Bethesda have shown themselves unable to write in the last decade. They do not have the writers who were responsible for Morrowind and they do not know how to be proper custodians to the lore anymore. No remake!
I mean I would make the argument Morrowind's writing isn't actually that much better then Skyrim's or Oblivion's. In some ways I think it's worse actually. Like the worldbuilding is probably the best. But there is more to writing then that.
The art direction argument is on point. Morrowind's graphics are so old that, as you said, they leave a lot to the imagination, and any kind of modern remake won't be able to achieve that kind of look and vibe. If you look at the graphics mods we have, things like shaders and modern lighting look just fine, but any sort of texture upscale just throws things off. Like with the buildings, that yellowish material they are made of? It doesn't need more resolution, that's exactly what it is. If you add resolution, that's suddenly a different material.
i feel like a lot of people that make the texture upscale mods might not have an art background themselves, so they don't mimic the original artstyle but use filters instead to upscale it and it loses the charm from the original textures
@@Gleamiarts Upscales are done through AI now, and that's a whole other issue. For example, Ordinator armor is bonemold, but in one of the popular mods the AI picked it up as gilded metal. So in the upscale it has clearly golden and reflective elements, which definitely wasn't the original idea.
That's interesting because I personally think that's the weakest argument against a remaster. Especially with games this old, where technical limitations really affected what was possible visually (not just in terms of texture resolution and polygon count, but things like how much visual clutter the engine could handle), I think visual remasters are super interesting and exciting. There are definitely cases where remasters don't honor the original aesthetic very well (I think the Halo CE remaster is a great example of that--it's pretty but it really lost a lot of the original charm), but it's totally possible to do it justice and keep elements that originated from technical limitations that wound up really adding something. I absolutely love seeing that original vision taken to new heights now that they can be unshackled from strict technical limitations. I'd absolutely love to see locations like Balmora in a new engine that can technically handle the scope and visual clutter needed to make them feel more like living, breathing cities. If it were totally overwriting the original graphics like you sometimes see when live-service games get updated it's one thing, but remasters are a separate product, and while I definitely prefer thoughtful remasters that really do justice to what was great about the original art style (especially because art in old games when photorealism was impossible was, on average, so much more varied and creative than it is now), if it fails on that front, the original game is still right there for you to enjoy.
Completely agree, as my favorite thing about the original graphics is the fog. The fog adds so much to the environment. It’s a volcanic island with a more tropical climate- it’s gonna be foggy. Just look at vvardenfell in ESO: it’s pretty, but the lack of fog makes it feel like it’s not Morrowind at all.
Actually, I think the lack of full voice acting was a good thing. It meant that they could afford huge amounts of dialogue, and fan created extensions could easily feel just as native as the original stuff. Not only would it be incredibly expensive to voice act absolutely everything in Morrowind (which means they certainly would drastically prune down the dialogue trees and dumb it dow a lot) but it would make every mod that adds dialogue, which was quite a lot of them; almost all that adds NPC's in fact; feel like second class content unless they also spend enormous amount of time and money on voice acting themselves. And all mods that modify the dialogue of existing characters would feel completely broken (because it would randomly go from speaking to mute, or randomly change voice actor for some lines), and would be impossible for anyone but Bethesda to fix it.
I mean... I'd pay a fair bit for a bug-free Skyrim, or one that doesn't crash within an hour of gameplay. Skyrim is close to the perfect game for me but right as I've put all the work in on getting my build up and running, it'll have reached a point where it crashes more and more often. 4+ computers, with or without mods, over 12 years and it still just reaches a point where I abandon saves because it crashes too much.
Bringing new people into the community is great, as long as you're not compromising anything to accomplish it. The point at which you have to compromise something, you are diluting part of what made it worth having the community it did to begin with. It's inevitable.
I think OpenMW is the best possible solution to the remaster issue. Game crashes once in a blue moon and it has multiplayer compatibility now. The game might have issues and creative decisions that many might find to be antiquated but that's all part of the experience. OpenMW retains the experience and brings it up to modern compatibility.
After playing OpenMW, it is hard to play the modded original, with its crashes ruining immersion. The community, however, appears to rely heavily on MWSE over OpenMW and that looks slow to change. Also, friends don't let friends use quest markers.
I still believe, as a massive fan of Morrowind and OpenMW.... even still, with OpenMW heavily modded, the graphics are still very poor compared to what a modern remake/remaster could bring. The graphics are even bad in comparison to vanilla Skyrim. Sadly, I don't trust Bethesda to do it properly and if they tried it would most likely be pretty terrible. But I do always wish that Morrowind's graphics were better simply because a game with such great writing and fun gameplay deserves good visuals. The animations, the lack of voice acting and the low-poly models and lack of occlusion make the graphics very flat.
@@husky3g Graphics are a poor excuse to make a remaster no matter which way you cut it. A game is fun despite it's graphics it's part of the experience.
Speaking of art direction, etc. A weird thing I've noticed is that in Skyrim and ESO the Dark Elf architecture appears to be textured like it's stonework, ie. blocks of stone put together. But in the original game it looks A LOT more like it's meant to be adobe (ie covered in dried mud or clay). This is also reinforced by how the Hlaalu architecture is based on middle eastern architecture, or how the Redoran architecture looks like it's sculpted rather than someone making blocks that are supposed to fit together into that shape. It's a really weird take from Bethesda's new artists, imho.
The Hlaalu architeecture is ment to be that but I do not think Redoran is ment to be that, which is what we see in Skyrim. Hlaalu architecture also looks like that in ESO. There is not much Redoran stuff in ESO but the Redoran stuff in Skyrim probably looks diffeerent because some of it is ment to representt animal shells in TES III while in TES V the Redoran settlement in Skyrim is newer and probably without the direct influence of the big bugs. Looking at the interiour it does seem that morrowind also wanted it to be more stonelike but our imagination changes it because of the lower graphics (which is a good thing). ESO and Skyrim are still good examples because both games go out of their way to not just recreate the feel of original Morrowind by introducing new animals or beast or by changing the climate and look of Vvardenfell to make it stand out. I am pretty sure that trying to get the identitical look of the old game is impossible with modern graphics because so much rests on its old identity.
Depends where in Morrowind you are. Hlaalu and Velothi (temple) buildings appear to be made of adobe, or in the case of important Temple structures, possibly massive monoliths. Telvanni buildings are living mushrooms, and Redoran buildings are made from the shells of giant insects and crustaceans. But Indoril buildings (like those in Mournhold) are made of stone or bricks. You can see this if you look closely at the textures in the Tribunal expansion. As for House Dres, we never got any official examples before ESO, but given that they are wealthy and traditional, and that Mournhold is on the border between Dres and Indoril districts, I assume that Dres architecture is similar to Indoril, or somewhere between Indoril and Velothi.
I think Todd even said in an interview that remaking Morrowind is a bad idea. All the things that people love about Morrowind would be the things they would modernize. He basically said that remaking the game would take away the game's identity and he'd rather focus on allowing more platforms to experience that, rather than make something that isn't true to the original.
He literally says, quote, "I’d rather you play Morrowind the way it was ... I think the age is part of its identity." You are letting your bias against him and the game dictate your interpretation. Mind you, my interpretation was a bit exaggerated, on account of me being too busy to find the quote at the time, but there is no mention of creative differences. Just because you don't like the way something is, doesn't mean its a flaw, plot holes be damned. Plus, its not like Oblivion and Skyrim are innocent in that regard.
I finally got to play morrowind for the first time recently and I loved it! Being forced to read and find objectives on my own activated my imagination in a way I didn't know I craved. Using spells like levitate, mark and recall reminded me why I loved Daggerfall so much. The classics will always hold a special place in my heart and like you said I see it as visiting other countries and I appreciate them the way they are, the good and the bad.
Todd Howard on remasters of Elder Scrolls games: “I’m happy that you can play [The Elder Scrolls III] Morrowind now on an Xbox One, as it’s backwards compatible. I’m really happy that Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and others are making it easier for people to play [older games] as they were played at the time. I actually prefer that over remasters.” “I’d rather you play Morrowind the way it was … I think the age is part of its identity.”
There is very much a different design philosophy in the video game industry today. As you say Morrowind was designed in a certain time and place, a time when video games weren't the money maker they are today. I also think how company are structured (with heavy managerial oversight) and less authorship (diablo 2 levels were done by 3 guys, while diablo 3 had a vast dev team) so devs cant make their mark. This combine with risk aversion means they are ill suited to creating or retaining the essence of Morrowind like experience. Very good video, keep up the good work.
One wonderful thing about Morrowind are all the non-combat skills. From alchemy to enchanting to athletics to speechcraft to barter. I absolutely adore my Apothecary, first character I got past level 3. Ignore the metagaming, just immerse yourself and dive into the world.
Yes, and not just the skills, but there are a ton of quests which do not revolve around combat. And even many quests where combat is the preferred method of completing the objective have other possible resolutions. You can complete a large portion of the game without ever killing anyone. The later games had non-combat skills, but they became less relevant because the resolution of so many quests required combat.
There's a reason why Morrowind has a New Game option in the pause menu. Don't like your current character? Not vibing with it? Start a new game right away. There are actually a lot of people who have played thousands of hours without ever completing the story or any guild to completion, simply living the world instead.
The graphics, the dice roll combat, the lack of quest markers... these have all successfully gatekeeped away the Skyrim and ESO communities, and I am grateful for that
@@cleverman383 I really don't think any of that is gatekeeping. It certainly wasn't at the time the game released, it was just aping the TTRPG systems of the time. The Morrowind community online--at least the parts I've ever had contact with--is likewise quite welcoming to new players. You just have to meet Morrowind where it is, mostly. I'd argue there's a big difference between targeting a specific audience and gatekeeping. No part of Morrowind is *designed* to exclude anyone, it's just more niche. When Oblivion and Skyrim targeted a wider audience, they were following market share and not social inclusivity.
@@RaggedVentures Morrowind was happy to cater to its niche core audience, but later Elder Scrolls games were afraid to and instead tried to appeal to the filth-ridden outlanders and the series has never been worthy of respect ever since. Its popularity expanded vastly, but only due to the massive tumorous growths caused by this horrific decision of welcoming such disease and scum into our lands. I pray that Morrowind never gets a remake or remaster, the outlanders are kept away, and Vvardenfell remains pure. The gates MUST be kept.
