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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #601 on: July 23, 2014, 01:41:54 PM »
Classic thread:

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Is there any special places you take your in game date? Please explain the location.

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Coldharbour - Halls of Torment.

Have fun!
Your mom is when your mom and you arent your mom.

Ghost of V

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #602 on: July 23, 2014, 06:52:44 PM »
*chat copypasta*

This just confirms that girls are terrible at video games.

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Offline xasop

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #603 on: July 23, 2014, 09:49:42 PM »
I haven't found anything in Morrowind particularly difficult. Challenging, yes, but not difficult. The learning curve is what keeps things interesting, and I've been playing the whole thing on default difficulty.

It may be worth noting that this is my first time playing an Elder Scrolls game.

I've recently found that the most effective way to make money is to kill shopkeepers and loot their wares, which has made me consider leaving the Mages Guild and joining the Thieves Guild, or maybe even the Dark Brotherhood. The Mages Guild has recently given me two assignments involving potential assassination, one of which stands to be very profitable, so we'll see.
when you try to mock anyone while also running the flat earth society. Lol

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #604 on: July 23, 2014, 10:08:25 PM »
The Dark Brotherhood isn't joinable. Instead, there is the much cooler Morag Tong.
Your mom is when your mom and you arent your mom.

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Offline Snupes

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #605 on: July 23, 2014, 10:39:33 PM »
*chat copypasta*

This just confirms that girls are terrible at video games.

I am a magnificent gamer and will destroy you


It may be worth noting that this is my first time playing an Elder Scrolls game.

I've a feeling this is at least part of my problem. I've played Oblivion and many, many hours of Skyrim, and I play Morrowind essentially the same way I play those. Had I started with Morrowind, I feel like I would have had a much better experience.
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Saddam Hussein

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #606 on: July 23, 2014, 11:10:05 PM »
You don't need to leave guilds to join other ones.  But then again, immersion, roleplaying, lore.

If you ever feel like trying again, I suggest going with a combat-oriented class.  At least stamina replenishes itself.  Magicka and arrows don't.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2014, 06:40:35 AM by Saddam Hussein »

Ghost of V

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #607 on: July 23, 2014, 11:20:22 PM »

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Offline Rushy

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #608 on: July 23, 2014, 11:25:22 PM »
I looked up whether Morrowind has voice acting or not and wikipedia says it has a "fair bit." Can anyone help me quantify what a "fair bit" is?

Ghost of V

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #609 on: July 23, 2014, 11:28:49 PM »
I looked up whether Morrowind has voice acting or not and wikipedia says it has a "fair bit." Can anyone help me quantify what a "fair bit" is?

Sometimes when you walk next to people they will say stuff like "Outlander......", "Greetings", "Welcome", etc.

All the character dialogue outside of those interactions is text-based.

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Offline Rushy

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #610 on: July 23, 2014, 11:29:46 PM »
Sometimes when you walk next to people they will say stuff like "Outlander......", "Greetings", "Welcome", etc.

All the character dialogue outside of those interactions is text.

thinking about getting it but oh god thats awful I'm definitely even more not playing morrowind ever

Ghost of V

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #611 on: July 23, 2014, 11:31:23 PM »
Sometimes when you walk next to people they will say stuff like "Outlander......", "Greetings", "Welcome", etc.

All the character dialogue outside of those interactions is text.

thinking about getting it but oh god thats awful I'm definitely even more not playing morrowind ever

Well then you're a fucking moran because Morrowind is the best game ever made.

Play it on xbawks for true cool points, my friend.

play it on xbawks

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #612 on: July 24, 2014, 12:48:18 AM »
I looked up whether Morrowind has voice acting or not and wikipedia says it has a "fair bit." Can anyone help me quantify what a "fair bit" is?

Sometimes when you walk next to people they will say stuff like "Outlander......", "Greetings", "Welcome", etc.

All the character dialogue outside of those interactions is text-based.

