I picked up this game last night on my way home from work. Here's my mini-review:
Graphics: 10/10. I haven't even seen an FPS that comes close to the graphic splendor of Morrowind. Textures are highly detailed. Weather effects are stunning. The only area where the graphics are lacking is the character/creature models. While they are still very good, the level of detail in the landscape just make the characters look sub-par. Note, however, that if you want to see this game in all it's glory (graphics maxed) you will need a speed machine. This is one of those games where you need to fine tune the graphics because even on the fastest computer, you can easily make it crawl.
Just for reference, I'm running an Athlon XP 1900, 512Mb DDR, Geforce 4 Ti4400. I can crank the res. to 1280x920 (1280x1024 not suported) and maintain over 25 fps. I also have the view distance to about 80% of max. If I turn on shadows my frame rate halves.
Sound: 8/10. The music is amazing. It alone deserves a 10/10. The sound effects are what hurts this score. They could be a little more realistic. And the jumping sound is more like a clicking. Surround sound users are in for a treat because DX8.1 sound cards are fully supported. The first time I heard a lightning strike I nearly wet myself I jumped so far.
Gameplay: 9/10. This game is not your typical hack-n-slash RPG. Diablo and Dugeon Siege lovers may be quickly bored with this game. I spent about an hour just exploring the first town and attempted to fight a measly fish, which easily dispatched of me. I could only hit it with my knife about 10% of the time I swung. You might think this is lame but I think it adds realism. You have to work really hard to improve your skills enough to where you can actually use them effectively. In essence, your character starts out as a novice.
Which brings up the point of character development. You actually start the game totally stat-less on a boat. As you are walking through the boat you are confronted by NPCs who ask basic questions like "what is your name?" at which point you get to name yourself in response. This type of dialogue proceeds until you have a fully developed character. Very cool character creation system.
I was also a little overwhelmed at first by the sheer volume of useless items you can pick up in this game. Every item on every shelf and table is free for grabs. However, if someone catches you stealing they might report the crime to the guards, or worse, attack you. It makes for fun thieving if thats your thing. Which brings up another observation - it seems like are pretty much free to play however good or evil you want. If you happen to make friends with somebody (or a faction) you probably just made yourself an enemy with their enemies (or rival factions). If you decide to play an evil character it's true you might be hunted down by guards and do-gooders, but you also might be accepted into a cult faction or gang of thieves who would otherwise give you the cold shoulder. This is very much unlike Baldur's Gate where playing an evil character has too many repercussions to make it fun. So, don't expect to be given every quest the game has to offer. Some people may just hate you enough to decide not to speak with you.
Finally, the interface. The user interface is very simple. One button simultaneously brings up the map, inventory, and stats screen. They can all be moved around and re-sized to your liking, or just hidden away. Like Dungeon Siege, you have one active weapon and one active spell which are used by two different keys. You can also assign hotkeys to other weapons and spells to quickly equip something else from you inventory. You also have an infinitely large inventory but once you reach your maximum encumberance, you can no longer move. Don't expect to carry 3 suits of heavy armor without slowing down considerably.
I think that's all for now. Like I said, I've only played for a few hours so don't take my comments as fact. As I learn more about this game I'll try to append them to this post.
Morrowind, my impressions
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glassoftea
- Posts: 603
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 7:39 am
My Review of Morrowind,
I've got a love hate relationship with this game.
On one hand I love the huge game world and the open ended method of the game. It's not just lip service, you can really play the game however you want. An Example: I had to get a code book from a member of the thieves guild. Rather than sweet talk her and join the guild and spend probably an hour or so on the code book I just put my back to the door, smashed her a couple of times till she died, grabbed everything on her and ran out as the rest of the guild tried to stick various things in me. The gaurds put me in jail for 10 days and when I got out my abilities had gone down a bit but I quickly got them built back up. Another example, while attempting to complete another quest I ended up on the other side of the world through other quests and hapinstance.
I love the way the game "plays", if you are a Diablo freak or Dungeion siege crazy you may not like this game just as Solstice said. There is no "end" as far as I know, you can just keep on playing and completing quests if you want. I'm 20 hours into the game and have only seen 1/4 of the map and maybe 20 of the cities/towns.
There is a ton of background to the game. You will find stories, books, lore and quite a bit more to the game, you may be suprised by the depth of the game and all of the background. There appear to be many stories going on all at once, the missing dwarves for example appear to be a very interesting side story.
The land and locations are great. The ruins, the abandoned dwarves areas, the water, the inside of the buildings, I can't say enough about how great they are. The characters are well designed and vary considerably throught the game. There are some great designs to some of the characters and the creatures, there is a small amount of fantasy present here too, some of the units lean towards the technical spectrum, very nicely done too if I must say so.
