rebalances of skills, factions and whatnot to make the game more interesting and most importantly to work for competitive multiplayer.

Here is a screenshot of the in-game Online Lobby where anyone can easily find a game for casual play with friends or ranked (either with friends or strangers):

https://i.ibb.co/HWyJ4Yr/image.png

Some communities organize tournaments with some kind of prize pools - HoMM3 merchandise or maybe even money. There are a lot of content creators on YouTube and Twitch who play the game and if you notice - they are all playing HoTA (Horn of the Abyss) + HD+ Mod, literally nobody is playing the old vanilla version or the Steam scam version.

Here are a few more screenshots from how things look in game, again keep in mind, my game is intentionally set on a low resolution, but anyone can use their native resolution, the problem is the bigger the screen, the smaller everything looks.

https://i.ibb.co/tTChJpTk/image.png

https://i.ibb.co/SDhsrtzv/image.png

https://i.ibb.co/GvBHfH0M/image.png


Both HoTA and HD+ Mod are free to download and install, naturally the game is the only thing needed to be purchased from either GOG or ESG, although there are other ways to acquire it. Just don't buy the version on Steam, because I don't even know if people can play online or not.

[dust1]

I played morrowind at 12 had a good time, played oblivion when i was 17 had a good time, played skyrim at 22 had a bad time, played it again at 25 and the only way to keep me interested was legendary difficulty with no hud and roleplayed as a khajiit who didnt like water. if you weren't around these ages then you're a gay.

[lonetrav]

Publicado originalmente por Jakob Fel:

... just because you don't understand how the game is meant to be played, ...

The game is not "meant" to be played in any specific way (by whom?). The problem is that many people seem to have certain expectations and ideas how they want to play the game, or how it should be possible to play the game. Apparently not all of these expectations and ideas work. And rather than thinking about their expectations and ideas, they blame the game for not being as they expect or want it to be.

[MISO4EVER]

Publicado originalmente por ureaditwrong:

For some reason recently, people have been gassing up Morrowind again. While I wouldn't call Morrowind bad, it is definitely way overhyped and worse than both Oblivion and Skyrim.

Idk how anyone can call this peak Bethesda. Bethesda is known for its world design and Morrowind's is the ugliest. It's 75% ash and then there's a small ugly swamp filled with hundreds of filler enemies, some low poly grasslands and a few islands. Dungeons are exactly the same as in Oblivion, just with non-leveled enemies. I will say the towns are pretty cool but offer limited functionality compared to Oblivion and Skyrim, especially considering mods.

Combat in Morrowind is literally just mashing l-mouse. There is no strategy involved whatsoever and no reward for leveling like there is in Oblivion and Skyrim, just an increase in accuracy. All magic except for restoration is trash. No this game is not more complex than its successors, quite the opposite actually.

The characters offer a lot of dialogue but it's mostly just filler, no different from Oblivion and Skyrim. Quantity does not equal quality.

So yeah, just needed to give that reality check to the boomers, ty.

Oblivion is Dawgschit.

Bland soulless, derivative, boring, empty and hideous game.

[theo]

Publicado originalmente por lonetrav:

Publicado originalmente por Jakob Fel:

... just because you don't understand how the game is meant to be played, ...

The game is not "meant" to be played in any specific way (by whom?). The problem is that many people seem to have certain expectations and ideas how they want to play the game, or how it should be possible to play the game. Apparently not all of these expectations and ideas work. And rather than thinking about their expectations and ideas, they blame the game for not being as they expect or want it to be.

Meh, it's simpler to say there are expectations of how an RPG from 2002 is meant to be played. Or how not to be played, at least.
Let's say you purchased a fixed gear bike. You can do whatever you want with it but there are certain things about how it works and how you're expected to use it. Not defined by "whom", but by the nature of its mechanism. When you ride it "your own way" and something breaks (your collar bone most likely), one could say dude you ride it wrong, or that you've had certain expectations that didn't work out yada yada yada. Basically the same thing but latter is worded in a way that is unnecessarily more complicated just to protect your ego and make it not sound like lecturing

[BIGMAC]

That is why Oblivion is getting a remaster

[Modazem]

Publicado originalmente por BIGMAC:

That is why Oblivion is getting a remaster

Ehh, Oblivion doesn't have anything like OpenMW or a Code Patch, so Oblivion really needs a remaster simply to fix its crash issues and save file corruptions it has on modern machines, because as it stands it's barely playable. At least that's my own experience with it.