I thought Oblivion was good. As in all games like that you eventually reach God status and the game gets easy.
Admittedly I haven’t gone back to Morrowind in over a decade but I had a save with like easily 500 hours having possibly explored the entire map and completed both expansions. My home base which was the pocket plane home mod turned into a curiosity shop / museum of sorts with all kinds of unique and rare weapons, artifacts, armors, and tomes.
Here is an entire set of daedric armor with all three unique daedric helms. Each piece is found separately somewhere in the world, but I never used a guide or walkthrough to find them. Probably the last time I just played a game forever for hours on end and discover everything myself.
P.S. you can loot a full set of deadric armor (without the helm) from one important critical path NPC. Because yeah, this is the last game Bethesda had the balls to allow you to kill everyone. They just would throw up a message informing you that your world is doomed or something.
I don’t know, but playing Morrowind feels more like anthropology, or archaeology than anything else for me. Digging down through layers of culture that have stratified over centuries. Following the main story or doing quests is completely optional – maybe even sub-optimal in some ways. It’s more interesting to explore the games’ themes of colonialism, religion, racism and politics. I like to roll up a pilgrim character who rarely levels up, but is on a pilgrimage to visit the Tribunal’s holy sites and collect the 36 sermons (there’s a mod that also adds the secret 37th sermon from Oblivion).
I have been doing a lot of modding for MW recently and after the usual graphic enhancement mods etc, the most common sort of mod are immersion mods, mods that let you get a job, cook food, go camping, write books. I came across a mod the other day that simply reverses a wall painting so the figures on the painting face right instead of left. The mod author explained that the painting in question was a reference to a story in one of the books in the game, that spoke about a dark elf god leading his people ‘east’ to Morrowind. It bugged the mod author that the original painting, with the figures facing left, looked like they were going ‘west’. The games longevity and popularity I think stems from people who want to live in, and explore a world that existed before they came along, and will continue to exist after they leave.
I noticed that. None of this “I’m going to join every faction and be loved by everyone” nonsense. You must choose who your allies will be… and the rest become your foes.
You can still join all the guilds and progress all of them. The fighters guild and thieves guild have some conflicting quests though with one ordering you to assassinate an important NPCs tied to the others Guild. IIRC The fighters guild is actually secretly controlled by a shadowy crime syndicate!.
You can only join one of the three great houses though.
I stand by my Fallout New Vegas recommendation. It is a complete banger, and still holds up.
There’s a Bethesda sale going on on GOG this week, in case anyone wants to try some old Bethesda games:
I have to agree with Fallout New Vegas. I really, really enjoyed that one. I remember the terror of facing those huge dinosaur things the first part of the game, my eventual sniper rifle made that a lot more fun. The “feel” of the game was just so well presented. I think that and Skyrim are my two top games from Bethesda. Skyrim because it allowed me to play my way. I played one character. For hundreds of hours. I never fast traveled, I was in it to explore and I did that, I walked every inch that could be walked of the map. I turned off the markers on the compass so that I would be surprised when I discovered something, and I constantly discovered new interesting places and things. I did play all of the factions/guilds, and the main story, but what I remember most is my joy in exploration of the world they gave me. I got married and my wife and I explored the world together. At one point I built a house on a lake, and we decided to have kids and adopt a couple, and we did. My wife decided to stay home and train them and watch over them while I went back into the world to explore, regularly coming back to the house. At one point, after hundreds of hours of exploration, I decided I’d seen everything, and went back to the house, middle of the night, everyone sleeping. Looked in on my kids, reluctantly took off my armor and my weapons and stored them, laid down on the bed next to my wife, decided it had been a great life filled with amazing experiences, and retired. Never played the game again.
New Vegas is the best First Person Fallout, no doubt.
I kinda wish they left open viable options to get to New Vegas sooner though like how the original Fallout has shortcuts to both the military base and the master. Instead you have to sneak through Deathclaw hell or chance yourself with those impossible fucking hornet shits.
All time great gaming moment came from that though.
Hmm… map says New Vegas is right over there, guess I will just walk that way…