@@MrDarkNaoTook a while after the launch but got there in the end although Halo Combat Evolved remaster is a bit divisive with it's over bright design and still being based off the Gearbox PC port which Sabre Interactive used as a template. Halo 2 remaster was done well though.
@@whitemakesright2177 Yep. I've played with it before, but it would be nice to have the base game updated without mods. I know a fair few PC players who are allergic to downloading mods. No matter how simple. Lol
The one and only reason why they shouldn’t remake Morrowind is they couldn’t use the same mechanics. Spellmaking, alchemy, enchanting, min maxing, certain items, etc. There’s so many ways to break open the game. You can be a person who scrapes by every fight by the skin of their teeth or you can be ridiculously overpowered in a matter of minutes. That won’t happen in a remake. Morrowind was at a unique point in time where the engine it ran on allowed for ultimate freedom. You could jump across the entire map with a spell. Not happening in the remake.
@@Sumoniggro like Batman on steroids. Plus enchanted pants that can shoot fire, and a sword that can damage you with every type of element while it sucks out your life energy and soul.
Oh no being over powered in a single player game and it takes time and lots of gold to accomplish so you have to go out of your way to do it whatever will we do I hate when people scream about balance in a single player game like it's gonna kill them if little Jonny makes himself into a god in his playthrough
Eh. I still disagree with this take. If other than graphics and MAYBE voice acting (as I don't see many of the new generation reading all those blocks of text) they changed just the combat (weapons and magic) to not be Dice Rolls, the game would still be amazing, and it isn't hard to leave everything else as is.
I'd be terrified of the new cliff racers. They already haunt me. I hear their shrieks and their almost ghastly moans when I wake up. I hear the sound of them trying to escape my toothbrush, because everyone knows electric toothbrushes vibrate due to tiny trapped Cliff Racers bouncing of the walls and trying to escape. I know not of when others speak of birds, fore I see one winged creature and one winged creature alone. I see it. I love old games. But gosh they haunt me. You know the Daggerfall torch audio bugs? When I first played they a few years ago it terrified me. Also Unity sucks, get classic Daggerfall. But AHHH CLIFF RACERS CAIUS! SAVE ME!! I have no idea what I was doing or where I was going with any of that past the first 2 sentences.
Daggerfall had the best haunting sounds, its the horror version of an ES game. Its dark, it has some pretty horror artwork. And its the game with the loudest screaming skeletons. They have no lungs, but scream and they scream very loud. + There were plenty of them in those Megadungeons. MW does not even have dungeons, coming from Arena/DF these small caves are tiny toilet houses.
I would love a Morrowind remake. But, we are talking about a company which most of the people who were there in 2002 are not there now. I doubt that the team there now could give it the love and care needed for Morrowind, or even Oblivion. This is the company that made Starfeild and Fallout 76, the same company that hasn’t changed their game engine in many years. I would rather see how they can handle a new Elder Scrolls game after what would be close to 20 years since ESV than see them most likely mess up a remake.
Sorry, but the game engine argument is so stupid. There's no compelling reason to throw out all the work you've done, all the tools that your employees are familiar with, for some marginal improvement in reputation. They've just invested a considerable amount of effort into multiplayer, physics, and rendering improvements. Can you name one technical shortcoming of the Starfield engine that would be corrected by changing to Unreal? Btw Larian have been using the "same" engine for the past 15 years too.
@@IlIlllIIIllIIlIIlII I will admit there is a tricky situation in regards to a new engine since we wasted 8 year developing Starfield. However, Bethesdas games have always been limited for a very long time. Even when Skyrim came out the Creation Engine, though not the same version for Starfield, was highly limited making the game still look and feel dated. Starfield is again hindered in the graphical department and poor optimization. Starfield, at least to me, is a ugly game even if some parts of it look okay. And its not even my main point just one of the many problems with modern BGS. There is a real lack in innovation when RPG’s have gone beyond what Skyrim did 12 years ago. It would be a waste of time to make people change but the 8 years we spent on Starfield could have been spent making a new engine. Idk enough about Larian because BG3 was not my favorite game but Bethesda will likely want to improve on Skyrim considerably and maybe they can but most of their games feel like they came out 5 years before their release.
@@funkiestisland2209 Tbh most of the problem with Bethesda is not a game engine problem. It's a company culture problem. They adopted a philosophy of "if it works its good enough" with the development of Morrowind and it's something that hasn't changed since those days. They leave things in a state that's just barely functional or stable rather than perfecting the systems. It's like building a house and tacking on additional bits and pieces without any thought to stability or the foundations. So I wouldn't say the game engine they use is really the problem. Would it improve the graphical fidelity? Maybe, it's certainly possible, but there's already ways to improve those aspects without changing the engine through mods so it's just unnecessary work to try and transfer to a new engine. The HAVOK physics engine is another prime example of this company culture problem rearing its head. It's a powerful physics engine but only in Bethesda titles that use it do we see some of the weird glitches and twitching models. The problem is as I stated before that they only work on things until they "just work" and not until it's actually stable and functional. Bethesda has never had an engine problem but a company culture problem.
@@theomniwildcard well like I said back in my original comment most of the people who made Morrowind are no longer at the company. Actually I would venture to guess most people who made Skyrim are no longer at Bethesda. You are 100% right that Bethesda only makes games that barely function and then hope mod makers fix it. Most of my problems with Skyrim as a game come from the writing and design, not the engine. The game engine is a issue that can be fixed once the company as a whole is better but like most game developers now they only make things that funcion half the time then fix it a day after release.
Gatekeeping happens because a lot of what people like about games is the culture and community that builds around them. When new fans come in, what they loved the most changes beyond recognition. They don't have to be happy about that.
Not only the culture and community around them, when new people come, often the games themselves can change, maybe the new people demand changed that dilute the essence of a game/game series, or they do not hold the developers accountable for these type of changes, as they have no attachment to how things were, and if that kind of audience surpass in number the original one, then what the original fans loved could be truly changed beyond recognition without chance of reversal
Can't say I agree but it's great to see young gamers and content creators bringing attention to this game. Hopefully there's some dev or exec out there who'll realise there's a reason people still play this game twenty two years later.
After seeing how abysmal every recent old game's remaster went, lets not have that happen to Morrowind. Its a gem in its current state, and any things you want revamped can be done with mods (and lets be honest, the game is so old that pretty much everyone has a pc that could run it).
There are a lot more things that could be improved in Morrowind. NPCs who have actual routines, simulating day and night cycles in cities and villages. Introduction of more actual conversations with NPCs. Providing with NPCs reactions PC having achieved any number of milestones.
What they'd actually do is just add quest markers and remove all RPG elements like they did with Skyrim. Todd Howard literally cannot make a good game for anything. He just ruins everything he touches.
@@ElyonDominus and that's what you want to happen to morrowind? No thank you. I hate what they have done to fallout and the elder scrolls. If they have to ruining those great rpgs names at least let it be with new games. Leave the last good ones alone. Fallout 1 fallout 2 fallout new vegas arena daggerfall morrowind never should be touched unless they have to sign a legally binding contract saying they will only improve the graphics that's it
Can i ask, what is it you like about NPC routines and interaction etc? To me the more they try make NPCs feel human the more uncanny and awkward they are. What makes it important for you?
Remake? No. Remaster? Yes. Bring gamepad support & option to toggle kbd+mouse/gamepad UI to PC version. Categorize quest log so that we can see which notes go with which quest. Add the ability to make custom map notes. Make the game compatible with ultra wide resolutions. That's it. That's all I want out of a remaster.
Seriously, the game holds up fine, but there are some platform limitations and tiny quality of life features that would make it amazing in the modern day
THANK YOU for talking about the whole idea with really detailed graphics sort of demystifying and taking away the magic from old video games. I've always had a hard time explaining this to my friends who prefer modern games that look really nice. I WANT my imagination to have to fill in the details of the environment, the characters, etc. Not having every detail makes the world more interesting and draws you in. Having every detail told to you I think makes video games less artistic and too close to reality, which is what they are meant to be an escape from in the first place. It was really good to hear someone else with this perspective, because a lot of people just see early 2000s graphics and laugh or walk away.
Bethesda kills any hype I could have with anything they make after FO4, FO76, and Starfield, I don't need them to continue to put their rotten finger on the things I love. I am extremely hyped for Skywind and Skyblivion btw.
this, Bethesda used to be one of IF not my favorite game studio but after the disaster which was FO76 i fully realized that they are not the same game studio i fell in love with and they are nothing more than the trash that EA or Ubisoft are
Why? Both Skywind and Skyblivion will both be Skyrim with a crappy facade over them. Neither will be RPGs or worthwhile. It's a giant waste of time for the modding teams.
And its a much better game than Morrowind, everything is much bigger even the Dungeons are gigantic. MW is a very very tiny game with a tiny world and still more unbalanced than Daggerfall ever was. Despite its generic content everything had way more character, too. It had the first lore books to read in-game and the first guild system. MW would not exist without this game at all and has still only done like half of what DF did. Add ashen storms and jeremy soul music to DF and everyone would talk about DF.
@@zeusapollo6504 I would argue that Daggerfall doesn't use its size properly, while Morrowind is scaled exactly how it should be for the amount of handmade content it offers.
I feel sad there's a real risk all these endless remakes and remasters could end up stifling creativity and taking resources away from developers and studios wanting to create new ideas and new worlds to explore - new masterpieces in their own right that could be looked back on for similar reasons as to why we still love Morrowind. It's not surprising or unnatural to want to revisit things we loved in our past and childhood, and see them given new life with modern tech and gameplay - but at the same time it's only really the people who love these works of art the most that would stand to benefit much. Bringing it to a new audience just isn't necessary as they have their own games or movies they grew up with that they like for their own reasons, and if they really are interested they will seek it out as it is and either enjoy it or decide it isn't for them. I was always a bit put off by isometric RPGs, but I heard so many good things about the writing and story of Planescape Torment that I finally decided to push ahead with it, and got so absorbed in the lore, setting, and story that it's now one of my favourite games and I've now played most of the other notable titles in the genre - if I was presented with a remake instead, I wouldn't specifically have been anymore likely to play or enjoy it than I was with the original, but may have ended up experiencing something that was actually lacking a lot of what made the original so popular. I think you presented some of these perspectives really well here in a debate that's probably only going to grow more with time - it's something that |I have strong views on and have thought about a lot, and you made some really good points I hadn't considered myself previously. Keep up the creative analysis and unique takes - it's really interesting to open up new debates like this on pieces of art we all know and love!
