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Chris wrote: The plot, sure. TES games have generally been fine with having decent or good plots. But twists and surprises in the story? I'm not sure I can really think of anything that stands out... certainly nothing like the surprise twist about your character in Baldur's Gate*. I mean heck, Morrowind literally says you're the chosen one in the opening cinematic, and you do just about everything the prophecy says you need to do, up to and including defeating the big bad.

I think I finished the game three or four times before I realised there was an opening cinematic. Certainly I remember being surprised when I read the decoded message to Caius for the first time and realised that I was supposed to be this Nerevarine person. I remember being surprised at catching corprus and more so by Dyvath Fyr's approach to curing it. I remember being really surprised to fund out talking to Vivec meant meeting a living god in person rather than talking to some priest or Wizard of Oz type special effect.

So for me, "I'm the Nerevarine?" was more or less comparable with "What do you mean, my dad was some dead evil god?" I suppose if you argue that the opening video should have given less away then I'd be hard put to disagree, although I'd call that an error in presentation rather than a flaw in the story, personally

Chris wrote:

In contrast TES games, and Morrowind in particular are necessarily much slower paced. The open world nature means that A->B-C turns into A->Q->G->wombat->32->B->C->Z and so the game needs to accommodate that in the story. I wouldn't say this necessarily results in a worse story but it certainly gives a slower paced one.

For the quest itself, I would disagree and say that yes, it results in a worse story. The experience is not necessarily worse off, but the things actually going on can't be as intricately interconnected for that reason. The story can't have anything major happen that would have large ramifications because of everything else that's not that story. I mean, it's not like anything major can happen to Balmora or Ald'ruhn and its residents, even though they should be prime targets for attack by the Sixth House, because too many other quests rely on those places and people being there.

So, let's try a thought experiment. In our heads, let's butcher Morrowind and trim out all that extraneous detail. In this new game you get off at Seyda Neen, buy supplies from Arille, maybe grind some mudcrabs until you can afford the fee for the silt strider which is now the only means of reaching Balmora. When you get to Balmora you find Caius and he sends you to Hasaphat Ass at the fighter's guild. No factions are joinable the only quests are those that advance the main quest, areas not needed for the MQ are unavailable - the world only exists in small areas linked by fast travel - much as in Dragon Age. In effect, we're going to force the player to speedrun Dagoth Ur.

Now: has the story improved as a result of this treatment? I think we'd both agree that the game would suffer as a result, as certainly would the player experience. But has the story behind the MQ been improved? Because I just can't see it.

Chris wrote:

Now in Morrowind, particularly, the devs take these differences and turn them to advantage. It's not so much that the story of the PC defeating Dagoth Ur gets diluted by the Mages' Guild quests and doing business with House Hlaalu. It's more that you get a the story of the Nerevarine that used his postion within Hlaalu and the resources of the Mages' Guild to defeat Dagoth Ur.

I'd have to disagree here too, and this highlights the actual reason for why I think TES's stories tend to be more lack luster. The Mages Guild doesn't in any way acknowledge Dagoth Ur's threat any more than anyone else. They offer no unique perspective on what you need to do, they offer no unique options, they offer no guidance or help beyond what they normally do... it's all business as usual no matter what's going on in the MQ. How you go about it may affect your character's narrative, but the MQ's story doesn't change.

But does it have to change?

I know modern creative writing teaches that the art of good storytelling is to omit every extraneous detail but personally I think that's because most of these people are taling about writing for television or film where you have a limited amount of time and need to pack as much in as you can. That's not necessariy true in other genres. Would Lord of the Rings have been a better book if JRRT had cut the entirely irrelevant Tom Bombadil chapter? Did Treebeard's lament about the Entwives detract from the story at all? Again, I can't see it.

Chris wrote:

Speaking of Nerevar, that brings me to the final point I'd make. The story Morrowind tells isn't really the story how the PC defeats Dagoth Ur. The story it tells is the story of the First Council; of Nerevar and Dumac and Kagrenac and Nerevar's betrayal by the soon to be tribunal, and the curse laid upon the Chimer people and Azura's scheme to be avenged on Vivec, and almost incidentally, the destruction of the Heart of Lorkan and the downfall of Dagoth Ur.

This would be the world history and lore, which I agree is really good. But it's not the MQ story, which starts with you getting off the boat and (effectively) ends with Dagoth Ur's death. It doesn't include the War of the First Council any more than it includes Red Year. Those are related, but separate, stories creating a larger narrative.

