Bethesda's Last Hope - The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind

Mowwowind™

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Timestamps, click to skip ahead!
Introduction 0:00
On The Brink of Bankruptcy 0:33
Critical Success 2:06
First Impressions 4:14
Immediate Flaws 6:59
Fixes 11:12
The Good Things (Lots of Them) 12:43
Modding 28:22
Still Can't Get Over The Age? 31:59
Legacy - The Good 33:00
Legacy - The Bad 33:58
My Nostalgia 37:08
Conclusion 38:23

Released in 2002 for PC and the original Xbox, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was the long-awaited sequel to Daggerfall; at that time, Bethesda Game Studio's most successful release.
Morrowind went on to sell over 4 million copies between its release and the release of its direct sequel, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion; cementing itself as one of the best selling CRPG's at the time.
After years of turmoil, Bethesda had successfully brought itself back from the brink of bankruptcy, and it came back with a bang.

After Daggerfall saw relative success in 1996, Bethesda decided to reinvest and stretch themselves over a variety of projects. One team worked on 2 Elder Scrolls spin-off games, namely The Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire and The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard – which was headed by Todd the God of Lies himself. A second team worked on 10th Planet - an ambitious space combat simulator in development as a co-venture between Bethesda and Centropolis Entertainment – yes, the same company that made Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow.

However, poor reviews and sales of both Battlespire and Redguard, combined with production problems for10th planet led to the cancellation of the space combat sim and the end of Bethesda Softworks as an independent company.
On their knees, Bethesda Softwork's founder Christopher Weaver alongside Robert A. Altman set up Zenimax Media Inc. as a means to secure funding for the company.

By bringing on investors such as SBS Broadcasting, and by securing high ranking board members including the likes of Robert Trump, yes the brother of that Trump; Weaver was able to successfully secure enough funding to give Bethesda Game Studio the necessary money it needed to finish Morrowind.

If the game failed, so would Bethesda Softworks and The Elder Scrolls series as we know it.
With the writing on the wall; Morrowind was shaping up to be Bethesda's final swan song, its hail mary.

The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind - Bethesda's Last Hope
Villainpedia: Dagoth Ur

#morrowind #elderscrolls #jwlar

[Jwlar]

You can watch my near 4-hour retrospective of Daggerfall here :)

[adarus]

I think it’s beautiful that the main theme of Morrowind has become the Main Theme for the series, it saved Bethesda, Morrowind’s importance cannot be understated.

[hxath.]

I feel that the game being text based is a net positive, due to the cost of voice acting we probably would have a much reduced experience overall and the lore wouldn't take the forefront imo.

[SerinitySack]

I love how in the late stages of the main quest, morrowind turns into a pseudo horror game with all the ash creatures. I actually got startled a few times while going through some of the dungeons with them.

[ares]

My favorite thing in Morrowind that I miss in modern RPG, is the travel system. As seemly frustrating as it was to lack a fast travel system and lack a quest arrow to point you to your destination, overall it was a much more interesting and rewarding experience to plan a route using the strider system and encounter cool side quests along the way.

[paz]

I never got the whole reading thing and why people use it as an excuse to not play. You READ poorly written social media posts almost every single day so I don't get why its so hard to read some legitimately good writing in game like Morrowind. It was a breath of fresh air for me.

[Miskatonic]

All of your negatives were positives for me but I'm a hopeless fanboy. I believe Morrowind has the best feeling of progression of any game ever made (at least for the first few playthroughs until you learn all the exploits). You go from molasses slow to levitating/jumping your way across the map at super speeds. Not hitting with an iron dagger to massacring villages and killing multiple gods. From feeling like an ignorant outlander to an encyclopedia of Vvardenfell and the Dunmer.

[SomeWetDude]

It’s worth noting for any new players that any class you make that’s thought out decently will become powerful with enough time. No matter how counterintuitive like Orc mage and Altmer warrior, you can still make it work with enough time.

[thenarder]

i actually really enjoy the aspect of having a journal where directions on how to do the quest and how to get there are written down, i think having to look at your journal to figure out where to go and what to do next can be tedious but it also adds a lot to the immersion of the game even without good graphics and voiced lines, the one thing i hate is the slow walk speed but with the right build and a little patience that isn't much of a problem after a few levels. infact i think the immersion factor is the main reason i love this game, the fact that the only limits to what you can do are tangible things that make sense like "oh this place has too many high level enemies" or "oh this guild won't let me rank up cause i suck shit at the thing the guild specializes in" or "oh i can't join this guild cause i'm in another guild and they hate eachother" and things like that really make me feel like i'm actually going on an adventure in a living, breathing world that goes on without me (even though it doesn't, the NPC's don't go to bed or anything) and just walking around and questing gives me this amazing feeling

in my opinion, morrowind is great cause it isn't scared to give the player consequences for their actions, and also give them the freedom to do whatever they like, creating the ultimate immersive experience

[breendart]

All hail Young Scrolls for bringing us Dagothwave and its incredible contributions to the modern resurgence of Morrowind's popularity.

[websoft]

Morrowind was my first game ever. I'll never forget the excilerating feeling walking through Morrowind and forgetting about anything around me. It was magical.

[bobscully]

Morrowind reviews and retrospectives spring up everywhere.
Love to see it.

[calebevans]

"18 years old, old enough to drink"!
*Laughs in American*

[origamiknife]

Text-based speech is not a flaw, voice acting and facial animation are massive contributors to development time and budget bloat. also reading is active while listening is passive and we all skip through the dialogue as fast as we can anyway.

[Ermz]

I was 15 when this game came out, and it revolutionised the way many of us saw immersion in video games. That gentle transition to full freedom in Balmora was one of the sweetest things ever, perhaps only matched by the first two Fallout games. We then waited years to build computers that could run Morrowind with pixel shaded water enabled!

[charmine]

I love that Morrowind is free, but also doesn't allow fast travel like Skyrim and Oblivion. It forces you to explore. Some reasons I like Morrowind, even now, is that you have to explore and take your time. I feel it teaches a person patience. I love Morrowind, always will, and I don't care what anyone says.

[bishoptrees]

I love the smell of fresh Morrowind content in the morning

[lfroncek]

Morrowind was one of the first games I bought for my X-Box and I remember being amazed by how great the water looked.

[kevinharding]

Ah yes. I love Morrowind for adding spears, and it truly is the bridge between modern and oldschool elderscrolls, But this was the start of todds downward spiral into simplicity for the franchise imo.

[And-urol]

I actually missed the fatigue system in Skyrim and Oblivion.

I think a neat solution, would just be to have a "exhaustion" and "stamina" system. One for combat, which is quickly restored, and then another for out-of-combat, which you have to manage by either sleeping or eating, and where the effects of a high(?) exhaustion would be all the morrowind negative effects, like less chance of hitting and succeding at spell casting.