![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Welcome, Moon-and-Star, to this place where destiny is made."
2019-Mar-28, Thursday 09:26
Morrowind is my favorite game of all time (though Breath of the Wild is rapidly creeping up on it...), and just recently the Elder Scrolls series hit its 25th anniversary! Bethesda is giving away Morrowind for free through Sunday, if you're not one of the people who's bought it multiple times like me.
I still have the map from the collector's edition, framed and hanging on my office wall at home.
If you want to know my thoughts about the game, I finished a heavily-modded playthrough of it in 2014 and wrote a review of it here. I've considered replaying it again, because I really want to play through the Uvrith's Legacy mod as a member of House Telvanni, and do the vampire playthrough with the trio of Vampiric Hunger, Vampire Embrace and Vampire Realism. And scripted spells so I can turn into a bat, the best way to fast travel. And maybe a playthrough as something other than an elf. But that playthrough I wrote about took me from 2009 to 2014, on and off, and probably about 500 hours of game time. There are so many other things I could do with that time.
There's a giant oral history of Morrowind article at Polygon that I have saved to read when I have more time to sit down. It's over twenty thousand words, so it's not something I can read over my lunch break like a lot of the articles I read. But I can use the time I save by not replaying Morrowind to read it.
I don't know that we'll ever see a game with Morrowind's degree of both freedom and weirdness again. Morrowind is the other half of my love of fungal forests sparked by Crystalis, and the political machinations, the slow burn of figuring out what the plot is, and the main quest actively encouraging the PC to go off and do sidequests are still rare in gaming today. I love the care they put in crafting a strange and compelling setting. I think it took me years to realize that "foyada," the Ashlander word for a ravine carved out by lava that remains after the lava has gone, was made up for the game, and "What exactly happened at Red Mountain?" and "What were the Dwemer trying to accomplish?" and "Was Dagoth Ur right?" are still questions debated among the fandom. Xenophobic nativism vs. colonial oppression was a conflict so good that Bethesda reused it in Skyrim, except Dagoth Ur is much more compelling than Ulfric Stormcloak could ever be. I mean, look at this:
So good.
Breath of the Wild is more fun to play, but Morrowind's plot and setting will win out every time. I've wanted to run a tabletop RPG version of it for years. Maybe someday.
I still have the map from the collector's edition, framed and hanging on my office wall at home.
If you want to know my thoughts about the game, I finished a heavily-modded playthrough of it in 2014 and wrote a review of it here. I've considered replaying it again, because I really want to play through the Uvrith's Legacy mod as a member of House Telvanni, and do the vampire playthrough with the trio of Vampiric Hunger, Vampire Embrace and Vampire Realism. And scripted spells so I can turn into a bat, the best way to fast travel. And maybe a playthrough as something other than an elf. But that playthrough I wrote about took me from 2009 to 2014, on and off, and probably about 500 hours of game time. There are so many other things I could do with that time.
There's a giant oral history of Morrowind article at Polygon that I have saved to read when I have more time to sit down. It's over twenty thousand words, so it's not something I can read over my lunch break like a lot of the articles I read. But I can use the time I save by not replaying Morrowind to read it.
I don't know that we'll ever see a game with Morrowind's degree of both freedom and weirdness again. Morrowind is the other half of my love of fungal forests sparked by Crystalis, and the political machinations, the slow burn of figuring out what the plot is, and the main quest actively encouraging the PC to go off and do sidequests are still rare in gaming today. I love the care they put in crafting a strange and compelling setting. I think it took me years to realize that "foyada," the Ashlander word for a ravine carved out by lava that remains after the lava has gone, was made up for the game, and "What exactly happened at Red Mountain?" and "What were the Dwemer trying to accomplish?" and "Was Dagoth Ur right?" are still questions debated among the fandom. Xenophobic nativism vs. colonial oppression was a conflict so good that Bethesda reused it in Skyrim, except Dagoth Ur is much more compelling than Ulfric Stormcloak could ever be. I mean, look at this:
Nerevarine: "What is your plan for the Dunmer?""Come Nerevar, friend or traitor, come. Come and look upon the Heart and Akulakahn, and bring Wraithguard, I have need of it."
Dagoth Ur: "I will free the Dunmer from the Imperial yoke, and cast down the false gods of the Temple. I will lead them out of their ancient superstitions, and gift them with intimate knowledge of the divine. Then, perhaps, when Morrowind is once again restored to its ancient glories, it will be time to consider whether the Dunmer should cultivate ambitions of empire."
Nerevarine: "How do you justify your crimes?"
Dagoth Ur: "If, by my crimes, you mean the inevitable suffering and destruction caused by war, then I accept the burden of leadership. The Sixth House cannot be restored without war. Enlightenment cannot grow back without the risk of upsetting the tradition-bound and complacent herd. And the Mongrel armies of the Empire cannot be expelled from Morrowind without bloodshed. As I have charity and compassion, I grieve. But our mission is just and noble."
So good.
Breath of the Wild is more fun to play, but Morrowind's plot and setting will win out every time. I've wanted to run a tabletop RPG version of it for years. Maybe someday.