Certain important characters are more thoroughly voice acted, like a certain member of House Dagoth and Azura. The lack of voice acting otherwise allows for more extensive dialogue, since the developers don't need to worry about paying extra to voice each word. Also, the quality of the writing suspiciously dropped greatly with the addition of full voice acting. Lastly, the voice acting that is present is actually some of the best in the series. There's a reason people have been whining about bringing back Jeff Baker's Dunmer voice ever since Oblivion's release. Listen for yourself:



It's genuinely unnerving to hear an Ordinator growl something like "let's not make this official, outlander... move along."
Your mom is when your mom and you arent your mom.

Ghost of V

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #613 on: July 24, 2014, 12:56:22 AM »
Jeff Baker could voice everyone in the next real Elder Scrolls game and I wouldn't mind.

I'm also a fan of Wes Johnson's derpy Imperial voice in Oblivion.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 12:58:28 AM by Vauxhall »

Saddam Hussein

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #614 on: July 24, 2014, 01:50:24 PM »
There's more to measuring good writing than the quality of the prose itself.  The blocks of text that function as dialogue in Morrowind may well display beautiful turns of phrase, but the fact remains that they're still blocks of text rather than normal dialogue, which is a huge flaw in and of itself.  And I don't agree that they're all that well-written, anyway.  They're not terrible, but they're almost all written in the same curt, clipped, businesslike manner, with very little room left over for any character or personality.

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #615 on: July 24, 2014, 02:17:34 PM »
There's more to measuring good writing than the quality of the prose itself.  The blocks of text that function as dialogue in Morrowind may well display beautiful turns of phrase, but the fact remains that they're still blocks of text rather than normal dialogue, which is a huge flaw in and of itself.  And I don't agree that they're all that well-written, anyway.  They're not terrible, but they're almost all written in the same curt, clipped, businesslike manner, with very little room left over for any character or personality.

Do you actually listen to all of the voiced dialogue in Oblivion or Skyrim, or do you just read ahead and skip to the next line when you're done?

I was mostly talking about the dialogue that is important to the plot. Sure, generic NPCs give a lot of the same information and do so in a weird, overly expository way, but I don't mind. I like the flavorful information.

Anyway, the biggest and flashiest example of the superiority of Morrowind's writing over Oblivion's is the final speech of each game's antagonist.

Here is Mankar Camoran's cheesy monologue. Notice that the phrase "hero of destiny" is used without a trace of irony, and that the voice actor sounds like a right ponce. He is going to rebuild the world, to make it a better place by any means possible. You cannot possibly stop him. His plan is already set in motion. Wow, I've never heard that before. Oh wait, yes I have, in everything ever.

Compare to this, the conversation you have with Dagoth Ur before he kills you over and over. Firstly, his voice is actually intimidating. Secondly, he actually converses with you. Well, first he gives you the option to just "skip the speeches" and get right to business. He treats you as an equal, recognizing the fact that you may indeed be Lord Neravar incarnate. He asks you questions, and offers to answer questions of yours. It feels personal. You aren't just another hero of destiny rolling your eyes at another evil mastermind monologue.

As for Skyrim, the antagonist is a giant dragon with red eyes who eats souls. He may as well have been commanding Nazi legions.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 02:45:00 PM by Alexandyr »
Your mom is when your mom and you arent your mom.

Saddam Hussein

Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #616 on: July 25, 2014, 02:51:59 AM »
Did you just insult the magnificent Terence Stamp?  How very dare you!

Anyway, yes, of course Dagoth Ur is a far better villain than Mankar Camoran.  And I agree that for the most part, Oblivion was a very ill-advised step backwards into generic high fantasy cliché, so I won't spend much time defending it.  But, like I said (although I should have spent more time explaining it, as nobody here is a mind reader [or are they?]), writing encompasses more than putting one word in front of the other in a way that sounds good.  There's also the basic structuring of the plot and how it's presented to the player, and there Morrowind struggles.

Look at the beginnings of these games, for example.  In Morrowind, the story begins with the Emperor using his influence to have you, a prisoner transported to Vvardenfell and released.  This sounds promising, he must have big plans for you!  Or maybe not.  Apparently it's just to offer you a job.  It's not a very good job, either; you're basically just Caius's gofer.  And that's it, at least for the first solid chunk of the main quest.  It's not until you're several quests in that they finally bother to tell you what's so important about all this and what it has to do with you.  Until then, there are no stakes.  There is no motivation.  There is no reason for you to give a fuck about any of the inhabitants of this island.  Gods know they don't give one about you.

