Shadari- Don’t they have public libraries where you live?
I ain’t no fancy-pants aspiring novelist or nothing, but I’m reasonably sure an allegedly awesome story in a video game should not consist of reading books scattered aboout the game that the player can easily overlook.
I’m right there on the “jRPGs are for homosexual children” bandwagon. I’m chairman of the Qt3 “Celestials are incapable of writing drama” commitee.
But fuck, when I play DQ8 I know why my character wants to do shit. We hate Dhoulmagus, and we are trying to find him so we can hurt him. In Morrowind, I get off a boat, talk to some dudes, and get told to go to a city. Why? What’ll happen if I don’t? Am I going to collect a reward? Avoid a punishment?
Is there any reason I should do that instead of standing at an inn casting fireball at the wall?
I am excited about it too. But the combat still seems lame, too FPS-like for an RPG IMO. I also expect that it will run like a dog, just like Morrowind.
You might enjoy the games by George R.R. Martin. He makes games that are completely books. Even better, you don’t need a high end video card to play his games.
One could argue that games like Morrowind are actually more (or simply different) than your standard video/computer game. It’s more of an experience than a game in some ways; and what an experience it was for those of us that like that kind of thing.
I don’t see why you have to insult me for liking books in a game just because it’s not your cup of tea. If I had to insult people on this board for liking games or aspects of games that I don’t like, it’d be an endless task.
WoW has a storyline of sorts and a lot of lore in books littered around the place. I have a mod that saves all the text for me - there’s plenty of warcraft history in there. It’s a nice touch.
In Morrowind, all I cared about was how much I could sell the books for.
Whatever, reading isn’t a game or an aspect of a game. And it’s really odd when someone says it makes the game more immersive, because text windows are pretty much the opposite of immersive, even when they’re done with an old-timey font and a parchment texture background.
Put another way, I’ve seen lots of movies and read lots of stories about elves or dragons or people with big sharp things, and I don’t think any of the good ones had a part that goes something like: “And then the hero read a book that said exactly this: blah blah blah magic blah blah arrows blah blah giants”.
Maybe it’s nostalgia interfering with my normal thought processes, but if I remember right Ultima Underworld had a different swing depending on the direction you moved the mouse, not the direction you’re strafing/moving like Morrowind, and relied on actual weapon contact rather than hit/miss rolls. The last part is apparently being done in Oblivion, which will help a lot.
I didn’t know it at the time since I hadn’t ever played a MMO when I played Morrowind, but you know what? It played exactly like a MMORPG where you were the only person logged on. And since other people are what make MMORPG’S fun (and hell too, but that’s a different discussion) Morrowind pretty much sucked as a solo experience.
I guess MMORPG’s might not be the best example since WoW actually has a pretty immersive gameplay experience for the solo player, but seriously – most MMORPG’s are really really crappy games when played solo – it’s just the social dynamic that make them cool.
So my pet theory about those who loved Morrowind is that they either really really wanted to like it and forced themselves to think it was great or they’re the type that actually prefer solo play in MMORPGs.
What’s strange is that I really enjoyed Daggerfall so I totally thought Morrowind would be great. Maybe since I really hated Morrowind and think Oblivion will suck, I’ll be pleasantly surprised and will think Oblivion’s the greatest game ever.
That’s funny, virtually every RPG or adventure game I’ve ever played has had a good dose of required reading. I guess they’re not games. Well whatever the hell they are, I like them and a lot of other people do too. You’ll just have to get over it, dude.
Don’t you people know you aren’t really supposed to read the books in Morrowind? You just pick them up and browse them and see if they give you a skill bonus. Don’t worry about clicking on a book while an npc is around, you can read the book without taking it. “Call me outlander all you want bitch, I’m gonna read this book and you can’t do squat about it!”. Avoid the temptation to take them in order to sell to the bookstore lady later, it’s hard to sneak around with a pack full of hardbacks…
See, I loved Morrowind for that exact reason. It’s massive freeform gameplay. Sure, nothing really excelled about it, but there was simply so much to do and see that the variety of the game kept me entertained. Even to this day I still load up Morrowind to try out new mods and explore new areas.
Speaking of Morrowind, did any of the expansions or mods add any better/more interesting light armor than glass? I love my glass armor and all, but I’ve had it for a while now and I’m getting a little tired of it. I own a copy of the original non-GotY version and I’ve been playing through for the past couple weeks. This is the farthest I’ve ever gotten in the main quest, and I’m pretty surprised at how interesting the storyline has been, even if I detest the amount of running back and forth you have to do. I’m assuming the propylon chambers I’ve been finding help that problem later in the game, but I’ve only found one index and it was in a pretty random place. I miss the horseback fast travel from Daggerfall (or was it Arena?), thank god we’re getting that back in Oblivion.
At any rate, I just want to know if the expansions are worth buying the GotY edition for, since I can’t find them standalone (and they’d probably be more expensive anyway, GotY is cheap now). More (and more creative) items? Higher difficulty maybe? That would make it worth it for me.
Not sure what all the expansions add in the way of items.They do add a main story type quest, and I’m guessing some side quests too.
Checked on amazon and you can get the expansions alone there, but they go for like $13 each used. Since you can get the GoTY edition new for $19.99…well.
Tribunal added adamantium armor. Bloodmoon added snow wolf and snow bear armor. In each case, you supplied the raw materials and paid an armorer to make 'em.
Couldn’t find any references to the weight classification of snow wolf/bear armor, but found some images of Adamantium which is unfortunately heavy and ugly. Eh. The expansions sound good enough. Might as well just buy them.
