Ever since I picked up Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion I'd heard how amazing Morrowind was. But I never even considered buying it because, well, I had Oblivion. It didn't really interest me.
Fast forward six years or so to a bored me staring at Morrowind on Steam. $19.00...okay fine I'll buy it and see what's so amazing about it.
First thoughts: man this game looks like a pile of rancid ass leavings. So I go to the Morrowind page here on giant bomb remembering seeing lists of mods to make it look less awful. Eventually settled on the all-in-one graphics and sound overhaul.
Now before I talk about that overhaul I should say that Morrowind runs terribly on my computer. This laptop is less than a month old.
Specs:
-AMD A10-4600M cpu
-AMD Radeon HD 7979 / 2GB GDDR5 graphics card (it's supposed to be one of the best on the market but also affordable)
-15.6" screen, 1920x1080
-DDRIII 8GB of ram
-Operating system is Windows 8 (sadly)
-Overall it cost me about $1200
The framerate when in outdoor environments even with the sight distance set as low as possible was sub 25fps at all times. When I moved it sank below 20fps. Indoors wasn't an issue with 60fps at all times. My understanding of computers isn't great but I can run skyrim on this laptop on ultra settings at a constant 60fps no matter where I am in the world and no matter what I'm doing so I don't exactly understand how this is an issue.
The overhaul made Morrowind look wonderful and actually bumped my fps up to 30 outdoors. However graphical glitches popped up everywhere. If there was no light source on specific textures (say a section of a floor or hallway) it would be pitch black. Not just the floor but everything in the area. I couldn't see anything. If I didn't bring a torch I was walking blind checking my map every two seconds to make sure I wasn't walking into a wall. Enemies could still see perfectly in those pitch black abysses, though, so occasionally I would get hit from somewhere in the darkness and I would have to run back into a lit area so I could see what was attacking me. As I said, graphical glitches everywhere but that was the worst. Not game breaking.
Okay, finally to my main point! I'm just...not having fun with Morrowind. I had to restart after the graphics overhaul because saves made before it were corrupted. But over the two characters I played as (maybe 9 or 10 hours of time played) I couldn't find what made it so spectacular in the eyes of so many. I purposefully avoided guides and outside information so I could find the wonder for myself. But now I'm here asking, "what is it I'm missing?"
I joined the fighter's guild and thieves guild but the quests were so boring; mostly just, "go here and clear out this cave." or "go here and steal this thing." (I never got farther than maybe 6 or so quests in the fighter's guild because my saves corrupted and I wasn't up to playing through them again). I only started the main quest line yesterday because I wasn't sure what Caius (or whoever) meant by, "come back when you've gained notoriety." I just decided to talk to him again at level 10 and got a quest.
The combat is fine. I don't expect much from elder scrolls games. Although do I REALLY hate the stun system. A few times (mostly against enemies using 2-handed weapons, paralyze enchants+dagger, or fists) I would be eternally stunlocked. I couldn't do anything! I would fall down, stare at the ground for 5 seconds (or stare at my enemy for 10 seconds if they were using paralyze), get up, then get knocked down again immediately. I had to skip any enemy capable of doing this. Am I missing something? Is there some way to get out of these stunlocks or paralyzes? They seem broken at times especially with the hand-to-hand fighters.
tl;dr I need guidance on the aspects of Morrowind that seem to set it apart from Oblivion and Skyrim. I want to enjoy it but currently I feel like I could have used that $19.00 on something else.
Log in to comment