Does all world history and lore necessarily have to be in a separate bracket from the story? There is plenty of unrelated lore in the game, certainly. But the War of the First Council and the consequence of those events as they echo down the centuries is fundamental to the MQ and to the game. It's not like Trap or Feyfolken which are interesting and charming but also quite irrelevant.

Maybe it comes down to how we define what a story is. We may need to agree to differ on this one

DocClox wrote:So for me, "I'm the Nerevarine?" was more or less comparable with "What do you mean, my dad was some dead evil god?" I suppose if you argue that the opening video should have given less away then I'd be hard put to disagree, although I'd call that an error in presentation rather than a flaw in the story, personally

So, let's try a thought experiment. In our heads, let's butcher Morrowind and trim out all that extraneous detail. In this new game you get off at Seyda Neen, buy supplies from Arille, maybe grind some mudcrabs until you can afford the fee for the silt strider which is now the only means of reaching Balmora. When you get to Balmora you find Caius and he sends you to Hasaphat Ass at the fighter's guild. No factions are joinable the only quests are those that advance the main quest, areas not needed for the MQ are unavailable - the world only exists in small areas linked by fast travel - much as in Dragon Age. In effect, we're going to force the player to speedrun Dagoth Ur.

Now: has the story improved as a result of this treatment?

I know modern creative writing teaches that the art of good storytelling is to omit every extraneous detail but personally I think that's because most of these people are taling about writing for television or film where you have a limited amount of time and need to pack as much in as you can.

Does all world history and lore necessarily have to be in a separate bracket from the story? There is plenty of unrelated lore in the game, certainly. But the War of the First Council and the consequence of those events as they echo down the centuries is fundamental to the MQ and to the game.

Spoiler: Show

Chris wrote: I suppose presentation does play a part in it, but genre savvyness should clue players in that something's up with you once they start talking about the Nerevarine and how you were sent to fulfill it the prophecies.

On the other hand, with sufficient cynicism, all stories end up being rubbish. Genre conventions would have dictated that the PC (having arrived on a prison ship) should fight his way out of Seyda Neen. It would have dictated that Caius give an immediate assignment backed by either some some in-game coercion or by a simple lack of choice. Morrowind bucked genre conventions from the very beginning. By the time I got to the Nerevarine reveal I'd stopped trying to analyse the game in terms of tradition fantasy.

As a general rule, I'm pretty damn cynical about these things (just ask my wife!) but I genuinely didn't see that one coming. Maybe it's just me.

Chris wrote: It'd be one thing if the game was effective at better masking or instilling doubt about your role in everything that's going on, but it doesn't (and I'm not sure it could; the concept of a foreigner being ingratiated into a backwater society to appear to be some prophecied hero/savior in an attempt to control said society, only for said person to turn out to actually be said hero/savior and work against the people who put him up, is a familiar trope too).

I was thinking maybe the Nerevarine was going to be a bad guy. Maybe an ally of Dagoth Ur, maybe it was going to be a three sided fight. Maybe I should have watched the opening video

Chris wrote:

So, let's try a thought experiment. In our heads, let's butcher Morrowind and trim out all that extraneous detail. In this new game you get off at Seyda Neen, buy supplies from Arille, maybe grind some mudcrabs until you can afford the fee for the silt strider which is now the only means of reaching Balmora. When you get to Balmora you find Caius and he sends you to Hasaphat Ass at the fighter's guild. No factions are joinable the only quests are those that advance the main quest, areas not needed for the MQ are unavailable - the world only exists in small areas linked by fast travel - much as in Dragon Age. In effect, we're going to force the player to speedrun Dagoth Ur.

Now: has the story improved as a result of this treatment?

Not if you don't change the story, no it won't be improved. But if you add in more events, say the damaging or destruction of various cities, the loss of life with cities full of innocent people and important characters getting killed or infected with corprus and turned into corprus beasts as Dagoth Ur's power grows and the Ghostfence fails, then the story does improve as it better relates the danger and Dagoth's growing destructive power, thereby making your victory against him that much more potent.

But, and forgive me if I'm misrepresenting your position here, but your whole argument so far seems to have been that the presence of extraneous elements not linked to the MQ distracts from the story. If that is the case then how can removing those distractions not result in a better story? There seems to be a contradiction there.

You could certainly say that the story could have been stronger if additional complications were added ... but that's always going to be true. And I thought we were in broad agreement that the plot was in decent shape as it stood.