For every Resident evil Renake there is also a WCIII reforged. And I feel like Morrowibd would go towards the latter considering the parallels in that Bethesda and Blizzard have had in recent times
It's my favorite game of all time. I've been playing it for 20 years. Whether it's vanilla or nodded, Xbox or PC I still enjoy it the way it is and if not plenty if amazing mods. And the fact we get tamriel Rebuilt, Skyrim home of the nords and cyrodiil expansion island of stirk with more to come from all those that's enough to keep morrowind alive another 20 years.
Yet for all the community engagement the game itself was nothing special, when looked at from today's point of view. It was just one of the few RPGs that were popular at the time. Others have come since that were not worse, and were enjoyed similarly.
morrowind is the only elder scrolls game i ever played, i first picked it up last year and i absolutely fell in love. it's has one of my favourite game ambients/vibes ever and the only mods i used were the quality of life ones (like the updated journal), zero graphic changes. my main reason to not want a remake is that, in my opinion as an artist with VERY specific aesthetic preferences, i think it just wouldn't look as intriguing with modern graphics. i find a lot of older games artistically much more intriguing because they don't lean on the crutch of hyper-realism, as the limited resources they worked with basically forced them to peel back all the unnecessary layers of the design and bring out the true core visual aesthetic of the game, giving it a very strong visual identity (this is also the reason for the problems with diablo 2 remake - limitations keep artists from going overboard and force them to find more creative solutions. less is often more). i feel like a lot of modern games lack in that core visual identity to a point where i genuinely struggle finding any of them aesthetically interesting.
Well articulated, thank you. I agree with pretty much all you said, and am looking forward to Skywind and Skyblivion. Hopefully, they will not take to much longer. Fortunately, we have Fallout London to look forward to shortly. Thank heavens for the modding community.
I agree, morrowind doesn't need a remake. It would be cool to return to the province (kinda like Solstheim in Skyrim - it was my favourite skyrim DLC), but we dont need a repeat of the same story.
I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately. Not just for morrowind, but other games/influences that have left a big impression on me, and have inspired my imagination. I think for all the reasons you have said, a remake would need the stars to align to retain the “Gesture” (to borrow an art term), that the original had. And would easily become too over polished and stiff. Instead I think the best way to pay homage to those big influences is to think about the feelings and concepts from those that really resonated with you and evoked a strong feeling, and then pour that feeling into whatever art project or medium that you’re comfortable with. I’m my mind, that way you are paying tribute to the core of what that game/media sparked within you, without getting lost in the technical details of a remake. For a larger studio, I feel an example can be how bloodborne is not a work of lovecraft, but absolutely pays homage and tribute to those ideas and feelings better than any faithful lovecraft game or movie. I’m sure there are many other examples out there as well but I’ll stop my ramble here.
I'm an old player who appreciates a good, and I stress good, remake. Or at least a bare bones remake that just fixes the "Guts" so you can play it on a modern system without problems. I'd be down if it were a true remake (same NPCs, setting, etc.), a "shot for shot" remake, in a modern engine with voice acting and stuff. Keep all the important stuff but with a new coat of paint so to speak. I don't want it reinterpreted or re imagined or "updated for a modern audience" (gag). They could even keep the old mechanics, just improve the interface. Now, I would be absolutely mad if they took away the original and we only had that, that pisses me off. I'd rather only have the original and no remake if it were a choice between that and remaking it. Personally I think the problems are solved by simply outsourcing the project to a competent studio. When Bethesda contracts it out to a competent company and pockets the money, we get New Vegas. When they develop internally, well, let's just say Bethesda lost their way a long time ago.
@@CreadeyhA remaster would be no update to the code or models or engine, it'd just be the old game running inside an emulator with some graphical upscaling. For example a remaster of Morrowind wouldn't add voice acting, the capability wasn't in the original game.
I agree 100%, the game's already perfect as is imo. You can't fix what isn't broken. Now a Remaster with Quality of Life additions, sure but a Remake? No. I'm scared if they did they'd change the gameplay, I never liked they removed the Major/Minor Skills system in later games. Don't get me wrong I love every Elder Scrolls game, but Morrowind will always be my favorite. The music, appearance, story, etc is Chef's Kiss. Morrowind's in my top 5 favorite games of all time. Also I just beat Oblivion for the very first time last week! Now I've beat Morrowind, Oblivion, and Syrim.
We've already seen what happened with Star Wars Battlefront Classic and that cash grab of a "remake." If the original is available and works, then there's no reason to remake a game. I've played the remakes for Mass Effect and Halo, and it didn't really add anything (in the case of Mass Effect, boss battles were nerfed)
To be fair, most people don't remember the good remasters and remakes we've gotten. Resident Evil (Several times, Jeez) Age of Empires 2 (Both a remake and a remaster that were very good) Age of Mythology (Got its remaster, and is getting a remake) Despite what you say, the Halo 1 and 2 remasters were extremely well received. And if you actually look at the majority of complaints for stuff like Warcraft 3 Reforged and Battlefront Classic, it's mostly multiplayer problems.
I play Morrowind on my android phone, I experience Morrowind the way I want with mods, and the accessibility of openMW is fantastic. As far as a remake, it's not only not wanted, it is not necessary. With the way the gaming industry works now a days, they could never make Morrowind better. Great video. Love you guys.
What I would like to see is a new game, not made by Bethesda, set in Morrowind. Unlikely, I know. Although Bethesda did subcontract other dev companies for some of their smaller TES games, like the Travels series and Legends. Basically, I would want something like Fallout: New Vegas, except the devs should be given the proper time needed to make it. Again, unlikely, but one can dream. A few years ago, I payed 10 euros for ESO specifically because it included the Morrowind Expansion. I don't really like ESO (or MMOs in general), and I got bored of it pretty quickly, but I did enjoy my time back in Vvardenfell.
Just play the tamriel rebuilt mod. The newer maps from that team are arguably better than anything bethesda ever made for the main game. The cities are incredible. The character writing and quests are up there with the best of morrowind.
2:10 Personally, because people jump on it while its trendy it gets "Popular" then gets destroyed from the inside out until it is a shell of its former self. The product changes from what it originally was and the creators can just cater to the new audience who will buy anything and greatly outnumber the original fans. See: Modern Gaming.
1:33 I was born in '06 I started with Skyrim and oh my gosh Morrowind is so much better. I have such old taste. Morrowind is easily the best game in the series and easily kne of the best games in general. Also, although Daggerfall terrifies me, it is the second best game in the series. I said Daggerfall not Daggerfall Unity. Ive played Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and loved them. Played games that usually has an older audience like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I love Neverwinter and Neverwinter Nights. I've played the original 2 Doom games. I've played WoW classic. Heck, this one isnt a game but one of my favorite movies is Nosferatu from 1933 So many things get lost and are just brushed under the rug with my generation. I really wish people would open their eyes to the past and great gems that would otherwise be forgotten.
I agree with you, I was born just a few days before Morrowind in 2002 was released and I also grew up on old games and still prefer them to the new ones. Mostly 2000s games are my safe spot for quality games. You have a nice taste for them with all you’ve listed.
You don't have "old" taste. You just have good taste. Modern AAA games are just trying to milk money out of users. Games used to be made out of passion, and they still are at smaller studios. BG3 with Larian is a taste of where these companies should be today, but so many just want to make live service garbage instead. They keep failing and the single player solid experiences keep being successful, but instead they decide to double down on the MTX live service games no one is asking for.
@@Cethinn I completely agree. You shouldn't make games solely for the money. Stop constantly dropping DLC after DLC or cosmetics. Make it so we can earn currency by playing. Make it so we want to keep playing. Make it in a way where you're having fun and doing things you love with it like how Bungie did with Halo.
Morrowind was my first elder scrolls game, although I played it after skyrim came out. After finishing I was exited to play skyrim, hoping for the same kind of experience with better graphics. I wound up being disappointed by how dumbed down it felt. Gone was the interestingly weird world of Vardenfell, and instead you get generic vikingish nords. The entirely diegetic fast travel system was replaced with an immersion breaking 'open the map and go anywhere' system, with the only in world options left being a few widely spaced carts and inconvenient horses. The same with the quest journal which now forces you to use the quest markers, because there isn't enough information to find things on your own. Instead of customisable spells you can fire off with a hotkey, you have a limited selection that just feel like another weapon you equip. And most dungeons are trivialized by the constantly regening health and magic letting you just wait a few seconds after each fight to be back at full strength. Morrowind had it's bits that needed polishing. For example trying to get those 5x multipliers felt weird and meant you wanted to train skills in an inorganic way, and you really needed to be able to delete spells as you leveled past them. But I'd still love to see something new that captures that old feeling.
Completely agree! A lot of the fun of Morrowind is the all the quirks. Like the completely broken magic system allowing ridiculous exploits, the super customisable clothing and armour (which is only possible because the character models are so simple), the landscape and interiors with hand everything hand placed and the alien nature that in large part was caused by the need to hand place everything and the simple meshes that made your imagination part of the experience. You could not remake it today with such simple meshes and with such minimalism in number of 3D elements, but you cant even just make higher polygon versions of the existing objects and swap them out either because with more detailed geometry the lack of elements would look weird; and hand placing thousands of objects was mad enough back then; but hand placing millions more objects to make it look modern would be even crazier so they would have to use procedural placement of objects which would completely change the feel. And one of the best things about Morrowind was the lack of quest markers and having to find things based on textual descriptions (which is probably why everyone who played Morrowind still have a very good mental map of all of Morrowind; I'm sure I still know the how to walk to hundreds of named locations in Morrowind even though it's probably 18 years since I last played much; while I only have a vague idea of rough idea of where the major cities are and a handful of important landmarks are on the map in Skyrim; since I barely have walked between them at all), but a lot of these textual travel instructions only really worked because of how little clutter the relatively smooth landscape was filled with; if the landscape had modern levels of detail and clutter a _lot_ of travel directions would have to be rewritten and the targets would have to be made much more prominent and and it would still be much more difficult to find stuff. And most younger players would never accept the lack of quest markers and modern fast travel, which would completely change the feel.
i wouldnt mind a stable rerelease that plays on like the nintendo switch. like all they need to add is quest markers, a better journal, fixing the quest glitches and id be happy. like the number of times i couldnt finish a quest cause someone just didnt spawn or they never started their journey from town to that random hill locking out their dialogue to continue a quest T_T.