Now, the hate part.
I run a 1 gig athalon, a Geoforce 2 64 Meg, a 7200 RPM Maxtor and 500 megs of memory and the game is just playable. I have a stutter every 3 seconds or so as I'm walking and often small hangups that I have to stop moving the mouse for a second or two. I know this is not a power system but it should run a game well and it does, Dungeon siege runs like no ones business, so does every other game I've ever tried to run on this system. I'm dissapointed that even as good as this game looks I really need to upgrade it in order to run it well. I guess I'll have to go to at least a Geo4 in order to get the best game possible.
Another major problem, I get random crashes and I get them often. I will get 2-4 crashes in a roll sometimes and then maybe a couple of crash free hours of play and then the next time I run it it might be crash free, might not. THis is highly irritating and I think it's the video card but who knows. I know DS never crashed a single time just to name one program that runs without a hitch.
Both of the above lead me to believe that this is a case of serious unoptimized code. I have not idea of why this game runs the way it does on my system and quite a few others from what I read. I really feel like a great amount of time was spent on the story, the rules, the gameplay but the engine got shorted here. When in third person control is sloppy and your character is jerky and of course the framerates stink.
So, I love this game, it's to RPGs what Bardstale was and I mean that as a huge compliment, I have not spent this much time on an RPG as I did 12 years ago on my commodore playing that game, it's the bar to get over and Morrowind has done so. Here are a few things to consider before buying though:
1. Do you want to just "beat" a game quicker than your buddy and that's your main goal? If so pass this one up.
2. Do you hate all that time spent having to gain experience and begrudge your lack of abilities in the begining of some RPGs? If so pass this one up.
3. Do you have puzzles and having to figure things out? If so pass this one up
4. Do you have anything older than a Geoforce 3? If so think long and hard, you might want to wait until you upgrade your video card, from what I've read anything over a gig processor should be ok, it's the video card that's making a huge difference here.
5. Have you ever started an RPG and quit in the first 5 hours because you got bored? If so don't even come near this one, don't convince yourself you'll like this one, if you don't like RPGs you should be honest and just keep playing what you enjoy.
6. Do you like very deep games? If so this one is for you, there is so much information to it you might be overwhelmed there is so much to it.
Hope this helps you decide. It's a great game and if you like RPGs this is for you, if you are not in to them then forget it.
Enjoy,
glassoftea
I've got a love hate relationship with this game.
On one hand I love the huge game world and the open ended method of the game. It's not just lip service, you can really play the game however you want. An Example: I had to get a code book from a member of the thieves guild. Rather than sweet talk her and join the guild and spend probably an hour or so on the code book I just put my back to the door, smashed her a couple of times till she died, grabbed everything on her and ran out as the rest of the guild tried to stick various things in me. The gaurds put me in jail for 10 days and when I got out my abilities had gone down a bit but I quickly got them built back up. Another example, while attempting to complete another quest I ended up on the other side of the world through other quests and hapinstance.
I love the way the game "plays", if you are a Diablo freak or Dungeion siege crazy you may not like this game just as Solstice said. There is no "end" as far as I know, you can just keep on playing and completing quests if you want. I'm 20 hours into the game and have only seen 1/4 of the map and maybe 20 of the cities/towns.
There is a ton of background to the game. You will find stories, books, lore and quite a bit more to the game, you may be suprised by the depth of the game and all of the background. There appear to be many stories going on all at once, the missing dwarves for example appear to be a very interesting side story.
The land and locations are great. The ruins, the abandoned dwarves areas, the water, the inside of the buildings, I can't say enough about how great they are. The characters are well designed and vary considerably throught the game. There are some great designs to some of the characters and the creatures, there is a small amount of fantasy present here too, some of the units lean towards the technical spectrum, very nicely done too if I must say so.
Now, the hate part.
I run a 1 gig athalon, a Geoforce 2 64 Meg, a 7200 RPM Maxtor and 500 megs of memory and the game is just playable. I have a stutter every 3 seconds or so as I'm walking and often small hangups that I have to stop moving the mouse for a second or two. I know this is not a power system but it should run a game well and it does, Dungeon siege runs like no ones business, so does every other game I've ever tried to run on this system. I'm dissapointed that even as good as this game looks I really need to upgrade it in order to run it well. I guess I'll have to go to at least a Geo4 in order to get the best game possible.
Another major problem, I get random crashes and I get them often. I will get 2-4 crashes in a roll sometimes and then maybe a couple of crash free hours of play and then the next time I run it it might be crash free, might not. THis is highly irritating and I think it's the video card but who knows. I know DS never crashed a single time just to name one program that runs without a hitch.