Chris wrote:

I know modern creative writing teaches that the art of good storytelling is to omit every extraneous detail but personally I think that's because most of these people are taling about writing for television or film where you have a limited amount of time and need to pack as much in as you can.

No, that's a general principle in story writing. Even in books you don't want to include extraneous details because people tend to get bored or frustrated if their time is wasted with unimportant stuff while they're waiting to get back to the things that are relevant.

I'd take your point if Morrowind was a boring game bogged down in tedious irrelevancies, but it isn't. At least you don't see to think so, and I doubt many here would say it was, given the forum. I won't dispute the priciple as it is taught, but the facts seem to run contrary to the theory in this case, and I don't think "that's not how we're taught to do it" is in itself the mark of a poor story.

Then again, I never did get anything published professionally, so what do I know?

Chris wrote: What is relevant is not always a well-defined metric, but the author should have a reason for including some detail (Tolkien was obsessed with world building, so things like Tom Bombadil and Treebeard talking about the Entwives served the purpose of fleshing out the world; though not everyone agrees they were relevant, and such people find the books less enjoyable because of it).

So then, are you saying that LOTR would have been a better story if Tom Bombadil was cut from the book? Or are you saying that it's better to always cater to the lowest common denominator? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth here, I just want to see if I understand your position correctly.

Chris wrote:

Does all world history and lore necessarily have to be in a separate bracket from the story? There is plenty of unrelated lore in the game, certainly. But the War of the First Council and the consequence of those events as they echo down the centuries is fundamental to the MQ and to the game.

But if you follow that logic, then the whole of Skyrim is just another chapter in Oblivion's story. The events in Skyrim wouldn't be happening if not for Oblivion's story being about the fall of the Septim dynasty, the end of the Imperial's divine rule, which seeded the return of the Aldmeri Dominion and the Great War, which is the reason behind the civil war (and the civil war is one of the causes behind Alduin's return). Where does it end?

Sure. And the events in Return of the Jedi are a direct consequence of the events in Star Wars and you can consider the whole trilogy as a single overarching story. I don't actually have a problem with that.

But the story of how the Rebel Alliance overthrew Emperor Palpatine is not told inside Star Wars. On the other hand the War of the First Council and it's consequences and eventual resolution; that tale is told in Morrowind. That might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but I think the distinction is important.

DocClox wrote:

Chris wrote:Not if you don't change the story, no it won't be improved. But if you add in more events, say the damaging or destruction of various cities, the loss of life with cities full of innocent people and important characters getting killed or infected with corprus and turned into corprus beasts as Dagoth Ur's power grows and the Ghostfence fails, then the story does improve as it better relates the danger and Dagoth's growing destructive power, thereby making your victory against him that much more potent.

But, and forgive me if I'm misrepresenting your position here, but your whole argument so far seems to have been that the presence of extraneous elements not linked to the MQ distracts from the story.

No, that's a general principle in story writing. Even in books you don't want to include extraneous details because people tend to get bored or frustrated if their time is wasted with unimportant stuff while they're waiting to get back to the things that are relevant.

I'd take your point if Morrowind was a boring game bogged down in tedious irrelevancies, but it isn't.

So then, are you saying that LOTR would have been a better story if Tom Bombadil was cut from the book? Or are you saying that it's better to always cater to the lowest common denominator?

On the other hand the War of the First Council and it's consequences and eventual resolution; that tale is told in Morrowind.

Spoiler: Show

Chris wrote: No, what I'm saying is that the extra non-MQ-related elements, in conjunction with it being an open world game, prohibits the MQ story
from being as good as it can be.

So you're saying the story is good but could be improved, then? That the flaw is not so much in the story Morrowind tells as it is in open world format as a vehicle for story-telling? I can see where you're coming from, if so. Not that I necessarily agree, of course

Chris wrote: It can't, for instance, make Dagoth Ur a real threat because he can't do anything that impacts the world around him. He can't attack and have a real effect on the Tribunal Temple or the Imperial Cult because the player can currently be going through (or plan to go through) the quest lines, he can't attack and have an effect on various settlements because the player may still have quests there, etc. It can't have the various guilds actually help move against him because the player's potential presence in those guilds would complicate the ways they should interact (the guilds should react differently if you're already the guild figure head, or just a lowly initiate, or completely unaffiliated, or in a rival guild, or head of a rival guild; and they shouldn't worry about their usual tasks like picking flowers or bullying rivals if you're currently readying them all up to battle the Sixth House).