I was 24 when Morrowind came out I feel so old. Really nice to hear younger people enjoying playing older games Ive friends well into their forties who won’t go near anything 5 years old let only 20+.
I wouldn't be opposed to a "revamp" with updated graphics predominately. The game is already made. Dialog is already finished. Story and lore is complete. Combat has its quirks, but are still workable, and as such the calculations NEED NO TINKERING. The only real focus is importing the core of the game into an updated engine and artists to bring it visually back to life. Kind of like Blizzard did with D2. Which I loved and played for nearly 2 decades. Now days, bigger game developers just try too hard to please everyone, and don't focus on the fun of the game.
It is always strange to tell people that my favorite game is older than I am, but I definitely agree that Morrowind would lose its charm if it was remade.
Most old games considered classics don't need remakes. What they could use is some quality of life features or graphic overhauls. And they should leave the option to toggle those off and be able to experience the game almost as it was the day it released. The recent Tomb Raider remaster of the 3 first games is a fantastic example of that. With the lazy AI texture scaling I remember thinking it was a cheap cash grab but while playing it being able to seamlessly switch between old and new graphics was really cool and not something I ever remember a remaster doing. Also I trust modders and the community more than modern Bethesda to handle their old games 😂
The only point I think you missed is how a morrowind remake might invalidate over 20 years of mods. For that reason alone I'm against a remake. I remember a lot of people being upset when Blizzard "remade" Warcraft 3 and all of the custom maps that unlike the base game were enjoyable vanished like tears in the rain.
@@BumBumTheBarbarianThat's assuming the base game is still available for new players. Many game companies have discontinued sales of the original when the remake/master was released. It will at the very least potentially create a rift in the modding community probably much more so that the Skyrim LE and Se editions since it most likely won't be anywhere near as simple to port an old mod to the remake.
@@MasculineSkeletonGood point. Rockstar pulled old versions to force people to buy their new GTA Definitive edition which was a horrible release. Blizzard disabled WC3 to force people to play Warcraft Reforged. I’m sure that there are most examples of this anti-consumer practice.
I agree with your points completely. The major thing I would be worried about is them switching to a quest log instead of the journal. It was one of my biggest let downs in with Oblivon and Skyrim. The fact tou actually had to read and sovle the puzzles from your character's writing. Instead they gave us map marker for your quest for Oblivion and Skyrim!
Well for one thing, wtf would even be the point of a remake when the technology under the hood of their engine has essentially remained unchanged since Morrowind other than the physics system lmao.
I am also both a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and the Diablo series. My favorite game that I've played from the Diablo series is Diablo II: LoD. I haven't played the Resurrected version, but playing the original Diablo II was still such a blast. My favorite class was the Assassin, and my favorite Act, in terms of soundtrack, was Act V. In the Elder Scrolls series, I've only played Skyrim, in terms of the mainline games, but I was always interested in the games before it. I've watched full playthroughs of every mainline game, I believe. I always though Morrowind was pretty cool, in terms of lore, but of course, I haven't played Morrowind.
2:20 All the creators of the game are gone. Rolston, Goodall, Nelson, Kirkbride - none of them profit from the game getting more attention. Also extra attention brings with it the desire to change and to cater to a wider audience. That's worse than death for a game like Morrowind.
For a person who opposes gatekeeping, the video feels like a series of points in favour of it with only one or two that are not relevant in that context.
On the topic of art-direction: I think taking a look at ESO expansions, including ESO: Morrowind, would be a good (but not ideal) representation of general changes in art-direction of the series as a whole. I, personally, enjoy these interpretations of familiar locations, being the Gold Coast, island of Vvardenfell or Blackwood, but it does feel different. Quite different in the case of Morrowind chapter: Velothi towers becoming similar in architecture to Dunmer Strongholds, Telvanni towers going full fungalhorror, Dwemer ruins looking like a mix between TES III and TES V variants. I liked it - Vivec City is beautiful, even though it's still under construction, Kogoruhn (as Forgotten Wastes) is creepy. But it is not the Vvardenfell I grew up on. А, ну и ещё Красная Гора с определённых ракурсов почему-то выглядит как гигантский кулич.
I haven't played Morrowind, but I'd be curious to know what those who did think of Morrowind in ESO. From what I can tell, it does give very similar vibes. So maybe a remaster by Zenimax people would work better on the art direction
In terms of the environment, ESO is a really good recreation. Already Stonefalls (their original stand-in for Vvardenfell), and then Vvardenfell itself, and more recently the Telvanni Peninsula, are imho amazing modern takes on the world. (If you can live with being able to see further than a dozen metres ;D ). The art department at Zenimax is quite consistently great. But then, this is very subjective. Art direction, and what you value in that, in highly about how the world _feels_ , and which parts are imprtant to transport that feeling will vary from person to person. For everyone who likes the specific modern style, you'll find at least one who would dislike it - for all attempts.
I think a lot of people who ask for remakes have never played the original of whatever they're asking for. They want to play old games without having to adapt to old gameplay.
Thank you for addressing this controversial and complex topic with such balance and thoughtfulness. It's refreshing to see content that encourages constructive dialogue rather than perpetuating division. Let's hope this video sparks the beginning of a more productive and inclusive conversation on this matter.
I'm loving the mechanics after not playing for 8 or so years. The only modern thought I've had is instead of constantly striking at a stationary enemy, it'd be doable to animate dodging. So we can get pissed off watching rats be all squirmy while our arm moves too slowly and stiffly at a low level.
Angelika, I am so impressed by your videos. Your arguments and points are so well thought out, I love your attention to detail. I grew up playing Morrowind and the Elder Scrolls, I feel lucky that we have your channel in 2024 and that we are still talking about these great games decades later. It's also just so comforting to me and brings me back to balmy childhood in the early 2000s. Thank you! - A stressed guy in his late 20s
15:33 great point. Remakes of games feel exactly the same as seeing a recreation of a famous painting. Yeah might look good but it's missing all the context
*Ace Attourney pointing* I AGREE! I also think the best way to (re-)experience Morrowind is in it's Elder Scrolls Online chapter. It's a super newbie-friendly format as a MMO and still has the whole charme and world building of Morrowind itself. So either play the clunky Original or play the Morrowind chapter in Elder Scrolls Online. I know a lot of people bash TESO for being a bit basic, but that's what happens when you are true to lore and true to a legacy - you will always end up with a basic version of it, unless you do some crazy moves that will throw off a lot of the old fans. And if, fore some ungodly reason, somebody actually does an official Morrowind Remake with the license for monetary publishing, please let it be by Saber Interactive or Nightdive directly or as a supporting studio. Because both of them, as far as i know, know the Creation Engine and/or Bethesda code in general. I hope Saber and Nightdive become XBox studios in the future as well, so all the licensing-barriers between the companies are being lowered. Also two crucial facts that will make a true Morrowind Remake impossible: * Jeremy Soule was sadly fried from Bethesda because he became victim of a cancel mob and the company caved in * Bethesda themselves stopped using and implementing the more chaotic AI they used for Morrowind and the absolutely chaotic AI they used for Oblivion, by their own words most of the bugfixing and optimization for Oblivion especially was literally fighting the AI in it's decisions head-on
@@Arrowz_88 depends really. Upscale the textures, switch to DX12 by using a pairing system and introduce improved global illumination maybe even RT. Quests and gameplay can stay the same for all I care. Just touch up a few systems so they're less broken and iron out a few kinks, that's that. Still a remaster and not really a remake.
OK, but hear me out...Morrowind... 2. Would love a return to the design philosophy of the original. Not sure it's possible to accomplish that, along with the high writing (literally) and quest design standards, but it would be most welcome, Moon and Star.
@@Suwako__Moriya I guess that ticks a lot of those boxes, but in a modern engine as an official release. TR is an incredible project, not to diminish their amazing work.
I wouldn't mind a remake in the sense that it wouldn't mean the base game would disappear if it is a failure. The most important part of a remake in my mind would be the atmosphere and immersion. What set Morrowind appart to me was this unique atmosphere, with the dunmers having their own unique rich regional cultures, from the mushroom building s in the east, the carapace based houses in the west, the red sand desert in the north with its nomads living there, the dwemer ruins etc... This unique, oniric universe is at the core of the enchantment to me. After that, there are quite a few things which would benefit from a rework. A visual overhaul might help, as much as a rework of the dialog system. Another one is the city of vivec, it was a good idea but just bad in execution. Anyway, Morrowind has a special place to me because of its unique universe. The other products of bethesda have been way less originals (hence why i hated so much oblivion, or why i hate starfield... skyrim barely passed in my mind). PS: Beyond good and evil 2 is in development hell, just like skull and bones was. Skull and bones was released because there was an agreement with the singapore governement (who invested in it), but i don't think there is such agreement for BGoE2, so my guess is that at some point they will annouce that they gave up with it.
Morrowind remake would be like: Her Hand's Armor skin $50 People wouldn't call you an N'wah in every second sentence. Caius Cosades is now gay. Now Lord Indoril Nerevar canonically was a Redguard, and female.
One thing I feel like remakes miss often that I'm glad you brought up was the 'vibe' the colour, lighting and art direction in morrowind gives it so soul for lack of a better word and I can't say I'd want modern Bethesda to handle such a overhaul. Morrowind is a time capsule flaws and all
In a way I want a remake to experience it in a higher quality but I'm also afraid of them changing it too much or making a low quality crash grab full of bugs. I'm more exited to play Skywind, knowing that it's made by people who love the original game and want to preserve it the best they can. I also believe a remake would take the attention off of Skywind
Thank you for holding it together better than I. I see what happens now. I ranted this shit till I was blue in the face, instead of doing constructive things with the burn. (From not getting what I want out of the money I spend, and now just don't spend money). I learned this the Hard way with ff7
Unfortunately gatekeeping is necessary not to be cruel but to protect and preserve that which we love. Look at Star Wars, Marvel and Dr. Who all forsaken by fans who loved it for years because they were taken over by those who wanted to destroy them.