Both of the above lead me to believe that this is a case of serious unoptimized code. I have not idea of why this game runs the way it does on my system and quite a few others from what I read. I really feel like a great amount of time was spent on the story, the rules, the gameplay but the engine got shorted here. When in third person control is sloppy and your character is jerky and of course the framerates stink.
So, I love this game, it's to RPGs what Bardstale was and I mean that as a huge compliment, I have not spent this much time on an RPG as I did 12 years ago on my commodore playing that game, it's the bar to get over and Morrowind has done so. Here are a few things to consider before buying though:
1. Do you want to just "beat" a game quicker than your buddy and that's your main goal? If so pass this one up.
2. Do you hate all that time spent having to gain experience and begrudge your lack of abilities in the begining of some RPGs? If so pass this one up.
3. Do you have puzzles and having to figure things out? If so pass this one up
4. Do you have anything older than a Geoforce 3? If so think long and hard, you might want to wait until you upgrade your video card, from what I've read anything over a gig processor should be ok, it's the video card that's making a huge difference here.
5. Have you ever started an RPG and quit in the first 5 hours because you got bored? If so don't even come near this one, don't convince yourself you'll like this one, if you don't like RPGs you should be honest and just keep playing what you enjoy.
6. Do you like very deep games? If so this one is for you, there is so much information to it you might be overwhelmed there is so much to it.
Hope this helps you decide. It's a great game and if you like RPGs this is for you, if you are not in to them then forget it.
Enjoy,
glassoftea
I have a few things to add to glassoftea's comments.
I think Bethesda took a bold step with the graphics of this game. They designed it so that two years from now, users can continue to scale the in-game graphic detail to their liking. With graphic details maxed this game simply doesn't run. And I don't think a system exists that will run it. Look at a game like Everquest. When it came out the graphics were decent but when you look at it today you really notice how dated it looks. At least with Morrowind the graphics will remain cutting edge for at least the next 2 years.
The problem with Morrowind is that it doesn't automatically scale the graphics depending upon your system. Some games will assess your hardware and make adjustements to things like texture quality, detail levels, shadows, lighting, etc... But Morrowind doesn't appear to do that. And the default settings are a bit on the liberal side. Anything less than a Geforce 3 and 1GHz will be pushing it. The good news is that just as you can scale the graphics up, you can also scale them down. Decreasing view distance, for example, can get you an extra 20 fps. Even with these settings turned down the game still looks incredible. The first time I watched a storm roll in or a haze set over a town I was stunned. The first time I just stood still and watched the moons passing overhead as the night waned on, I was breathless. The graphic settings take a little tweaking but with some patience, I think anyone can get it running smoothly.
Also, as glassoftea mentioned, you set the pace of the game. I'm really taking my sweet time. Talking to everyone, exploring every nook and cranny, breaking into every house, reading books, learning about the land and its history, developing my stats, etc... I've invested about 20 hours now as well but I've only seen 3 towns and 2 dungeons. I'd estimate that it works out to about 2-3% total explored area. No joke, this game is a monster.
I think Bethesda took a bold step with the graphics of this game. They designed it so that two years from now, users can continue to scale the in-game graphic detail to their liking. With graphic details maxed this game simply doesn't run. And I don't think a system exists that will run it. Look at a game like Everquest. When it came out the graphics were decent but when you look at it today you really notice how dated it looks. At least with Morrowind the graphics will remain cutting edge for at least the next 2 years.
The problem with Morrowind is that it doesn't automatically scale the graphics depending upon your system. Some games will assess your hardware and make adjustements to things like texture quality, detail levels, shadows, lighting, etc... But Morrowind doesn't appear to do that. And the default settings are a bit on the liberal side. Anything less than a Geforce 3 and 1GHz will be pushing it. The good news is that just as you can scale the graphics up, you can also scale them down. Decreasing view distance, for example, can get you an extra 20 fps. Even with these settings turned down the game still looks incredible. The first time I watched a storm roll in or a haze set over a town I was stunned. The first time I just stood still and watched the moons passing overhead as the night waned on, I was breathless. The graphic settings take a little tweaking but with some patience, I think anyone can get it running smoothly.
Also, as glassoftea mentioned, you set the pace of the game. I'm really taking my sweet time. Talking to everyone, exploring every nook and cranny, breaking into every house, reading books, learning about the land and its history, developing my stats, etc... I've invested about 20 hours now as well but I've only seen 3 towns and 2 dungeons. I'd estimate that it works out to about 2-3% total explored area. No joke, this game is a monster.
I've logged another 15 hours or so and have a few more things to add.