So if we go back to my speedrun thought experiment, instead of removing the guild quests and so on, we tie them directly into the MQ and the threat of Dagoth Ur? I can see how that would get us a bigger story and a more complex one, but I'm not sure we'd get a better one. In my minds eye, that looks like a sort of fantasy version of Independence Day with a dollop of Night of the Living Dead thrown in. You'd get a more conventional narrative, but it's hard to imagine it as an improvement.

Chris wrote: This is, again, why I think TES just needs to stop with these constant end-of-the-world-scenario MQs. You just can't have them affecting the world like they should in an open world game, without wasting a ton of resources on designing interactions that could otherwise be put towards better quests and quest lines.

You do keep saying that, but I'm not sure it's true.

I mean in Morrowind, half of Vvardenfel know of DU as some big bogeyman deep in the ashlands, and they know the temple is dealing with him and that's as much as they care to know. The other half are the ones who get blight storms and probably look on him much as we might think about a corporation that pollutes the environment. I mean it's a bad thing and a health hazard, and something should be done, but it's not something that occupies our every waking moment. Absolute worst case, DU would be something like Bin Laden was; yes a lot of people want him dead quite badly, but even so there are lots of things going on that are completely unrelated.

The temple know what's at stake, but they've tried military solutions and they just don't work, so they're relying on the Ghostfence and a containment strategy. The only people who really know that we may be facing an end of the world scenario are the Tribunal and even then it's questionable whether anyone knows about Akulakhan, they just know that containment is failing. And their solution to *that* is the Nerevarine.

As for DU, he doesn't need to unleash a zombie apocalypse on the cities. His plans are coming along nicely. All he needs is for the Nerevarine to bring Wraithgard to him. And since he knows that he can't be killed without the Heart immediately resurrecting him, he's quite happy to wait for that to happen. It never occurrs to him that anyone would destroy the heart rather than try and use such power for their own ends ... but as he is a bona fides Mad God, I can forgive him that one blind spot

The point is: I'm not sure the story needs a zombie-apocalypse-assault-on-dagoth-ur format to work. Certainly you could argue that the plot has been contrived to work with the open world setting, but then framing the story to work with in a given format is part of the art of any storyteller.

Now if we were talking about Oblivion, I'd take your point: Oblivion Gates opening everywhere and cities sacked by armies of daedra and the Mage's guild have nothing better to do than track down bandits on the road to Skingrad. The death of the Emperor explains why the military are slow to respond ... but on the whole the crisis is one that involves everyone and you really would expect more engagement from the factions. Skyrim ... you could argue that the whole thing reaches crisis point fast enough that the whole thing was over before the College of Winterhold got further than holding meetings to discus a response. (You could also argue that both the college and the companions were distracted by other, internal concerns). I think Skyrim handles the problem better than Oblivion did, but not without issues.

But Morrowind, I think, serves as a perfect counter-example to your point. You can do end-of-the-world plots plausibly in an open world environment. I will concede that the format places some restrictions on the nature of the threat, if that threat is to be plausible, but I don't think the story needs to suffer as a result.

Chris wrote: Right, there's much more to Morrowind than it's MQ, and there's more to games than the story. So just because the game's stories aren't as good as they could otherwise be, that doesn't mean the game can't still provide an enjoyable player-driven experience.

OK, I get that. I know you're not saying that MW is a bad game, or even that the MQ story is bad. You're saying that the format of the game is, in essence, a poor one for story-telling and that the MQ story could have been told better in a more structured format.

And I think that from a literary criticism perspective, you're probably right. What I think you may be missing is that the open world format is arguably a new format for story telling and that different rules may apply. It seems to me a bit like you're saying "these Spider Man stories are all right, but they're never going to be as good as they can be due to the comicbook format: they'd be far more powerful as a feature length film". I mean the cinema format would let you handle *some* aspects better, certainly, but it's also kind of missing the point.

Chris wrote: I'm saying that an author should tell the story they want to tell, and only include the details necessary to tell it. Tolkien obviously thought Bombadil was (at least at one point) necessary, in either establishing something about the world that he thought the reader needed to know, or to move the action along, or whatever

Which is equally true of Morrowind and its developers, of course...

