Something I brought up briefly before was what I called the "Morrowind Effect", which is a term I use to describe the sense of wonder and discovery upon playing a new style of game for the first time, such as, well, Morrowind. There have been several instances of this in my long history of playing video games, but the Elder Scrolls series is probably the best example.
Let me take you through the beginning of Morrowind.
Thunder crashes, the screen remains dark. Suddenly a disembodied voice begins speaking to you as scenes of an ashen landscape scroll past:
"They have taken you from the Imperial city's prison, to the east, to Morrowind. Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen"
Really nerdy side note: I did not have to look that up. Scary huh?
You disembark in the small village of Seyda Neen, on the island of Vvardenfell, and proceed to character creation. This is handled in a way that Bethesda has since popularized: creation integrated with gameplay, (see Oblivion or Fallout 3). Basically the choices you make determine the character class they think you want to play, although it can all be customized. During the course of this, you get some basic gameplay tutorials as far as movement and interaction, and then you step out into the village proper.
At that point,the game stops telling you what to do. There is a note in your inventory to seek out Caius Cosades in the city of Balmora if you want some work, but you can happily ignore that and say, steal everything that isn't nailed down in Seyda Neen to buy some armor or weapons. Just about everything has some small value, and as long as no one sees you take it, you're solid. This is a play style popularized by my wife, who initially had aspirations to be a wizard, but ended up being a steals-all-your-stuff-and-whacks-you-in-the-face-with-a-hammer type character.
It's interesting to note that the very lack of direction some complained about in Morrowind, is the thing that I found I enjoyed the most. Just walking around the huge open world was fascinating, with all sorts of random caves and tombs to explore. I say random, but technically they were all created and laid out by the developers, and the care they gave to enemy and reward placement was apparent. The island had a ton of cities as well, all with side-quests, shops, and unique characters to interact with, not to mention the guilds and organizations you can join, just ask Jenny about the Morag Tong.
The game isn't without it's faults, of course. The standard character models are atrocious, especially by today's standards. The melee combat was relatively lackluster, (one area that Oblivion actually excels), and the main storyline isn't all that interesting. But as a pure, open-world fantasy game, I think I enjoyed it more than any other before or since.
I seem to have strayed from my main point, for sake of an example, but I kind of got into talking about Morrowind there. Basically what I'm saying is, it's hard to go home again. Even with the improvements graphically to Oblivion, I wasn't as filled with wonder as I was wandering Morrowind's lower-poly count hills. I'll go into the differences between Morrowind's game design and its sequel Oblivion's shortcomings in a future post. For the purpose of this diatribe, I'm focusing more on my internal reasons. It was the same for Grand Theft Auto 3, (the first 3D version of the franchise, I never played 1 or 2). The wonder of driving around a huge city basically doing whatever you wanted was awesome. Now you can do the same in higher-fidelity, but it doesn't have the same magic.
A lot of it is the pure refinement these later versions have, since refinement is another word for restrictions in some cases. These first forays into new territory were easily broken, and experimental at the time. In Morrowind for example, (here I go again), you could use the item crafting system to make yourself some godlike items, an ability they effectively nerfed in the sequel. Balance issues notwithstanding, I want a game to let me break it if I want to. I don't want a game with no cheat codes or console commands, they should be there if I want to abuse the system. I'm only spoiling my own fun if I cheat, so let me. I never tend to on my first run through a game, for that reason, but on subsequent playthroughs, I might want a nigh-unkillable character to run around with.
I don't mean to lay all the blame on the games themselves, a good portion of it is just the standard rule that nothing is ever as exciting as the first time you do it. Go back and load up Super Mario Brothers on the NES, I guarantee you won't be as amazed as you were the first time. I remember being younger and thinking how advanced the orginal Nintendo system was, "Two buttons? We'll never need more than that!" For reference, I believe we're up to 8 on current generation systems, not including Start and Select.
Good lord I just realized how long this post is. To anyone still reading, thanks for your time, and I hope I got across what I wanted to say. Now I've got to catch a Silt Strider to Vivec.
Morrowind was a cool game. I never played it, but still. I just remember everything was brown and gray and black. And you forget to mention another good thing about the game: the music. I taped it once, but I don't think I have it anymore. But it was still cool.
ReplyDeleteAlmost as cool as the music for the Ocarina of Time.
Well remind me and I'll burn a copy of the Soundtrack for you, I bought the collector's edition which came with the CD included. I have all the Zelda stuff too, not just Ocarina of Time, but The Wind Waker as well... and Twilight Princess. Good lord I'm a nerd.
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