1. NPCs are pretty plain. When you walk up to an NPC they give you their usual, "Hello traveller, what can I help you with?" You are given a list of topics on the right-hand side from which to discuss. For the most part, from NPC to NPC they don't really have anything different to say about a given topic. If the topic is something important to them (like a quest topic) they will respond very differently. It makes the NPCs seem less like people, and more like walking libraries. In Baldur's Gate almost every NPC had a personality. Their responses were very unique and so were yours. The disadvantage to this, however, is that it requires you to more carefully script the dialogue of your NPCs. This takes more time and you end up with less NPCs. I think the designers of Morrowind were thinking on a much larger scale and realized that with thousands of NPCs it would be impossible to make all of them unique.
2. I've read lots of people complaining about the fact that shops never close at night, and townspeople never go home to rest. Supposedly in Daggerfall, the prequel, this wasn't the case. While it's true that having shops close and people disappear makes the game more realistic, some people find it annoying. What do you do when you've just looted a ruin, are carrying tons of crap, and can't find anybody open for business to purchase your goods? I suppose you could just rest until morning but if you don't need healing, that seems like a waste of time. Maybe you need to purchase something before heading out for more adventuring. Or maybe you just need to speak with an NPC to finish a quest, but they've gone to bed. In a game where the goal is to make it as open-ended as possible, adding this level of realism seems to defeat the purpose. It's more limiting.
1. NPCs are pretty plain. When you walk up to an NPC they give you their usual, "Hello traveller, what can I help you with?" You are given a list of topics on the right-hand side from which to discuss. For the most part, from NPC to NPC they don't really have anything different to say about a given topic. If the topic is something important to them (like a quest topic) they will respond very differently. It makes the NPCs seem less like people, and more like walking libraries. In Baldur's Gate almost every NPC had a personality. Their responses were very unique and so were yours. The disadvantage to this, however, is that it requires you to more carefully script the dialogue of your NPCs. This takes more time and you end up with less NPCs. I think the designers of Morrowind were thinking on a much larger scale and realized that with thousands of NPCs it would be impossible to make all of them unique.
2. I've read lots of people complaining about the fact that shops never close at night, and townspeople never go home to rest. Supposedly in Daggerfall, the prequel, this wasn't the case. While it's true that having shops close and people disappear makes the game more realistic, some people find it annoying. What do you do when you've just looted a ruin, are carrying tons of crap, and can't find anybody open for business to purchase your goods? I suppose you could just rest until morning but if you don't need healing, that seems like a waste of time. Maybe you need to purchase something before heading out for more adventuring. Or maybe you just need to speak with an NPC to finish a quest, but they've gone to bed. In a game where the goal is to make it as open-ended as possible, adding this level of realism seems to defeat the purpose. It's more limiting.
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glassoftea
- Posts: 603
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 7:39 am
"In a game where the goal is to make it as open-ended as possible, adding this level of realism seems to defeat the purpose. It's more limiting."
I totally agree with you on this one. I feel that it's in the games best interest to be as realistic as possible until it affects the game play. If adding realism takes away from the gameplay and creates tedium and boredom then what good has it done? Nothing in my opinion. If they want realism then go outside and walk around, that's realism. You don't hear anyone complaining that they can carrry too much or they switch weapons too quickly do you? Nope, but a small thing like the shops not closing and they are all over it, why is that? One thing that is annoying as hell that I have seen posted elsewheres is every stupid NPC greeting you as you walk by, the greetings are annoying and don't "fit". They should have changed that around some but it's still a great game. Sidebar, I turned off direct sound 3d and my crash rate is way down, maybe once every 10-15 hours of gameplay vs 1 every 10 minutes so life is even better. The game is slow on my geo 2 but it's acceptable small hickups seem to be the worse offender.
Hope you all are enjoying this game.
glassoftea
I totally agree with you on this one. I feel that it's in the games best interest to be as realistic as possible until it affects the game play. If adding realism takes away from the gameplay and creates tedium and boredom then what good has it done? Nothing in my opinion. If they want realism then go outside and walk around, that's realism. You don't hear anyone complaining that they can carrry too much or they switch weapons too quickly do you? Nope, but a small thing like the shops not closing and they are all over it, why is that? One thing that is annoying as hell that I have seen posted elsewheres is every stupid NPC greeting you as you walk by, the greetings are annoying and don't "fit". They should have changed that around some but it's still a great game. Sidebar, I turned off direct sound 3d and my crash rate is way down, maybe once every 10-15 hours of gameplay vs 1 every 10 minutes so life is even better. The game is slow on my geo 2 but it's acceptable small hickups seem to be the worse offender.
Hope you all are enjoying this game.
glassoftea