My opinion is morrowind is a story that would be amazing to experience with modern tech, but it would have to change things that make morrowind feel like morrowind like the voices etc… unless ai can actually make the voices work possibly
A remake? No. It's virtually perfect. No need. A remaster? Absolutely a worthy cause. Updated graphics, bug fixes and a few mechanics (such as sneaking). The reading text for NPC's is fine and interesting. Remastering Morrowind is worthier than an Oblivion remaster or remake which is rumored to be in the works. Morrowind was a godsend for Bethesda. Elder Scrolls only exists in its current for because of Elder Scrolls 3.
Based, 'updating' to a current remake format would be to the detriment of the alienating atmosphere thanks to the idiosyncratic art direction & non-photorealistic graphics of this sincerely rimeless anomaly. Sure as hell can't, improve upon the glorious soundtrack. Echo your sentiment completely, killed it ma'am.
I think it's a better phrasing to say I want a remaster. I want voice acting and graphical polish as an out of the box feature, without work on the player's part to mod. But I want them to use the same scripts/sheet music, the same mechanics (re-optimized). Given Bethesda's recent games, that feels like the best thing they are capable of producing. The creative work is already done.
I would like someone to fund Peter Jackson to make the story into a 3 part movie 1- Veloth & the Exodus, 2 - First Council, Tribunal and 3 - Nerevarine prophesy fulfilled. If we could just get the Tribunal story alone, I could settle for that. It is incredible lore and I was able to struggle through the game for the story.
Those who engage in gatekeeping often extend their passion beyond merely the property itself to encompass the entire fandom. Their reluctance to witness significant shifts in the culture of said fandom within a short span of time fuels their reactions when something "niche" garners the attention it deserves. Their aim is to uphold the existing cultural norms within the fandom, fearing rapid alterations. However, this phenomenon presents a double-edged sword. On one hand, preserving the original culture is essential for the continuity of the fandom; yet, on the other hand, if insufficient numbers adhere to the original cultural norms, the fandom risks fading into obscurity.
People dont want niche things they like getting mainstream traction because that paves the way to its demise. What the elder scrolls IP has become proves this. Gatekeep the things you love. Not everything is for everybody and thats okay
My thoughts exactly! Everytime I look into an classic video game on youtube, there are always people in the comments who want it remastered. But seriously, the way the game looks is part of the experience and the reason why it worked so well and became a classic! Even that Seyda Neen in Unreal engine, while impressive, still looks a bit off and not... morrowindy enough.
We don’t need to worry about Morrowinning, we already Morrowon ❤
Facts
Aye this n'wah spittin
Morrowind haters in absolute SHAMBLES
🤦🏼♂️
XD ....
Reasons to want a remake: It could and should be easy to do and awesome
Reasons not to want one: 150% chance theyll mess it up
👍😆
Bethesda have shown themselves unable to write in the last decade. They do not have the writers who were responsible for Morrowind and they do not know how to be proper custodians to the lore anymore. No remake!
That's all more reason to remake a game with pre-existing and established lore, since they are unable to write new quality lore.
@@NikosChristos They wont "remake" it you clown. THEY WILL "RE-WRITE" IT!!!
I mean I would make the argument Morrowind's writing isn't actually that much better then Skyrim's or Oblivion's. In some ways I think it's worse actually. Like the worldbuilding is probably the best. But there is more to writing then that.
Lmao, Morrowinds writing isn't any better than Skyrim or Oblivion.
Morrowinds writing is not insanely superior to Skyrim or Oblivion lol.
The art direction argument is on point. Morrowind's graphics are so old that, as you said, they leave a lot to the imagination, and any kind of modern remake won't be able to achieve that kind of look and vibe. If you look at the graphics mods we have, things like shaders and modern lighting look just fine, but any sort of texture upscale just throws things off. Like with the buildings, that yellowish material they are made of? It doesn't need more resolution, that's exactly what it is. If you add resolution, that's suddenly a different material.
i feel like a lot of people that make the texture upscale mods might not have an art background themselves, so they don't mimic the original artstyle but use filters instead to upscale it and it loses the charm from the original textures
@@Gleamiarts Upscales are done through AI now, and that's a whole other issue. For example, Ordinator armor is bonemold, but in one of the popular mods the AI picked it up as gilded metal. So in the upscale it has clearly golden and reflective elements, which definitely wasn't the original idea.
@@finkrerhuh, does the lore say it's bonemold, cause i did always assume it was bronze
That's interesting because I personally think that's the weakest argument against a remaster. Especially with games this old, where technical limitations really affected what was possible visually (not just in terms of texture resolution and polygon count, but things like how much visual clutter the engine could handle), I think visual remasters are super interesting and exciting. There are definitely cases where remasters don't honor the original aesthetic very well (I think the Halo CE remaster is a great example of that--it's pretty but it really lost a lot of the original charm), but it's totally possible to do it justice and keep elements that originated from technical limitations that wound up really adding something. I absolutely love seeing that original vision taken to new heights now that they can be unshackled from strict technical limitations. I'd absolutely love to see locations like Balmora in a new engine that can technically handle the scope and visual clutter needed to make them feel more like living, breathing cities.
If it were totally overwriting the original graphics like you sometimes see when live-service games get updated it's one thing, but remasters are a separate product, and while I definitely prefer thoughtful remasters that really do justice to what was great about the original art style (especially because art in old games when photorealism was impossible was, on average, so much more varied and creative than it is now), if it fails on that front, the original game is still right there for you to enjoy.
Completely agree, as my favorite thing about the original graphics is the fog. The fog adds so much to the environment. It’s a volcanic island with a more tropical climate- it’s gonna be foggy. Just look at vvardenfell in ESO: it’s pretty, but the lack of fog makes it feel like it’s not Morrowind at all.
To be honest, the only thing I'd pay a great deal for from Bethesda is a fully voiced dlc from the original cast.
Hard agree. OG voice cast was legendary
@@Angelikatosh Caius is the only one from the OG that truly matters. Caius is true power.
“Outlanderrrrr.”
Actually, I think the lack of full voice acting was a good thing. It meant that they could afford huge amounts of dialogue, and fan created extensions could easily feel just as native as the original stuff. Not only would it be incredibly expensive to voice act absolutely everything in Morrowind (which means they certainly would drastically prune down the dialogue trees and dumb it dow a lot) but it would make every mod that adds dialogue, which was quite a lot of them; almost all that adds NPC's in fact; feel like second class content unless they also spend enormous amount of time and money on voice acting themselves. And all mods that modify the dialogue of existing characters would feel completely broken (because it would randomly go from speaking to mute, or randomly change voice actor for some lines), and would be impossible for anyone but Bethesda to fix it.
I mean... I'd pay a fair bit for a bug-free Skyrim, or one that doesn't crash within an hour of gameplay.
Skyrim is close to the perfect game for me but right as I've put all the work in on getting my build up and running, it'll have reached a point where it crashes more and more often. 4+ computers, with or without mods, over 12 years and it still just reaches a point where I abandon saves because it crashes too much.
Bringing new people into the community is great, as long as you're not compromising anything to accomplish it. The point at which you have to compromise something, you are diluting part of what made it worth having the community it did to begin with. It's inevitable.
“But I don’t see myself in the game!”
“If you want to see yourself, buy a mirror. “
I think OpenMW is the best possible solution to the remaster issue.
Game crashes once in a blue moon and it has multiplayer compatibility now.
The game might have issues and creative decisions that many might find to be antiquated but that's all part of the experience.
OpenMW retains the experience and brings it up to modern compatibility.
After playing OpenMW, it is hard to play the modded original, with its crashes ruining immersion. The community, however, appears to rely heavily on MWSE over OpenMW and that looks slow to change. Also, friends don't let friends use quest markers.
I still believe, as a massive fan of Morrowind and OpenMW.... even still, with OpenMW heavily modded, the graphics are still very poor compared to what a modern remake/remaster could bring. The graphics are even bad in comparison to vanilla Skyrim. Sadly, I don't trust Bethesda to do it properly and if they tried it would most likely be pretty terrible.
But I do always wish that Morrowind's graphics were better simply because a game with such great writing and fun gameplay deserves good visuals. The animations, the lack of voice acting and the low-poly models and lack of occlusion make the graphics very flat.
@@husky3g Graphics are a poor excuse to make a remaster no matter which way you cut it.
A game is fun despite it's graphics it's part of the experience.
anyone here have a problem with downloading openmw could not get it to find the data files no matter how hard i try
@@dukelionheart5435 Did you install base morrowind first and or at all?
Speaking of art direction, etc. A weird thing I've noticed is that in Skyrim and ESO the Dark Elf architecture appears to be textured like it's stonework, ie. blocks of stone put together. But in the original game it looks A LOT more like it's meant to be adobe (ie covered in dried mud or clay). This is also reinforced by how the Hlaalu architecture is based on middle eastern architecture, or how the Redoran architecture looks like it's sculpted rather than someone making blocks that are supposed to fit together into that shape. It's a really weird take from Bethesda's new artists, imho.
The Hlaalu architeecture is ment to be that but I do not think Redoran is ment to be that, which is what we see in Skyrim. Hlaalu architecture also looks like that in ESO. There is not much Redoran stuff in ESO but the Redoran stuff in Skyrim probably looks diffeerent because some of it is ment to representt animal shells in TES III while in TES V the Redoran settlement in Skyrim is newer and probably without the direct influence of the big bugs. Looking at the interiour it does seem that morrowind also wanted it to be more stonelike but our imagination changes it because of the lower graphics (which is a good thing).
ESO and Skyrim are still good examples because both games go out of their way to not just recreate the feel of original Morrowind by introducing new animals or beast or by changing the climate and look of Vvardenfell to make it stand out. I am pretty sure that trying to get the identitical look of the old game is impossible with modern graphics because so much rests on its old identity.
Depends where in Morrowind you are. Hlaalu and Velothi (temple) buildings appear to be made of adobe, or in the case of important Temple structures, possibly massive monoliths. Telvanni buildings are living mushrooms, and Redoran buildings are made from the shells of giant insects and crustaceans. But Indoril buildings (like those in Mournhold) are made of stone or bricks. You can see this if you look closely at the textures in the Tribunal expansion.
As for House Dres, we never got any official examples before ESO, but given that they are wealthy and traditional, and that Mournhold is on the border between Dres and Indoril districts, I assume that Dres architecture is similar to Indoril, or somewhere between Indoril and Velothi.
