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I played roughly halfway through. I quit when I realized how broken that game was. Aemon Send a noteboard - 11/02/2011 05:57:04 PM
Morrowind was a game that I can only assume was subject to no formalized testing whatsoever. It's been many years since I played, so I can't give you a bunch of examples, but I can remember one. There was a potion you could get that increased your strength by a certain amount. The potion was cheap, available all over the place (I imagine you could make it yourself, but I never got into that) and. . .stacked. :rolleyes: I remember picking up some quest I found, going to the location, and being obliterated. I drank five potions, went back, killed the thing in one hit.

Morrowind is full of that crap.

As to the rest of your message, I agree with you; Morrowind was not nearly as bad as a lot of Western RPGs are about keeping you in a box. That's what initially attracted me to the game, actually. Unfortunately, it still suffered from over-modularization, as all sandbox RPGs (which are typically Western) do. I didn't feel free, I just felt like I had to walk farther to find the small, scattered pockets of disjointed content.

Because it's somewhat notorious amongst WRPGs for having a blood-weepingly hard difficulty, as well as non-scaling enemies. Meaning you can grind to your hearts satisfaction and wreak absolute havoc on everything.


Acknowledged. I want to make clear once again that I don't believe all of my complaints exist in all Western RPGs, just that they're typical of such games. I'm generalizing in a big way, and trying to paint a broad swathe of games with a very narrow brush.

I could swear that the enemies (or at least some of them?) did scale in Morrowind, though. I suppose I'm wrong, as it's been a long time since I've played, but I thought I remembered scaling enemies...

Also, you can kill everyone, if you want. The game tells you you've doomed the world and that now would be a good time to reload the game, and you can tell the game to go bugger off and that you wish to "persist in the doomed world that you have created," to put it in Bethesda's language. :P


Yeah, and I think that's a positive. There are a lot of things I really like about Morrowind, actually. It dodges a lot of my main complaints about Western RPGs, but it only fulfills about half of what I want in a game. I'll touch on that down below.

While I am sure it is possible to do so, I assure you that it would be much more difficult than you are proposing here. I speak from experience on this matter, having tried to use a sniper rifle with my Adept Shepard in ME1. Theoretically, I could defeat most jrpgs without leveling up, either; they're based on probability, so it's technically possible given an inane amount of time.


So you say. And I say differently. ;) Since I'm not willing to pull out ME and waste 40 hours proving my point, though, I guess I have to concede this point to you. Maybe I couldn't beat it without allocating any stats. *shrug* I am 100% positive that I could beat it by allocating stats in the worst possible manner, however, and have no trouble doing so. I still view that as an illustration of the "your character choices don't matter" point, even if it's not as strong an illustration as "I could do it with no points" would be.

In ME2 you admittedly could probably do this with ease, but ME2 was not a very well-constructed game. :P


Sure it was; it was just more action game than RPG. As was (I contend) ME1. ME1 just wasn't quite as far gone, that's all. Action games aren't bad (I enjoyed ME2 a lot, actually), they're just not RPGs. :P

Also, I would like to point out that the issue I'm seeing with the conversation you two are having is that lord-of-shadow is a narrativist (roleplaying as being the character, telling a story), while you're very, very much a gamist (stats stats stats). I refer you to my link; if nothing else, it might shine some light on various perspectives of gaming.


Of the three, I would agree, I tend more towards the Gamist mindset. It really doesn't describe me very well, though. I like a game to have challenge, but that's not why I play. I don't like games that are considered to be very difficult (like Ninja Gaiden, for example). I don't particularly thrive on the sense of accomplishment that comes from finally beating that boss you've been stuck on forever. Or at least, I should say that I don't enjoy that feeling more than I dislike the frustration of playing a boss thirty times in a row.

Continuing from what I talked about earlier, I want basically two things from an RPG.

1) An awesome story. People complain these days about "games turning into movies" or whatever, but I don't mind that at all. So long as the movie is good. I want something exciting, epic, and coherent. When I say coherent, I basically mean "not modular." I actually hate episodic television shows for the same reason. If you can't maintain a continuous storyline, I have a very hard time caring. And I want to care. I want the story to be my reward/motivation for the portions of the game that I play myself.