Chris wrote: (FWIW, I've never read the books, so I don't exactly know what Bombadil offered to the story, or whether I would find it better without him)

... but if you've never read the books, it's probably unfair to expect you to have an opinion about them

(FWIW: Tolkein's main objective was mythopoeia: he set out to create a modern mythology. Bombadil was pretty much irrelevant to the story but important to the myth. The chapter dealing with him, however, was one of the most fun in the book. This helps explain both why the film dropped the character (didn't tell the story) and why so many fans were upset as a result).

Chris wrote:

On the other hand the War of the First Council and it's consequences and eventual resolution; that tale is told in Morrowind.

Only because it was the first game of the series to introduce that lore (an interesting factoid is that the Tribunal and the lore surrounding them didn't exist before Morrowind said they did). Morrowind had to tell it to give context to the MQ, but it's still background information to the MQ story.

Or, you can look at the bigger picture and consider the whole saga as the story of Morrowind with the player being only involved in a part of it. I don't think either viewpoint is wrong, I just think that in limiting the concept of "story" to only those events directly involving the PC, you're deliberately turning your back on something of value.

[edit]

For some reason I seem to think "DG" is a sensible abbreviation for "Dagoth Ur". Fixed that

Spoiler: Show

DocClox wrote:So you're saying the story is good but could be improved, then? That the flaw is not so much in the story Morrowind tells as it is in open world format as a vehicle for story-telling?

I'm saying that Morrowind's MQ story (or really, any one questline's story) is not as good as it could be because of the open world design. It's decent for what it is, but as they are I wouldn't say they're up to the standards other, non-open world, RPGs can have.

So if we go back to my speedrun thought experiment, instead of removing the guild quests and so on, we tie them directly into the MQ and the threat of Dagoth Ur? I can see how that would get us a bigger story and a more complex one, but I'm not sure we'd get a better one. In my minds eye, that looks like a sort of fantasy version of Independence Day with a dollop of Night of the Living Dead thrown in. You'd get a more conventional narrative, but it's hard to imagine it as an improvement.

How it'd end up is entirely up to the writers, but increasing the scope of the story increases its potential. A bad writer could squander that potential and probably even make it worse, while a good writer could make it all-around more interesting and better. There is a point where a story can become too big and increasing its scope simply can't help anymore, but Morrowind's hardly at that point.

The point is: I'm not sure the story needs a zombie-apocalypse-assault-on-dagoth-ur format to work. Certainly you could argue that the plot has been contrived to work with the open world setting, but then framing the story to work with in a given format is part of the art of any storyteller.

This almost sounds like you're agreeing with me, that the story didn't need to be about some apocalypse. But that's pretty much how it was set up; the Tribunal's power was waining, the ghostfence was failing, blight storms were getting worse, more corprus monsters were appearing, and Sixth House cults were becoming more active, all the while Dagoth Ur, a god, is making motions to spread corprus everywhere and preparing to destroy civilization as we know it. All of this, but there's no impending apocalypse?

Skyrim ... you could argue that the whole thing reaches crisis point fast enough that the whole thing was over before the College of Winterhold got further than holding meetings to discus a response. (You could also argue that both the college and the companions were distracted by other, internal concerns).

Skyrim, I'd say, made enough sense in that most people didn't realize there truly was an end-of-the-world threat. They had children's tales about dragons being the harbingers of the end times, but most in-universe people wouldn't necessarily believe it (how often do you believe children's fairy tales?). They'd just do what they could to protect themselves from an emerging threat. At most, I might have expected the Companions to take a greater interest in defending against them, rather than simply having a couple nearly identical radiant quests available at the very end of the questline. But guards regularly get into fights with dragons, and there are bounties for killing dragons that are being a problem.

And I think that from a literary criticism perspective, you're probably right. What I think you may be missing is that the open world format is arguably a new format for story telling and that different rules may apply.

I understand that an open world format provides a different method of story telling. Like I said before, it's less about the as-written stories, and more about how you interact with the game to create your character's story.

Or, you can look at the bigger picture and consider the whole saga as the story of Morrowind with the player being only involved in a part of it. I don't think either viewpoint is wrong, I just think that in limiting the concept of "story" to only those events directly involving the PC, you're deliberately turning your back on something of value.

When I talk of the MQ story, I can only include the events that happen in the MQ. Once you start including other events as an extension of it, then you can basically bring in the entirety of the lore as it's all interconnected in some way (and in that case, it wouldn't be fair to compare to, e.g. Baldur's Gate's story, but rather the whole Forgotten Realms setting and its officially licensed material). That's why it's important to keep focus on a specific story if you want to compare it to another story, IMO.

