Whats games have you been playing of late? I'm Still Playing Morrowind.

[Poobah]

New Thread.

Yes, I'm still playing Morrowind, and it's better than Oblivion once Patrick Stuart falls out of it.

-Poobs

[Mme Erzulie]

Jace should post his TES rant again.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Yes you are right. I'm not playing it right now (I've spent around 200 hours on it I'd estimate), but it will always be my favorite of probably all games. I love it so much it forces me to go back and give Oblivion more chances even though it doesn't deserve them.

Maybe I'll try that today with my recently reformatted computer.

I love the music, atmosphere, and wandering the bitter coast for the first time. I liked leaving the relative safety of Balmora and heading north for Dagon Fel and chartering a series of ships and silt strider rides as I did so. When I went to the ashlands to fulfill certain prophecies I left all my loot and gear in the house I'd overtaken, and I went into the deserts with only the clothes on my back.

One day I will play it again.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Baldur's Gate. Using the BGII engine. Also imported items from a finished save and from Throne of Bhaal. So every character is equipped with the boots of speed and is a badass. My mainchar (fighter) is duelwielding Drizt's scimitars, Khalid is duel wielding two hardcore bastard swords and Minsc is duelwielding the Flail of Ages and some high powered mace.

I've played it through 'properly' before but wanted to fly through it, before playing BG2. Never actually completed BG2, kept losing the saves.

[Eurytus]

Jace should post his TES rant again.

Which thread would I find that in?

For me there are 3 things that I find much more preferable in Morrowind over Oblivion. First I'd say that I actually do prefer the setting in Oblivion. I know its cookie cutter to an extent but I just find lush forests etc visually more interesting than the endless wastelands of Morrowind. I liked the bitter coast and that sort of area but the central part of the island I could not get interested about. Oh and the Dark Brotherhood questline was good. (not to mention no Cliff Racers)

Two of my preferences for Morrowind often come up, the lack of scaling enemies (and the dangers that presented) and the superior quality of the main quest.

But the major thing that I loved about Morrowind and which is not really replicated at all in Oblivion was the chances of finding something really unique and unexpected. Sometimes it would be an item. The items in Morrowind were just so much more interesting than in Oblivion. Aside from the reappearance of Umbra there weren't any really out there items in Oblivion. But Morrowind had some great ones. Like the boots of blinding speed I think they were called. The ones that made you blind. But by combining a magic resistance spell with a levitation spell you could use them to fly around the map at mega speeds. I loved that sort of thing.

And the other unique things you'd find were locations. In Oblivion there are almost no unique locations, nearly all are variations of things you find elsewhere. But in Morrowind you had the underwater Dwarven grotto quite near the start (which really took some exploring), you had the underwater city (complete with statue that spoke to you), the tomb deep underground with the viking ship in it and even little islands off the coast with waterfalls on. I just loved that you could stumble across something completely unexpected. This meant that not having quick travel was not a problem because you never knew what you would stumble across.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

So I finished CoD4. That was short. And unsatisfying. And even though it was $20, I feel I paid too much for it. Wert was so right about the infinite respawns sucking. If there were a mod which disabled them, I might one day replay it. Otherwise, no.

[Sad King Billy]

Which thread would I find that in?

For me there are 3 things that I find much more preferable in Morrowind over Oblivion. First I'd say that I actually do prefer the setting in Oblivion. I know its cookie cutter to an extent but I just find lush forests etc visually more interesting than the endless wastelands of Morrowind. I liked the bitter coast and that sort of area but the central part of the island I could not get interested about. Oh and the Dark Brotherhood questline was good. (not to mention no Cliff Racers)

Two of my preferences for Morrowind often come up, the lack of scaling enemies (and the dangers that presented) and the superior quality of the main quest.

But the major thing that I loved about Morrowind and which is not really replicated at all in Oblivion was the chances of finding something really unique and unexpected. Sometimes it would be an item. The items in Morrowind were just so much more interesting than in Oblivion. Aside from the reappearance of Umbra there weren't any really out there items in Oblivion. But Morrowind had some great ones. Like the boots of blinding speed I think they were called. The ones that made you blind. But by combining a magic resistance spell with a levitation spell you could use them to fly around the map at mega speeds. I loved that sort of thing.