We'll skip over Oblivion because that game begins almost as badly as it ends.  Skyrim, however, handles it better than both of them.  The introduction at Helgen sets the scene nicely, establishing both the threat that the dragons pose and how the civil war is ripping the land apart.  Your involvement in the events that follow feels natural rather than forced - you're one of the few survivors of a dragon attack, so it makes sense that you'd be recruited in the aftermath to try and deal with the threat.  And your identity as the chosen one is revealed after you kill your first dragon, by way of a wondrous display of magic that grants you amazing powers.  That's how to start a game off right.  Show rather than tell.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2016, 05:17:05 AM by Saddam Hussein »

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #617 on: July 25, 2014, 03:11:39 AM »
Right, Morrowind doesn't immediately shove you head first into another universe-threatening disaster as the only true hero of destiny who can put an end to the chaos. It's a tad more subtle. The sense of urgency in Skyrim is uncomfortable for any roleplayer who doesn't immediately want to begin the MQ.
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Offline Snupes

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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #618 on: July 25, 2014, 03:24:42 AM »
Right, Morrowind doesn't immediately shove you head first into another universe-threatening disaster as the only true hero of destiny who can put an end to the chaos. It's a tad more subtle. The sense of urgency in Skyrim is uncomfortable for any roleplayer who doesn't immediately want to begin the MQ.

To be honest, though, it doesn't really even bother to try to catch your interest, either. In Morrowind, so far, I really have no interest in what's going on. The atrocious (IMO, obviously) conversation system doesn't help things because I need to read a novel whenever I talk to people. As I've said in IRC, I'm the kind of person who exhausts every conversational option with NPCs in all games and will read crap like Mass Effect's codexes and games' information logs, but in Morrowind it's just tiring. Going through weird conversation chains and keywords and the incredibly stiff, info-dump dialogue. It got to the point where I'm basically skimming dialogue and just clicking through to find quest-relevant keywords like some weird kind of needle+haystack search and then reading anything that updates my journal. I'm a very fast reader and love reading, but I really don't think the game has great dialogue. The voice acting, where existent, is much better than any other Elder Scrolls game, though.

I want so badly to like this game, it seems in theory like a game I'd love and I've heard endless praise for it, but every time I feel like I'm sort of getting into it something comes up that bothers me.
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Re: The Elder Scrolls Online
« Reply #619 on: July 25, 2014, 03:52:56 AM »
Right, Morrowind doesn't immediately shove you head first into another universe-threatening disaster as the only true hero of destiny who can put an end to the chaos. It's a tad more subtle. The sense of urgency in Skyrim is uncomfortable for any roleplayer who doesn't immediately want to begin the MQ.

To be honest, though, it doesn't really even bother to try to catch your interest, either. In Morrowind, so far, I really have no interest in what's going on.

You're right. The game doesn't dangle shiny objects in front of your face to get your attention. It simply presents the world to you, and tells you that you're free to do as you wish. If that doesn't interest you, you probably won't like the game.


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The atrocious (IMO, obviously) conversation system doesn't help things because I need to read a novel whenever I talk to people. As I've said in IRC, I'm the kind of person who exhausts every conversational option with NPCs in all games and will read crap like Mass Effect's codexes and games' information logs, but in Morrowind it's just tiring. Going through weird conversation chains and keywords and the incredibly stiff, info-dump dialogue. It got to the point where I'm basically skimming dialogue and just clicking through to find quest-relevant keywords like some weird kind of needle+haystack search and then reading anything that updates my journal. I'm a very fast reader and love reading, but I really don't think the game has great dialogue. The voice acting, where existent, is much better than any other Elder Scrolls game, though.

I want so badly to like this game, it seems in theory like a game I'd love and I've heard endless praise for it, but every time I feel like I'm sort of getting into it something comes up that bothers me.

If you're asking every single NPC about directions to the nearest Fighter's Guild, to give you a little advice, latest rumors, etc. you'll certainly get tired of reading. If you're just reading the important stuff, and only engaging non-quest NPCs in conversation when you feel like it, the amount of reading is perfectly normal for an RPG.
Your mom is when your mom and you arent your mom.