Spoiler: Show

Chris wrote: I'm saying that Morrowind's MQ story (or really, any one questline's story) is not as good as it could be because of the open world design. It's decent for what it is, but as they are I wouldn't say they're up to the standards other, non-open world, RPGs can have.

Hmm. By the same token then, you could argue that Shakespeare's sonnets were not as good as they could have been because of the restrictions imposed by the structure of the literary form. That perhaps they'd have been better if they'd been written in the style of ee cummings?

I think with any creative work, you need to consider how well it works within the strengths and limitations of the medium and format used, rather than saying "this would be much better if it had been done in a different style and rewritten to fit the conventions of that genre."

Chris wrote: How it'd end up is entirely up to the writers, but increasing the scope of the story increases its potential. A bad writer could squander that potential and probably even make it worse, while a good writer could make it all-around more interesting and better.

On the other hand we have lots of stories where everybody scrambles to defeat the Big Foozle and ignores everything else in the process. We don't have many that show us the wheels of the gods as they grind slowly but exceedingly fine. No matter how well executed either version was, we'd still be sacrificing something quite rare to produce yet another formulaic action-adventure game.

Incidentally, "it all depends on how good the writers are" is always going to be true for both sides of the discussion. Perhaps we can assume "given writers of equal skill and talent" when I consider an alternative treatment of the story? If nothing else it would save some time.

Chris wrote:

The point is: I'm not sure the story needs a zombie-apocalypse-assault-on-dagoth-ur format to work. Certainly you could argue that the plot has been contrived to work with the open world setting, but then framing the story to work with in a given format is part of the art of any storyteller.

This almost sounds like you're agreeing with me, that the story didn't need to be about some apocalypse.

Actually, I think we're in broad agreement on a number of points. The only issues under contention as far as I can see are A) whether or not the TES format is inherently flawed as a vehicle for story telling and B) whether or not Bethesda need to abandon using a global scale threat for their main quests.

So no, I'm not saying that any story needs to be about global apocalypse, and there are in fact a lot of TES questlines that tell good, non-apocalyptic stories. But I don't think there is any reason why one of the stories in a game should not be of the save-the-world variety.

I also think that the main quest needs something global in scope (not necessarily apocalyptic) to make it stand out from the rest. I mean you can tell a very good story about how the protagonist comes to terms with who they really were, beats their father to death with a golf club and then rescues half a dozen children from an undersea city. Only ... as a main quest story it wouldn't have really grabbed me. It would have looked like a side plot, and left me wondering what happened to the main storyline.

(Also, I'll just point out that you were the one who suggested that the MQ story was less that it might have been because the format precluded full-scale invasion of the cites by corprus monsters, major characters being infected with corprus and a unified cross faction response to the threat of DU. The zombie-apocalypse-assault-on-dagoth-ur scenario is therefore your proposal; I'm just considering where that might take us. Just to be clear )

Chris wrote: But that's pretty much how it was set up; the Tribunal's power was waining, the ghostfence was failing, blight storms were getting worse, more corprus monsters were appearing, and Sixth House cults were becoming more active, all the while Dagoth Ur, a god, is making motions to spread corprus everywhere and preparing to destroy civilization as we know it. All of this, but there's no impending apocalypse?

That's exactly right. There is no impending apocalypse.

I'll say it again: there is no impending apocalypse.

As it happens, I played the final confrontation with DU last night, so this is all fairly fresh. You get to ask him what his plans are. The text is on UESP if you want to refresh your memory.

For the Heart:

Dagoth Ur wrote:
I will continue to draw divine power from the Heart and distribute it to my kin and followers. I will continue to broadcast divine power upon the blight winds, so that it will touch each soul in Vvardenfell, and then more broadly, across the waters to the rest of Morrowind and Tamriel. In time, every mortal in Tamriel shall feel the liberating contact with the divine.

There's no impending apocalypse there. "In time every mortal in Tamriel..." DU is quite clearly taking the Long View. Maybe cinema and television have left us conditioned to expect every conflict to be resolved mere seconds from irrevocable disaster, but that doesn't seem to be the case in this instance.

About the Sixth House:

Dagoth Ur wrote:
The Sixth House will serve as the elite cadre of our movement. As cultists evolve through various stages of enlightenment, they will become, as suits their abilities, either holy warriors or priests. Their duty is to prepare themselves for service; their joy and liberation is to enter even-more-deeply into the profound enlightenment of the divine dreamworld

No imminent apocalypse there, either. They are to "prepare themselves for service". In fact the closest you get to any sense of forthcoming action is in answer to "Why are you building Akulakhan?