And the other unique things you'd find were locations. In Oblivion there are almost no unique locations, nearly all are variations of things you find elsewhere. But in Morrowind you had the underwater Dwarven grotto quite near the start (which really took some exploring), you had the underwater city (complete with statue that spoke to you), the tomb deep underground with the viking ship in it and even little islands off the coast with waterfalls on. I just loved that you could stumble across something completely unexpected. This meant that not having quick travel was not a problem because you never knew what you would stumble across.

I love the setting of morrowind over oblivion, but the problem with morrowind is that it has too much of this. And let's face it, Oblivion has far superior gameplay to morrowind. But it's setting (oblivion's), character and story is dull and uninspired, a few exceptions notwithstanding.

[Jacen]

If anyone gives a shit, here is my long rant I posted on the last thread:

Warning! Long-winded "Elder Scrolls rant you probably have heard a few hundred times before" to follow:

Yeah, voice acting is really a double edged sword. If done well it really is a great addition to a game, on the other hand it obviously limits the amount of content NPCs can have. It would be nice if they could do a combo system? I wouldn't mind it if some of the NPC's had spoken dialogue while others had unspoken text lines. That is a lot better than the same guy (and using the same vocal tone) voicing 25 different people. Very jarring.

On the other hand, they would need to give the text itself some flavor. Morrowind was horrible for this, basically the unimportant NPC's were all the same, just conversational rolodex's, where is the nearest shop? guild? etc. No life or personality beyond that.

It would be awesome if they could integrate the conversational wheel from Mass Effect, and maybe just plain text for random NPCs. Or hire MORE talented voice actors that can do different voices and skip hiring a famous Hollywood star to do only one part.

Other areas I'd like to see improvement in for future TES games:

-The standard game should have SOME leveled enemies, and SOME static enemies. It sucks that you have to run a mod to get this effect. The game should be challenging and stay challenging as you level up, but the player should also feel that they are becoming stronger. And no bandits in freakin' enchanted Daedric plate. Also, in the beginning of the game, there should be areas that if you go into them, you will get pwned. Coming back later in a game to an area where you were formerly getting destroyed, and then kicking ass is a great feeling of reward in a game.

- Melee combat and magical combat needs to be tweaked to be more fun and strategic. Apparently some people play these games peacefully, no idea how, but I'm guessing most people spend most of their time fighting to advance in the game. Oblivion was much better than Morrowind in this regard but the system still has far to go. I would like to see more combat moves, more blocking concepts, finishers, more spell options, perhaps adding more complexity to how magic attacks and magic shielding works?

Maybe adding a Fallout 3 VATS style system to complement the live action would work well?

Another huge weakness to the combat system is any time there are more people than yourself fighting foes/monsters what have you. The combat at that point just becomes super wacky and stupid looking. The group battles are very lame looking. That, and it's almost impossible not to hit your friends while in the mix.

- Better loot system. I think one thing that this game series has always sucked at is loot progression. It needs to take a page from Diablo 2, where more is better. Simply put, there are not enough levels of item quality in the TES games. Basically, it usually goes like this; you get the shitty iron sword, then the steel sword, then you might luck out and get a glass one, next thing you know you got the ebony sword, then the daedric, then you are done with weapons cuz their isn't anything better than that. It would be more fun if you were constantly running into variations of power in items. It would be more fun if you felt like you were constantly getting better equipment in the game instead of every once in awhile. Bottom line; the idea of the different materials is cool but they should add in more levels of variance. Ebony Plate: Mark I through X would be a start.

- Make the game fun and playable in third person mode. Make it an actual usable feature and not just a tacked on option.

- Stop dumbing down the game. Enchanting and Spell making were horribly simplified in Oblivion. A cheap brass ring should not be able to hold the enchantment to cast the constant effect shield spell for 60 pts, you should have to find the ultra rare black diamond ring or some shit to get that effect. Bring back some of the old skills. More books! Leave in all the books from all the games. More lore is good, for those that want it. Those that don't can ignore the books.