I think Todd even said in an interview that remaking Morrowind is a bad idea. All the things that people love about Morrowind would be the things they would modernize. He basically said that remaking the game would take away the game's identity and he'd rather focus on allowing more platforms to experience that, rather than make something that isn't true to the original.
He said that cause he knows he'd fek it up.
He literally says, quote, "I’d rather you play Morrowind the way it was ... I think the age is part of its identity."
You are letting your bias against him and the game dictate your interpretation. Mind you, my interpretation was a bit exaggerated, on account of me being too busy to find the quote at the time, but there is no mention of creative differences. Just because you don't like the way something is, doesn't mean its a flaw, plot holes be damned. Plus, its not like Oblivion and Skyrim are innocent in that regard.
Surprisingly based from Todd.
@@yodasmomisondrugs7959 You guys really do let him live rent free don't you.
He's not wrong tho
You sure as hell can't improve upon those glorious skyboxes.
Love your eye makeup in this vid, very early 2000s Evanescence
Sad the singers dead its my moms 3rd faroite band
@@mikejett2733 What ? Co founder of Evanescene and singer Amy Lee is still alive.
@@Infernal_Elf do u have proof
I finally got to play morrowind for the first time recently and I loved it! Being forced to read and find objectives on my own activated my imagination in a way I didn't know I craved. Using spells like levitate, mark and recall reminded me why I loved Daggerfall so much. The classics will always hold a special place in my heart and like you said I see it as visiting other countries and I appreciate them the way they are, the good and the bad.
Todd Howard on remasters of Elder Scrolls games: “I’m happy that you can play [The Elder Scrolls III] Morrowind now on an Xbox One, as it’s backwards compatible. I’m really happy that Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and others are making it easier for people to play [older games] as they were played at the time. I actually prefer that over remasters.” “I’d rather you play Morrowind the way it was … I think the age is part of its identity.”
Yet a team is creating a oblivion hd wel todd argrealy scowls in the coner
@@mikejett2733 It is Skyrim with an Oblivion paint. It'll be atrocious just like Skywind.
@@ElyonDominus stil sounds like a good tyme 2 me
a rare Todd Howard W
@@ElyonDominusYes, OG all the way,
There is very much a different design philosophy in the video game industry today. As you say Morrowind was designed in a certain time and place, a time when video games weren't the money maker they are today. I also think how company are structured (with heavy managerial oversight) and less authorship (diablo 2 levels were done by 3 guys, while diablo 3 had a vast dev team) so devs cant make their mark. This combine with risk aversion means they are ill suited to creating or retaining the essence of Morrowind like experience.
Very good video, keep up the good work.
One wonderful thing about Morrowind are all the non-combat skills. From alchemy to enchanting to athletics to speechcraft to barter.
I absolutely adore my Apothecary, first character I got past level 3. Ignore the metagaming, just immerse yourself and dive into the world.
Yes, and not just the skills, but there are a ton of quests which do not revolve around combat. And even many quests where combat is the preferred method of completing the objective have other possible resolutions. You can complete a large portion of the game without ever killing anyone. The later games had non-combat skills, but they became less relevant because the resolution of so many quests required combat.
There's a reason why Morrowind has a New Game option in the pause menu. Don't like your current character? Not vibing with it? Start a new game right away. There are actually a lot of people who have played thousands of hours without ever completing the story or any guild to completion, simply living the world instead.
All this talk about Morrowind being 22, when it's younger sibling just turned 18 a few days ago.
Recent events show why gatekeeping is actually important and how many nerd hobbies degraded under mainstream crowd influence.
The graphics, the dice roll combat, the lack of quest markers... these have all successfully gatekeeped away the Skyrim and ESO communities, and I am grateful for that
@@cleverman383 I really don't think any of that is gatekeeping. It certainly wasn't at the time the game released, it was just aping the TTRPG systems of the time. The Morrowind community online--at least the parts I've ever had contact with--is likewise quite welcoming to new players. You just have to meet Morrowind where it is, mostly.
I'd argue there's a big difference between targeting a specific audience and gatekeeping. No part of Morrowind is *designed* to exclude anyone, it's just more niche. When Oblivion and Skyrim targeted a wider audience, they were following market share and not social inclusivity.
true
@@RaggedVentures Morrowind was happy to cater to its niche core audience, but later Elder Scrolls games were afraid to and instead tried to appeal to the filth-ridden outlanders and the series has never been worthy of respect ever since.
Its popularity expanded vastly, but only due to the massive tumorous growths caused by this horrific decision of welcoming such disease and scum into our lands.
I pray that Morrowind never gets a remake or remaster, the outlanders are kept away, and Vvardenfell remains pure. The gates MUST be kept.
Franchises that don't sell don't continue. If you don't like the sequels, don't play them. Better they be watered down than not exist at all.
Tomb raider 1-3 with improved graphics is really good thow, they kept almost all spirit for the originals
Not remakes tho
Yeah those are pretty amazing, but those are also remasters, not remakes.
@@BlueDragonKnight77 ha yes
Master Chieft Collection did great job too. Amazing me the fact we can change to original graphics anytime and see the improves etc
@@MrDarkNaoTook a while after the launch but got there in the end although Halo Combat Evolved remaster is a bit divisive with it's over bright design and still being based off the Gearbox PC port which Sabre Interactive used as a template. Halo 2 remaster was done well though.
Totally agree with not remaking it. If anything just update the game so it runs on modern systems and leave the rest alone.
Yep. People will whine it’s not updated for “‘modern audiences” , but I’ll reply “Exactly. That was the goal!”
It's already been done, by third party modders. It's called OpenMW.
@@whitemakesright2177 Yep. I've played with it before, but it would be nice to have the base game updated without mods. I know a fair few PC players who are allergic to downloading mods. No matter how simple. Lol
The one and only reason why they shouldn’t remake Morrowind is they couldn’t use the same mechanics. Spellmaking, alchemy, enchanting, min maxing, certain items, etc. There’s so many ways to break open the game.
You can be a person who scrapes by every fight by the skin of their teeth or you can be ridiculously overpowered in a matter of minutes. That won’t happen in a remake.
Morrowind was at a unique point in time where the engine it ran on allowed for ultimate freedom. You could jump across the entire map with a spell. Not happening in the remake.
Maxed out acrobatics jumping for miles.
@@Sumoniggro like Batman on steroids. Plus enchanted pants that can shoot fire, and a sword that can damage you with every type of element while it sucks out your life energy and soul.
Oh no being over powered in a single player game and it takes time and lots of gold to accomplish so you have to go out of your way to do it whatever will we do I hate when people scream about balance in a single player game like it's gonna kill them if little Jonny makes himself into a god in his playthrough
Eh. I still disagree with this take. If other than graphics and MAYBE voice acting (as I don't see many of the new generation reading all those blocks of text) they changed just the combat (weapons and magic) to not be Dice Rolls, the game would still be amazing, and it isn't hard to leave everything else as is.
@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken no the dice roll combat is fine it's better than the boring hack n slash crap we have now
I'd be terrified of the new cliff racers. They already haunt me. I hear their shrieks and their almost ghastly moans when I wake up. I hear the sound of them trying to escape my toothbrush, because everyone knows electric toothbrushes vibrate due to tiny trapped Cliff Racers bouncing of the walls and trying to escape. I know not of when others speak of birds, fore I see one winged creature and one winged creature alone. I see it. I love old games. But gosh they haunt me. You know the Daggerfall torch audio bugs? When I first played they a few years ago it terrified me. Also Unity sucks, get classic Daggerfall.
But AHHH CLIFF RACERS
CAIUS! SAVE ME!!
I have no idea what I was doing or where I was going with any of that past the first 2 sentences.
Your mind is a glorious thing. All praise to Saint Jiub!
Daggerfall had the best haunting sounds, its the horror version of an ES game. Its dark, it has some pretty horror artwork. And its the game with the loudest screaming skeletons. They have no lungs, but scream and they scream very loud.
+ There were plenty of them in those Megadungeons.
MW does not even have dungeons, coming from Arena/DF these small caves are tiny toilet houses.
I wouldn't mind a Morrowind remake...just not by Bethesda...they'll ruin it
I would love a Morrowind remake. But, we are talking about a company which most of the people who were there in 2002 are not there now. I doubt that the team there now could give it the love and care needed for Morrowind, or even Oblivion. This is the company that made Starfeild and Fallout 76, the same company that hasn’t changed their game engine in many years. I would rather see how they can handle a new Elder Scrolls game after what would be close to 20 years since ESV than see them most likely mess up a remake.
The only person who is probably still at Bethesda now that was there in 2002 is Todd Howard himself haha
Sorry, but the game engine argument is so stupid. There's no compelling reason to throw out all the work you've done, all the tools that your employees are familiar with, for some marginal improvement in reputation. They've just invested a considerable amount of effort into multiplayer, physics, and rendering improvements.
Can you name one technical shortcoming of the Starfield engine that would be corrected by changing to Unreal? Btw Larian have been using the "same" engine for the past 15 years too.
@@IlIlllIIIllIIlIIlII I will admit there is a tricky situation in regards to a new engine since we wasted 8 year developing Starfield. However, Bethesdas games have always been limited for a very long time. Even when Skyrim came out the Creation Engine, though not the same version for Starfield, was highly limited making the game still look and feel dated. Starfield is again hindered in the graphical department and poor optimization. Starfield, at least to me, is a ugly game even if some parts of it look okay. And its not even my main point just one of the many problems with modern BGS. There is a real lack in innovation when RPG’s have gone beyond what Skyrim did 12 years ago. It would be a waste of time to make people change but the 8 years we spent on Starfield could have been spent making a new engine. Idk enough about Larian because BG3 was not my favorite game but Bethesda will likely want to improve on Skyrim considerably and maybe they can but most of their games feel like they came out 5 years before their release.
@@funkiestisland2209 Tbh most of the problem with Bethesda is not a game engine problem. It's a company culture problem. They adopted a philosophy of "if it works its good enough" with the development of Morrowind and it's something that hasn't changed since those days. They leave things in a state that's just barely functional or stable rather than perfecting the systems. It's like building a house and tacking on additional bits and pieces without any thought to stability or the foundations. So I wouldn't say the game engine they use is really the problem. Would it improve the graphical fidelity? Maybe, it's certainly possible, but there's already ways to improve those aspects without changing the engine through mods so it's just unnecessary work to try and transfer to a new engine.