Dagoth Ur wrote:
Akulakhan will serve three purposes. First, it will be the champion of my armies, liberating first Vvardenfell, then Morrowind, and then, perhaps the rest of Tamriel. Second, it will serve as a sower and cultivator of the divine substance derived from the Heart. Three, it will serve as the prominent banner and symbol of our cause -- to defy the Empire, to liberate mortals from ancient superstitions, and to glorify our crusade against the gods

So yeah, he is planning a major military operation, but Akulakhan can't be completed before to the Nerevarine brings him Wraithguard, so it can't be considered as impending prior to that point. And probably not immediately after that point either; the God Golem certainly looks like it's some way from completion when you see it. Couple that with the lack of urgency in his other answers and it really doesn't seem as though DU is contemplating action on the short or even medium term.

And that's entirely appropriate: Dagoth Ur has been pursuing this scheme for something like a thousand years. I doubt it matters much to him if it takes another 200 hundred for his plans to come to fruition.

So, one more time: there is no impending apocalypse.

Chris wrote: Skyrim, I'd say, made enough sense in that most people didn't realize there truly was an end-of-the-world threat. They had children's tales about dragons being the harbingers of the end times, but most in-universe people wouldn't necessarily believe it (how often do you believe children's fairy tales?). They'd just do what they could to protect themselves from an emerging threat. At most, I might have expected the Companions to take a greater interest in defending against them, rather than simply having a couple nearly identical radiant quests available at the very end of the questline. But guards regularly get into fights with dragons, and there are bounties for killing dragons that are being a problem.

Now it sounds like you're agreeing with me and saying that there's no inherent reason why a global threat can't work as the main quest in an open world game. Maybe we're converging on some sort of consensus

Chris wrote: When I talk of the MQ story, I can only include the events that happen in the MQ. Once you start including other events as an extension of it, then you can basically bring in the entirety of the lore as it's all interconnected in some way (and in that case, it wouldn't be fair to compare to, e.g. Baldur's Gate's story, but rather the whole Forgotten Realms setting and its officially licensed material). That's why it's important to keep focus on a specific story if you want to compare it to another story, IMO.

I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy myself. Either you can only consider events that directly involve the protagonist, or you have to include every bit of game lore no matter how irrelevant? That doesn't seem like a very useful approach.

Firstly, there is a lot of lore in the game that quite clearly has no connection to the PC, Nerevar, Vivec, Azura or any of the other principles in the plot. I can see no reason why any of those events should be considered part of the story. Trap, for instance, takes place in Morrowind but beyond that it's hard to see anything it has in common with the War of the First Council. I think we usefully make finer distinctions than All or Nothing.

Secondly, discounting secondary information sources would also stop you from considering the backstory of many characters[1]. I find that particularly problematic in Morrowind since the story of Nerevar is is the backstory of the PC. As such, I'd say it was just as relevant to the story as a whole as the recovered memories of the thousand and one amnesiac heroes that occupy other computer games are to their respective narratives.

To restate my earlier point: I think it's possible, as with any good creative work, to consider Morrowind on a number of levels. Talking about the story of the PC in terms of everything that happens to him post Syeda Neen is valid. So I think is considering the bigger picture and considering the PC as a part of history. I believe this is intended by the developers: Caius Cosades practically says as much ("No point in being part of history if you're too ignorant to understand it") when you start his first mission.

Hmmm... come to think of it, make that three points of contention

[1] I suppose you could draw a distinction between backstory discovered by reading a document and events that occur in flashback. However, I suspect that we are both equally uncomfortable with the notion of forcing all backstory revelations into a flashback format simply to validate a point of literary theory.

Spoiler: Show

DocClox wrote:I think with any creative work, you need to consider how well it works within the strengths and limitations of the medium and format used

Which is exactly what I'm saying. Morrowind's (and Oblivion's) MQ doesn't work well within the open world format, because it's unable to properly portray the devastation that should be happening. Even Skyrim has this problem, as the dragons are unable to actually threaten anything other than some random NPCs.

On the other hand we have lots of stories where everybody scrambles to defeat the Big Foozle and ignores everything else in the process. We don't have many that show us the wheels of the gods as they grind slowly but exceedingly fine.