-Magic...bring back levitate, and mark and recall. Add in more types of attacks beyond the same old boring fire, frost, and shock. How about wind? water? more status effect type attacks? I should be able to hit somebody up with a level 2 earthquake then fry them with a level 3 Gnosis laser beam. More variety and more combos is the key here.

- Optimize the game for both PCs and Consoles. Don't fuck over one system and reward the other. The user interface of Oblivion was so shitty on the PC, a clear console port. A must have mod is the Darnified UI. Again, modders should not have to mod in BASIC FEATURES.

- Continue to increase the immersion factor with small touches, little details. . One thing that IS great about these games is the lived in feel of the dwellings. I love all the junk and useless crap everywhere, it adds to the feel of a lived in world. Continue and improve with that. Seek to make the NPC's more aware of what is going on around them. I.E., If I break into a dudes house and bust him out of bed to talk to him, he should say something about this, call the guards, attack me, anything !

So in the end I'm holding out hope for the day TES is all it can be and the game finally is equally beautiful and deep in looks and in content.

[Poobah]

To be honest I find Oblivion far browner than Morrowind. Morrowind might be dull in some regions when it comes to the colour palette, but everything in Oblivion is a permanent stage of boring beige throughout - combat, setting, characters, story, difficulty progression (or lack thereof - everything.

[Ser Warpechowski]

The real problem with Morrowind are the NPC´s. There must be 3 or 4 really interesting ones, because everyone else is the same.

Oblivion is a bit better but not that much. Neither game offers a lot on player-npc interaction.

The best game that did that was Planescape: Torment, but that is a gem very few have played, either because they never found it or because they disliked the huge amount of text inside it.

My guess is that everyone that likes to read would enjoy it, so those that havent yet should.

Im playing Patrician 3, where my 4 ship fleet just got trashed by Benek the Pirate smaller yet more powerfull one. Almost 4 months building a ship to see it wasted so badly.

[Brys]

I don't get the feeling that Oblivion's characters were any more interesting than Morrowind's. Though most NPCs in Morrowind were pretty much identical in what they said, they still seemed to at least represent something vaguely new - each race felt quite different, from the Dunmer who insulted you pretty much throughout as an outlander (at least in the spoken dialogue) to the Imperials who were generally pretty positive. And there were a few interesting characters, here and there - Vivec, Dagoth Ur, Divayth Fyr and a few others who are genuinely interesting characters. Ok, so not nearly as good as Planescape: Torment, but then no games are. And at least they have a different feel to them - from little things like the naming of characters to small cultural things that you wouldn't expect. It feels like Morrowind is an actual different, alien world to this one, not just generic fantasy world 4, which is what Oblivion is. I'd have kept playing Oblivion a lot longer if there was any reason to explore. But while I'd explore in Morrowind and would have fun even when not doing quests, in Oblivion, as soon as I completed the questlines I wanted to do, I gave up - there was nothing else worth doing in the game.

Anyway, at uni at the moment so not getting a huge amount of time to play anything, so I'm occasionally playing a bit of Europa Universalis 3, with the Magna Mundi 2 mod. Currently England in c1540 - I've conquered most of the British isles and have a couple of colonies in Canada. About half the country has gone Protestant, but the state religion's still Catholic, and the economy is on the verge of collapse, so I'm waiting for a better monarch before risking conversion.

[Durckad]

So in the end I'm holding out hope for the day TES is all it can be and the game finally is equally beautiful and deep in looks and in content.

Hopefully.... HOPEFULLY Bethesda have learned a bit of making interesting and open games after working on Fallout 3 and apply some of that to future ES games. Sure FO3 is not perfect (far from it...) but at least it:

A) Has characters with actual personalities. Sure, you can't talk to everyone, but I'll take quality over quantity here.

B) Has side-quests that don't suck. Oblivion's weren't too bad, Morrowind's were mostly shit, so hopefully Beth focuses on less side-quests and more quality/more involved side-quests.

