tigersong wrote: ↑18 May 2021, 16:44
Clearly, you aren't a fan.
Morrowind is great
because it doesn't have "modern" mechanics like quest markers.
That's rather rude. You can be a fan of Morrowind, but find various mechanics archaic and outdated. I'm a fan of Morrowind, but do think it could do with quest markers*, better player guidance**, and other modern QOL changes. Could do with a better dialog system, too. But of course, one of the most promising things of OpenMW is that it will be able to implement updated mechanics and fix archaic design decisions, either in-engine or with expanded mod capabilities.
* I wouldn't want Oblivion-esque markers, though, where it always pointed to the exact spot you needed to go. I'd prefer the markers to simply indicate what your character would know/was told about where to go. But different people will have different opinions.
** I find Morrowind's landscape pretty dull, and "exploration" and "discovery" ends up feeling like a blind game of hide and seek in a barren world. Interesting things are tucked away just out of sight so you can't see them until you're right on top of it (partly necessitated by the relatively small map, needing to make areas seem more separated than they really are). Mods that improve the visuals, to make the landscape more pleasing to look at, and things like extended view distance and landmasses designed with it in mind, help with this, though true exploration on Vvardenfell still tends to feel not as rewarding as it could. If I don't already know where to go, either from being told or from past experience, it's like I'm stumbling around blind.
tigersong wrote: ↑18 May 2021, 16:44
Instead, you're allowed to discover an alien world inch by inch, without having things popping up to say, "Look at me, I'm interesting!"
I like being able to see things in the distance that grab my interest, and make me want to find my way there when I don't have any other reason to other than it looks interesting. I'd rather see something of interest and go there, than to have no clear goal and only trip over things on accident that I couldn't see because of a conspicuously placed rock or hill.
tigersong wrote: ↑18 May 2021, 16:44
Skyrim is a decent action game, but it feels shallow to me. It's clearly a cash grab, not a labor of love like Morrowind. As if that weren't obvious enough, the powers that be recently sold their souls to Molag Bal, also known as Microsoft.
Funny enough, Morrowind could be considered their first step down that rabbit hole. After Battlespire and Redguard, Bethesda was approached by Microsoft to make "the killer RPG" for their new XBox console, their first foray into the console wars against Nintendo, Sony, and Sega. You can bet Morrowind was at least partly designed with the XBox's capabilities in mind. Morrowind on XBox was the first time Bethesda reached such a wide audience, and ever since then, it's been nothing but praise for Microsoft and consoles; whatever Microsoft wanted is what Bethesda considered good (to the point where they would even lie and say Skyrim was always intended for the XBox360, despite everything pointing to the contrary, because Microsoft was still pushing that console generation; and they even went as far as to say later on they regretted, of all things, using OpenGL in Redguard rather than being an early adopter or Microsoft's Direct3D API). I'm more surprised the buyout didn't happen sooner, honestly.
Regarding Skyrim being a "cash grab" rather than a labor of love is also something I don't exactly agree with. A number of the people who worked in fairly high positions on Skyrim were there with if not before Morrowind too (Todd, obviously; Bruce Nesmith, who's been involved with RPGs since before Arena was a thought in someone's head; Kurt Kuhlmann, M.K.'s long-time protege who used a lot of his work; Steve Meister; Ashley Cheng; etc). Skyrim is IMHO the plain result of the change in design philosophy that started with Morrowind, which itself resulted from a change in leadership after Daggerfall and Battlespire (when Julian LeFay and Ted Peterson stepped down from their lead roles). If you look at Morrowind's expansions, there are clear design precursors to how Oblivion turned out, and Oblivion's expansions also have clear precursors to how Fallout 3 turned out, etc. You can not like what happened post-Morrowind, but from what I can see there wasn't a significant philosophical change after Morrowind resulting in the later games; it's the logical result of what led to Morrowind itself. I mean, there's no loss of ambition here; Oblivion's Radiant AI was very ambitious, as was Skyrim's Radiant Story and Quests... so much so, it was more than they could chew, being unable to stablize the systems and having to scale them back in late stages of development which made them feel lackluster, and subsequently become underappreciated attempts at making something grand.
To be clear, Bethesda has always been a for-profit company. They've always looked to make money and reach a wider audience. But you can love what you do and do what you think works best in light of that goal. I don't think Morrowind and Skyrim are very different there.