2) Accomplishment/collection/stats/rewards/whatever. Western RPGs severely limit these things. Western RPGs make me feel trapped, and irrelevant. They dole out the majority of the resources themselves, and I feel like what I'm doing in the game will happen pretty much the same way regardless of what I do. In a JRPG, I can go after the rewards I want, when I want, and use them how I want. Incidentally, this is why I get so sucked in by MMOs. :P Such games give you lots of the sort of freedom I want. I can play through as normal, or I can spend ten hours farming an instance for that one awesome weapon I want (even if my time would have been better spent doing something else), etc. It's true that MMOs are a little bit lacking in the story department, but the social experience kind of makes up for that.

Anyway, that was off topic. Point is, I don't really view myself as a gamist. I just want to play through an awesome story, be able to go after what I want, and have it make a difference. *shrugs*
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Is it silly of me to keep holding out hope that there will be a KotOR 3? - 09/02/2011 04:24:55 PM 944 Views
With The Old Republic, I wouldn't expect it. - 09/02/2011 05:49:20 PM 751 Views
Nope. Not any time soon, at least. - 09/02/2011 06:27:06 PM 825 Views
Thanks for that. - 09/02/2011 06:40:23 PM 686 Views
I have no answers, but on the subject ... - 09/02/2011 06:28:35 PM 758 Views
It is literally amazing. - 09/02/2011 06:43:14 PM 706 Views
It's about as good as a western-style RPG has ever been. Also: best plot twist of all time. - 09/02/2011 07:12:59 PM 740 Views
But Katie, don't go looking up the plot twist before you decide to play it. - 09/02/2011 07:41:57 PM 747 Views
Thanks for the warning. - 09/02/2011 08:50:17 PM 784 Views
Oh? What's the difference? - 09/02/2011 08:51:33 PM 749 Views
Ok, I may have exaggerated a little bit... - 09/02/2011 09:36:21 PM 730 Views
Ah, I see. Thanks! *NM* - 10/02/2011 01:50:50 PM 376 Views
Re: Ok, I may have exaggerated a little bit... - 10/02/2011 03:47:08 PM 713 Views
I LOL'd a bit. - 10/02/2011 04:08:12 PM 853 Views
Re: I LOL'd a bit. - 10/02/2011 09:46:22 PM 689 Views
Interesting viewpoint. - 10/02/2011 10:45:25 PM 826 Views
Yeah, I thought about most of your complaints while writing that post. - 11/02/2011 02:42:16 AM 761 Views
All fair enough. And I even agree with you. - 11/02/2011 04:24:21 AM 671 Views
Re: All fair enough. And I even agree with you. - 11/02/2011 08:27:04 AM 780 Views
Out of curiosity, did you ever play Morrowind? - 11/02/2011 08:44:06 AM 784 Views
I played roughly halfway through. I quit when I realized how broken that game was. - 11/02/2011 05:57:04 PM 734 Views
I love a good story but abhor collections/accomplishments/completionist stuff. - 11/02/2011 07:53:48 PM 705 Views
That they do. - 11/02/2011 10:50:02 PM 659 Views
Out of curiosity, what's you're opinion on the Neverwinter Nights games? *NM* - 11/02/2011 08:18:38 PM 388 Views
I've actually never played them. - 11/02/2011 10:46:11 PM 629 Views
That was always my impression as well. *NM* - 11/02/2011 11:46:32 PM 375 Views
That article is one of the most opaque pieces of text I've ever read. - 12/02/2011 02:00:03 PM 791 Views
I seriously doubt that. - 12/02/2011 08:28:44 PM 668 Views
Shortly put, western RPGs are better. - 09/02/2011 10:15:42 PM 756 Views
I don't know..... - 10/02/2011 08:19:28 PM 701 Views
Ok......... - 10/02/2011 08:20:37 PM 719 Views
? *NM* - 10/02/2011 10:04:48 PM 373 Views
It's very good- highly recommend it - 09/02/2011 08:48:13 PM 677 Views
Recommended. - 09/02/2011 10:12:08 PM 712 Views
Agreed - 12/02/2011 12:29:30 AM 710 Views
Since you could probably get it for five dollars, worth trying. - 09/02/2011 10:44:17 PM 686 Views
Same. I've always found it sort of meh. *NM* - 09/02/2011 11:41:19 PM 359 Views
It has the same chance in hell as a sequel to the Chrono series *NM* - 11/02/2011 02:32:41 AM 328 Views
now you made me sad, i'm going to go play chrono trigger on my psx now *NM* - 19/02/2011 04:21:04 AM 444 Views

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