Quote:
Endoperez said:
Why Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind? I tried both, but didn't like them. I'm actually giving my Morrowind cds away, because I'm just not interested. Would mods make a difference for NWN, or is it multiplayer only?
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The NWN part of the question was answered. Though I'll rehash anyway, it's a mod game, and a MP game. It was certainly quite strong in both those areas, and enjoyable for some months, which puts it ahead of 98% of most games. Outside of that context however, I wouldn't waste going through the mediocre first act to get to the halfway decent following acts.
As for Morrowind, well it's a gem, but it has it's flaws, and it's also covered in some mud, that's for sure. It has three major flaws, and three major virtues. I'll begin with the former;
The storyline is not particularly exciting, in fact, I barely bothered with it, and a few friends who also played, felt the same way. This is mitigated seriously by the first virtue, that it's a game where you don't have to follow the story, or any path at all. This is a game of free-form exploration and adventure. While the combat system isn't great, it's enjoyable enough and I've experienced a few exciting and close fights. You're walking down a beach, and you find a familiar ship half destroyed, and sticking out of the water. Perhaps there's some treasure inside, and it's worth checking out. Much like it's predecessor, and it's follower, this is a large part of it's appeal. Exploration is interesting due to a world environment that has some serious time spent on it (despite some bugs) and in large part to the graphics and high quality music score. Which leads me to the second virtue, the Morrowind setting is quite interesting in and of itself, and has a certain atmosphere and life to it. The magic system is different from most others, and also extremely freeform, which leads me to the second flaw. The game is unfortunately too easy, due in large part to magic being far too powerful and expansive, and the alchemy and enchanting system which any analytical person or munchkin will soon crack to reach deific wealth and power. This problem is further aggravated by the level scaling of the monsters, which means you'll never face anything out of your league, even though that synergizes with the exploration / go where you please, aspect. The final flaw ties in with the first, and that is that the dialogue is not that great, but that's forgivable to a degree, when you consider the amount of npcs and the scope, as the game world can take several real life hours to cross just from one side of the other, if you feel like walking.
The last part, is to remove the mud from the gem, of which I mean, not a virtue of the game itself, but a virtue of the developers (who released powerful mod tools) and the player community and to take advantage of expansive and varied mods which can change/place a dozen things you thought should be in the game, and a dozen things you hadn't thought of. Morrowind had (and still has to some degree) a very robust modding community, and to ignore it is to ignore half the game.
While this is a game that is probably never coming back from the shelf onto my harddrive, it brought me a few months of enjoyment, and I think anyone else who enjoys the exploration subsect of RPG's would have similar enjoyment.
@PyroStock:
"Lords of the Realm 2 (I spit at 3)"
I have to heartily agree.
I found this extreme change and decline in terms of a sequel even worse than Moo3, or Fallout 3.
@Potatoman
"Pool of Radiance? Didn't that game auto-format your HD as part of a nasty, commonly-occuring bug? "
Heh, it was pretty bad that it came out like that. Though I'm pretty sure there was (eventually) a patch for that. I remember reading about the uninstaller for Myth 2 doing the same exact thing. Though, that didn't get shipped, they caught it and actually destroyed the entire printing of the cd's, and then remade it again. If I recall correctly, it cost them all the profits that game made. That highly ethical move, (and the game being very solid with a few 'edge of your seat' moments) did move to me to buy copies for 6 of my gamer friends.
Edit:
Thanks everyone, there's a few games here I've never heard of, and I'll be checking out. A few of those sound like they're out of print.