The HAVOK physics engine is another prime example of this company culture problem rearing its head. It's a powerful physics engine but only in Bethesda titles that use it do we see some of the weird glitches and twitching models. The problem is as I stated before that they only work on things until they "just work" and not until it's actually stable and functional. Bethesda has never had an engine problem but a company culture problem.
@@theomniwildcard well like I said back in my original comment most of the people who made Morrowind are no longer at the company. Actually I would venture to guess most people who made Skyrim are no longer at Bethesda. You are 100% right that Bethesda only makes games that barely function and then hope mod makers fix it. Most of my problems with Skyrim as a game come from the writing and design, not the engine. The game engine is a issue that can be fixed once the company as a whole is better but like most game developers now they only make things that funcion half the time then fix it a day after release.
3:54 that's so sick learning that on piano that young
Gatekeeping happens because a lot of what people like about games is the culture and community that builds around them. When new fans come in, what they loved the most changes beyond recognition. They don't have to be happy about that.
Not only the culture and community around them, when new people come, often the games themselves can change, maybe the new people demand changed that dilute the essence of a game/game series, or they do not hold the developers accountable for these type of changes, as they have no attachment to how things were, and if that kind of audience surpass in number the original one, then what the original fans loved could be truly changed beyond recognition without chance of reversal
Can't say I agree but it's great to see young gamers and content creators bringing attention to this game. Hopefully there's some dev or exec out there who'll realise there's a reason people still play this game twenty two years later.
Yeah, we play Morrowind. Remaking Morrowind would turn it into Skyrim. A completely lobotomized franchise that hasn't been good since Morrowind.
After seeing how abysmal every recent old game's remaster went, lets not have that happen to Morrowind. Its a gem in its current state, and any things you want revamped can be done with mods (and lets be honest, the game is so old that pretty much everyone has a pc that could run it).
There are a lot more things that could be improved in Morrowind. NPCs who have actual routines, simulating day and night cycles in cities and villages. Introduction of more actual conversations with NPCs. Providing with NPCs reactions PC having achieved any number of milestones.
That would mean nice would be unkillable like in the other bethesda games where they put that useless feature in no thanks
What they'd actually do is just add quest markers and remove all RPG elements like they did with Skyrim. Todd Howard literally cannot make a good game for anything. He just ruins everything he touches.
@@ElyonDominus and that's what you want to happen to morrowind? No thank you. I hate what they have done to fallout and the elder scrolls. If they have to ruining those great rpgs names at least let it be with new games. Leave the last good ones alone. Fallout 1 fallout 2 fallout new vegas arena daggerfall morrowind never should be touched unless they have to sign a legally binding contract saying they will only improve the graphics that's it
@@elvangulley3210 That's what they'd do. That's not what I want.
Can i ask, what is it you like about NPC routines and interaction etc?
To me the more they try make NPCs feel human the more uncanny and awkward they are. What makes it important for you?
Remake? No. Remaster? Yes. Bring gamepad support & option to toggle kbd+mouse/gamepad UI to PC version. Categorize quest log so that we can see which notes go with which quest. Add the ability to make custom map notes. Make the game compatible with ultra wide resolutions. That's it. That's all I want out of a remaster.
Seriously, the game holds up fine, but there are some platform limitations and tiny quality of life features that would make it amazing in the modern day
THANK YOU for talking about the whole idea with really detailed graphics sort of demystifying and taking away the magic from old video games. I've always had a hard time explaining this to my friends who prefer modern games that look really nice. I WANT my imagination to have to fill in the details of the environment, the characters, etc. Not having every detail makes the world more interesting and draws you in. Having every detail told to you I think makes video games less artistic and too close to reality, which is what they are meant to be an escape from in the first place. It was really good to hear someone else with this perspective, because a lot of people just see early 2000s graphics and laugh or walk away.
Bethesda kills any hype I could have with anything they make after FO4, FO76, and Starfield, I don't need them to continue to put their rotten finger on the things I love.
I am extremely hyped for Skywind and Skyblivion btw.
this, Bethesda used to be one of IF not my favorite game studio but after the disaster which was FO76 i fully realized that they are not the same game studio i fell in love with and they are nothing more than the trash that EA or Ubisoft are
I am hyped for those as well. I am more hyped on new or updated mods then anything new Bethesda makes.
Why? Both Skywind and Skyblivion will both be Skyrim with a crappy facade over them. Neither will be RPGs or worthwhile. It's a giant waste of time for the modding teams.
@@ElyonDominus say do me you have seen nothing of Skywind without saying have seen nothing of Skywind.
@@Gradashy I'd love to be wrong but I'd they're using Skyrim as a base I cannot see how the things would be good in any way.
the only issue i ever have struggled with in morrowind was the quest journal not being organized.
I'd rather experience Morrowind as a new game, expanding beyond Vvardenfell. In modern timeline the island is trashed by the errupted volcano anyway.
Tamriel Rebuilt!
i hope you make a daggerfall video sometime, it's getting well-deserved appreciation these days thanks to daggerfall unity
And its a much better game than Morrowind, everything is much bigger even the Dungeons are gigantic. MW is a very very tiny game with a tiny world and still more unbalanced than Daggerfall ever was.
Despite its generic content everything had way more character, too. It had the first lore books to read in-game and the first guild system. MW would not exist without this game at all and has still only done like half of what DF did.
Add ashen storms and jeremy soul music to DF and everyone would talk about DF.
@@zeusapollo6504 I would argue that Daggerfall doesn't use its size properly, while Morrowind is scaled exactly how it should be for the amount of handmade content it offers.
I feel sad there's a real risk all these endless remakes and remasters could end up stifling creativity and taking resources away from developers and studios wanting to create new ideas and new worlds to explore - new masterpieces in their own right that could be looked back on for similar reasons as to why we still love Morrowind.
It's not surprising or unnatural to want to revisit things we loved in our past and childhood, and see them given new life with modern tech and gameplay - but at the same time it's only really the people who love these works of art the most that would stand to benefit much. Bringing it to a new audience just isn't necessary as they have their own games or movies they grew up with that they like for their own reasons, and if they really are interested they will seek it out as it is and either enjoy it or decide it isn't for them.
I was always a bit put off by isometric RPGs, but I heard so many good things about the writing and story of Planescape Torment that I finally decided to push ahead with it, and got so absorbed in the lore, setting, and story that it's now one of my favourite games and I've now played most of the other notable titles in the genre - if I was presented with a remake instead, I wouldn't specifically have been anymore likely to play or enjoy it than I was with the original, but may have ended up experiencing something that was actually lacking a lot of what made the original so popular.
I think you presented some of these perspectives really well here in a debate that's probably only going to grow more with time - it's something that |I have strong views on and have thought about a lot, and you made some really good points I hadn't considered myself previously. Keep up the creative analysis and unique takes - it's really interesting to open up new debates like this on pieces of art we all know and love!
For every Resident evil Renake there is also a WCIII reforged. And I feel like Morrowibd would go towards the latter considering the parallels in that Bethesda and Blizzard have had in recent times
It's my favorite game of all time. I've been playing it for 20 years. Whether it's vanilla or nodded, Xbox or PC I still enjoy it the way it is and if not plenty if amazing mods. And the fact we get tamriel Rebuilt, Skyrim home of the nords and cyrodiil expansion island of stirk with more to come from all those that's enough to keep morrowind alive another 20 years.
Yet for all the community engagement the game itself was nothing special, when looked at from today's point of view. It was just one of the few RPGs that were popular at the time. Others have come since that were not worse, and were enjoyed similarly.
@@Volkbrecht I only look at it from my point of view and to me it's awesome.
Morrowind is the most special elder scrolls
morrowind is the only elder scrolls game i ever played, i first picked it up last year and i absolutely fell in love. it's has one of my favourite game ambients/vibes ever and the only mods i used were the quality of life ones (like the updated journal), zero graphic changes. my main reason to not want a remake is that, in my opinion as an artist with VERY specific aesthetic preferences, i think it just wouldn't look as intriguing with modern graphics. i find a lot of older games artistically much more intriguing because they don't lean on the crutch of hyper-realism, as the limited resources they worked with basically forced them to peel back all the unnecessary layers of the design and bring out the true core visual aesthetic of the game, giving it a very strong visual identity (this is also the reason for the problems with diablo 2 remake - limitations keep artists from going overboard and force them to find more creative solutions. less is often more). i feel like a lot of modern games lack in that core visual identity to a point where i genuinely struggle finding any of them aesthetically interesting.
Well articulated, thank you. I agree with pretty much all you said, and am looking forward to Skywind and Skyblivion. Hopefully, they will not take to much longer. Fortunately, we have Fallout London to look forward to shortly. Thank heavens for the modding community.
I agree, morrowind doesn't need a remake. It would be cool to return to the province (kinda like Solstheim in Skyrim - it was my favourite skyrim DLC), but we dont need a repeat of the same story.
I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately. Not just for morrowind, but other games/influences that have left a big impression on me, and have inspired my imagination. I think for all the reasons you have said, a remake would need the stars to align to retain the “Gesture” (to borrow an art term), that the original had. And would easily become too over polished and stiff.
Instead I think the best way to pay homage to those big influences is to think about the feelings and concepts from those that really resonated with you and evoked a strong feeling, and then pour that feeling into whatever art project or medium that you’re comfortable with. I’m my mind, that way you are paying tribute to the core of what that game/media sparked within you, without getting lost in the technical details of a remake.
For a larger studio, I feel an example can be how bloodborne is not a work of lovecraft, but absolutely pays homage and tribute to those ideas and feelings better than any faithful lovecraft game or movie. I’m sure there are many other examples out there as well but I’ll stop my ramble here.
I'm an old player who appreciates a good, and I stress good, remake. Or at least a bare bones remake that just fixes the "Guts" so you can play it on a modern system without problems.
I'd be down if it were a true remake (same NPCs, setting, etc.), a "shot for shot" remake, in a modern engine with voice acting and stuff. Keep all the important stuff but with a new coat of paint so to speak. I don't want it reinterpreted or re imagined or "updated for a modern audience" (gag). They could even keep the old mechanics, just improve the interface.