C) Had combat that wasn't ass, mostly due to VATs, but I'm sure Beth could figure out a way to make the combat less unintuitive. Then again, maybe I'm giving them way too much credit.

D) Had a scaling system that wasn't complete bollocks. As you leveled up, you'd encounter more powerful creatures more frequently, however you'd still encounter weaker chumps and you still had a chance to encounter things way beyond your power level.

E) Has a non-shit leveling system. I am not a fan of the ES gaming 'system.' But that's a pretty subjective thing.

Until they fix these things, the ES games will remain only a brief distraction, something to fill my time until a much better games comes along.

EDIT: Oh yeah, might as well actually respond to the thread.

Currently playing:

Dragon Age

Modern Warfare 2 - I think I might ditch the semi-idiotic single player campaign in favor of the much more fun multiplayer for a while.

[Inigima]

Moar Steam deals. Picked up Mirror's Edge, Riddick: Dark Athena and a $2 puzzle game called QuantZ. I, of course, installed and played a few chapters of the one I've played before, Mirror's Edge. What a great fucking game.

[Werthead]

I think ES5 could do with both the FO3 levelling system and some kind of setting-appropriate version of VATS, with better emphasis on melee combat and magic use. If they crack that, they could have something very interesting.

It's pretty much an open secret that ES5 is under development and the Greg Keyes novels are lying out the backstory for it, moving the timeline forward 50 years and having Blackmarsh destroyed by some invading force. I keep hearing rumours that Skyrim is the setting, although that may just be because they're starting to run out o places to set it (and Valenwood and Elseweyr both just look dull), unless they're going back to Hammerfell and High Rock or something.

[Mme Erzulie]

Can someone explain VATS to the uninitiated?

Still playing FIFA10, and still sporting bruises on my thighs as a result of seemingly never-ending frustration. Still playing on FUCKING Professional, and still struggling. I guess I have gotten better, but I'm still 12th in the league (League 2) and still can't expect to win every game I play. Changing the formation seems to work great for a game or two, and then the opposing team will suddenly be full of fucking Kanchelskis-speedy Zidane-playmakers who'll never miss a pass, a cross or a free kick. I try not to replay any games, but dammit.

Been playing a bit of HOMMIV every once in a while, might have more time to play over the Christmas break. It's a game with some huge flaws (not the least of which is the absolutely atrocious storyline in the campaigns), but it also has certain charms.

Think I'll probably take up either R:TW or M:TW2 around Christmas as well. Might try the Westeros mod.

[Paddy]

I completed the classic Point-and-Click Adventure Beneath a Steel Sky on my iPhone.

It was alright. A fair bit shorter than I was expecting and the dialogue was rather cheezy, but I enjoyed it.

[Inigima]

Can someone explain VATS to the uninitiated?

Left to its own devices, Fallout 3's combat is real-time, like a shooter's. You can tap a button to enter VATS, which pauses the action and allows you to select the body part you want to target, as you could in Fallout and Fallout 2. This requires a certain number of... AP, I think it is? Those regenerate over time during the action so you can't just cheese constantly.

[Poobah]

I didn't like it, it's basically an iwin button.

[Alcibiades]

Still playing Borderlands. My dude is up to level 13. I still haven't played it online, but will likely try that soon. This game feeds an impulse that has gone unsatisfied since I quit playing MMOs in 2006, or even diablo before that.

I'm still tweaking performance a bit on it as well. I think I've finally given up the prospect of running it at native resolution (1400x900). There seems to be a few graphical effects (I think related to Physx) that hit my hardware pretty hard. So I'm going to look to disable those. The game is so highly stylized that I don't think it misses things like shadows. But I really like having high texture detail.

[Zoë Sumra]

Was very very ill on Saturday and therefore spent Sunday whining at my fiance and Monday playing X3:Reunion until I had a battleship. I don't know what I'll do with it now I have it (except maybe clear the Khaak capital ships from Family Rhy, where they've been annoying me all game), but I just wanted a battleship.