And I'm perfectly fine with having a story that shows us "the wheels of the gods as they grind slowly but exceedingly fine". But I don't think Morrowind's MQ is that story, since it's about you helping uncover and then single-handedly handle the imminent threat of Dagoth Ur and the Sixth House.

I also think that the main quest needs something global in scope (not necessarily apocalyptic) to make it stand out from the rest.

But does the main quest need to stand out from the rest? I mean, in a TES-style open world game, you're going through the land telling your story and doing what your character would do. Does there need to be an underlying global threat driving everything, or could it simply be driven by your want to adventure and see the world?

Daggerfall, for instance, didn't really have a global threat. It started out with you being sent to put a king's soul to rest... and maybe find and destroy a personal letter that didn't get delivered to the queen if you can, thx bro. That's all it starts you with, and from there you can go join guilds, adventure, get lost in dungeons, etc, as you want. Heck, the MQ doesn't even properly start until you reach level 3, at which point you simply start getting letters requesting your presence to give information about Lysandus. It's not until much later that you discover the letter isn't what it seemed to be, that it details information about a golem that can shift power within the Illiac Bay. But even then, it's all just political scheming from the various regions that may result in a rebalance of political power, something that won't affect things at the microscale, and certain not threaten the world as we know it.*

And IMO, Daggerfall was much better off for this, as it helps establish a game world that you can just live and play in without a constant looming threat trying to pull you from what you want to do and make you The Hero. You can just be your character in a fantasy world.

* Of course, Morrowind had to go and retcon this so the golem was really a giant stompy robot god with the ability to break time. I really dislike how they did that; the story didn't need it, and is no better off for it.

(Also, I'll just point out that you were the one who suggested that the MQ story was less that it might have been because the format precluded full-scale invasion of the cites by corprus monsters, major characters being infected with corprus and a unified cross faction response to the threat of DU.)

Actually, it's stated in game too.
"Phase 3:
Expand from smaller bases to other towns and villages, and recruit and indoctrinate subjects made susceptible by dream sendings. Occupy abandoned towers and ruins, and train corrupted cultists as raiders and irregular troops. Identify, discredit, and decimate possible sources of political resistance.

Phase 4:
Use assassination and terror to weaken, distract, and disrupt the Legions and the Imperial bureaucracy, along with their Hlaalu sympathizers. Inspire popular uprisings of the native poor against the foreign rich and powerful. Summon Sleepers and Dreamers to Dagoth Ur to work on Second Numidium.

[...]

3E 426-427: Campaign of Sixth House assassinations of prominent Imperial citizens and Hlaalu Imperial sympathizers. Sudden increase in number and seriousness of attacks by cultists and victims deranged by soul sickness."

So, yeah. Stuff's supposed to be going down. Dagoth Ur's patient, but he's still moving. Don't forget, his plan is to conquer all of Tamriel and beyond, Vvardenfell is just going to be the first step. It's like a fire... at the macroscale it's slow and takes time to burn, but at the microscale it's pure constant destruction.

Now it sounds like you're agreeing with me and saying that there's no inherent reason why a global threat can't work as the main quest in an open world game.

It can be done sure, since Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim do it, but is it an effective and well-fitted story type for an open world game? I say no. Skyrim handled it best by not having Alduin's threat be well known, so not everyone should be rallying to respond and fend him off, but it still has its shortcomings.

I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy myself. Either you can only consider events that directly involve the protagonist, or you have to include every bit of game lore no matter how irrelevant?

It's either that, or you cherry pick what you want from each. However, such a comparison will always be biased because it's a subjective measurement of just how important some piece of history or lore is to be included in the comparison.

Secondly, discounting secondary information sources would also stop you from considering the backstory of many characters[1]. I find that particularly problematic in Morrowind since the story of Nerevar is is the backstory of the PC.

Unless you consider the PC of Morrowind to not be Nerevar reborn, but just some pawn of Azura or just one lucky SOB, which are valid interpretations. In which case, the history of Nerevar with the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur is irrelevant to the MQ, as might be Azura. See what I mean about including extraneous details making biased comparisons?

To restate my earlier point: I think it's possible, as with any good creative work, to consider Morrowind on a number of levels.

Sure, but the point of all this is about the MQ story of open world RPGs compared to non-open world RPGs. Absolutely, Morrowind and other TES games as a whole can be considered on multiple levels. Yes, the TES games provide an arguably better experience than more linear RPGs. But the point is that the individual stories told by the TES games are weaker as a result of being in an open world format since they can't be as complex or in-depth with far-reaching consequences.