Now, I would be absolutely mad if they took away the original and we only had that, that pisses me off. I'd rather only have the original and no remake if it were a choice between that and remaking it.
Personally I think the problems are solved by simply outsourcing the project to a competent studio. When Bethesda contracts it out to a competent company and pockets the money, we get New Vegas. When they develop internally, well, let's just say Bethesda lost their way a long time ago.
You're describing a remaster
@@CreadeyhA remaster would be no update to the code or models or engine, it'd just be the old game running inside an emulator with some graphical upscaling. For example a remaster of Morrowind wouldn't add voice acting, the capability wasn't in the original game.
I agree 100%, the game's already perfect as is imo. You can't fix what isn't broken. Now a Remaster with Quality of Life additions, sure but a Remake? No. I'm scared if they did they'd change the gameplay, I never liked they removed the Major/Minor Skills system in later games. Don't get me wrong I love every Elder Scrolls game, but Morrowind will always be my favorite. The music, appearance, story, etc is Chef's Kiss. Morrowind's in my top 5 favorite games of all time. Also I just beat Oblivion for the very first time last week! Now I've beat Morrowind, Oblivion, and Syrim.
We've already seen what happened with Star Wars Battlefront Classic and that cash grab of a "remake." If the original is available and works, then there's no reason to remake a game. I've played the remakes for Mass Effect and Halo, and it didn't really add anything (in the case of Mass Effect, boss battles were nerfed)
I'll also add to the list of remakes gone wrong: Warcraft 3 Reforged. What a mess that was.
To be fair, most people don't remember the good remasters and remakes we've gotten.
Resident Evil (Several times, Jeez)
Age of Empires 2 (Both a remake and a remaster that were very good)
Age of Mythology (Got its remaster, and is getting a remake)
Despite what you say, the Halo 1 and 2 remasters were extremely well received.
And if you actually look at the majority of complaints for stuff like Warcraft 3 Reforged and Battlefront Classic, it's mostly multiplayer problems.
I just wish game developers made more games that have such a unique and rich world for players to explore.
Morrowind is Perfect as it is and in the hands of community it shines
I play Morrowind on my android phone, I experience Morrowind the way I want with mods, and the accessibility of openMW is fantastic. As far as a remake, it's not only not wanted, it is not necessary. With the way the gaming industry works now a days, they could never make Morrowind better. Great video. Love you guys.
What I would like to see is a new game, not made by Bethesda, set in Morrowind.
Unlikely, I know.
Although Bethesda did subcontract other dev companies for some of their smaller TES games, like the Travels series and Legends.
Basically, I would want something like Fallout: New Vegas, except the devs should be given the proper time needed to make it.
Again, unlikely, but one can dream.
A few years ago, I payed 10 euros for ESO specifically because it included the Morrowind Expansion.
I don't really like ESO (or MMOs in general), and I got bored of it pretty quickly, but I did enjoy my time back in Vvardenfell.
Just play the tamriel rebuilt mod. The newer maps from that team are arguably better than anything bethesda ever made for the main game. The cities are incredible. The character writing and quests are up there with the best of morrowind.
2:10 Personally, because people jump on it while its trendy it gets "Popular" then gets destroyed from the inside out until it is a shell of its former self.
The product changes from what it originally was and the creators can just cater to the new audience who will buy anything and greatly outnumber the original fans.
See: Modern Gaming.
1:33
I was born in '06 I started with Skyrim and oh my gosh Morrowind is so much better. I have such old taste. Morrowind is easily the best game in the series and easily kne of the best games in general. Also, although Daggerfall terrifies me, it is the second best game in the series. I said Daggerfall not Daggerfall Unity.
Ive played Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and loved them. Played games that usually has an older audience like Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
I love Neverwinter and Neverwinter Nights.
I've played the original 2 Doom games.
I've played WoW classic.
Heck, this one isnt a game but one of my favorite movies is Nosferatu from 1933
So many things get lost and are just brushed under the rug with my generation. I really wish people would open their eyes to the past and great gems that would otherwise be forgotten.
You haven’t lived until you’ve played Neverwinter Nights on AOL.
I agree with you, I was born just a few days before Morrowind in 2002 was released and I also grew up on old games and still prefer them to the new ones. Mostly 2000s games are my safe spot for quality games. You have a nice taste for them with all you’ve listed.
You don't have "old" taste. You just have good taste. Modern AAA games are just trying to milk money out of users. Games used to be made out of passion, and they still are at smaller studios. BG3 with Larian is a taste of where these companies should be today, but so many just want to make live service garbage instead. They keep failing and the single player solid experiences keep being successful, but instead they decide to double down on the MTX live service games no one is asking for.
@@Cethinn I completely agree. You shouldn't make games solely for the money. Stop constantly dropping DLC after DLC or cosmetics. Make it so we can earn currency by playing. Make it so we want to keep playing. Make it in a way where you're having fun and doing things you love with it like how Bungie did with Halo.
Morrowind was my first elder scrolls game, although I played it after skyrim came out. After finishing I was exited to play skyrim, hoping for the same kind of experience with better graphics.
I wound up being disappointed by how dumbed down it felt. Gone was the interestingly weird world of Vardenfell, and instead you get generic vikingish nords. The entirely diegetic fast travel system was replaced with an immersion breaking 'open the map and go anywhere' system, with the only in world options left being a few widely spaced carts and inconvenient horses. The same with the quest journal which now forces you to use the quest markers, because there isn't enough information to find things on your own.
Instead of customisable spells you can fire off with a hotkey, you have a limited selection that just feel like another weapon you equip. And most dungeons are trivialized by the constantly regening health and magic letting you just wait a few seconds after each fight to be back at full strength.
Morrowind had it's bits that needed polishing. For example trying to get those 5x multipliers felt weird and meant you wanted to train skills in an inorganic way, and you really needed to be able to delete spells as you leveled past them. But I'd still love to see something new that captures that old feeling.
Completely agree! A lot of the fun of Morrowind is the all the quirks. Like the completely broken magic system allowing ridiculous exploits, the super customisable clothing and armour (which is only possible because the character models are so simple), the landscape and interiors with hand everything hand placed and the alien nature that in large part was caused by the need to hand place everything and the simple meshes that made your imagination part of the experience. You could not remake it today with such simple meshes and with such minimalism in number of 3D elements, but you cant even just make higher polygon versions of the existing objects and swap them out either because with more detailed geometry the lack of elements would look weird; and hand placing thousands of objects was mad enough back then; but hand placing millions more objects to make it look modern would be even crazier so they would have to use procedural placement of objects which would completely change the feel.
And one of the best things about Morrowind was the lack of quest markers and having to find things based on textual descriptions (which is probably why everyone who played Morrowind still have a very good mental map of all of Morrowind; I'm sure I still know the how to walk to hundreds of named locations in Morrowind even though it's probably 18 years since I last played much; while I only have a vague idea of rough idea of where the major cities are and a handful of important landmarks are on the map in Skyrim; since I barely have walked between them at all), but a lot of these textual travel instructions only really worked because of how little clutter the relatively smooth landscape was filled with; if the landscape had modern levels of detail and clutter a _lot_ of travel directions would have to be rewritten and the targets would have to be made much more prominent and and it would still be much more difficult to find stuff. And most younger players would never accept the lack of quest markers and modern fast travel, which would completely change the feel.
i wouldnt mind a stable rerelease that plays on like the nintendo switch. like all they need to add is quest markers, a better journal, fixing the quest glitches and id be happy. like the number of times i couldnt finish a quest cause someone just didnt spawn or they never started their journey from town to that random hill locking out their dialogue to continue a quest T_T.
😂 you had that problem too.. that was a pain & a half. I downloaded a mod back in the day to fix that
yeah Morrowinds engine cant do quest makers. it just isn't possible, if it was we would have mods that put it into the game.
Morrowind with quest markers is not Morrowind. Get outta here.
I was 24 when Morrowind came out I feel so old. Really nice to hear younger people enjoying playing older games Ive friends well into their forties who won’t go near anything 5 years old let only 20+.
0:48 "not skywind or skybilivion"
okay, my pitchfork is down :D
I wouldn't be opposed to a "revamp" with updated graphics predominately. The game is already made. Dialog is already finished. Story and lore is complete. Combat has its quirks, but are still workable, and as such the calculations NEED NO TINKERING. The only real focus is importing the core of the game into an updated engine and artists to bring it visually back to life. Kind of like Blizzard did with D2. Which I loved and played for nearly 2 decades.
Now days, bigger game developers just try too hard to please everyone, and don't focus on the fun of the game.
It is always strange to tell people that my favorite game is older than I am, but I definitely agree that Morrowind would lose its charm if it was remade.
Most old games considered classics don't need remakes.
What they could use is some quality of life features or graphic overhauls. And they should leave the option to toggle those off and be able to experience the game almost as it was the day it released.
The recent Tomb Raider remaster of the 3 first games is a fantastic example of that. With the lazy AI texture scaling I remember thinking it was a cheap cash grab but while playing it being able to seamlessly switch between old and new graphics was really cool and not something I ever remember a remaster doing.
Also I trust modders and the community more than modern Bethesda to handle their old games 😂
The TR remaster did change things, and added a disclaimer in front of the content. Also, no physical release (yet).
Otherwise it’s fine.
The only point I think you missed is how a morrowind remake might invalidate over 20 years of mods. For that reason alone I'm against a remake. I remember a lot of people being upset when Blizzard "remade" Warcraft 3 and all of the custom maps that unlike the base game were enjoyable vanished like tears in the rain.
why would a remastered morrowind invalidate anything made for the original? you can just play the original if you want
@@BumBumTheBarbarianThat's assuming the base game is still available for new players. Many game companies have discontinued sales of the original when the remake/master was released. It will at the very least potentially create a rift in the modding community probably much more so that the Skyrim LE and Se editions since it most likely won't be anywhere near as simple to port an old mod to the remake.
@@MasculineSkeletonGood point. Rockstar pulled old versions to force people to buy their new GTA Definitive edition which was a horrible
release. Blizzard disabled WC3 to force people to play Warcraft Reforged.
I’m sure that there are most examples of this anti-consumer practice.
Imagine that they release a remake and pull the sale of the original a week before Tamriel Rebuilt is finished.
@@MasculineSkeleton you will always have the original available since you can get Morrowind on gog unlike warcraft 3
We dont want remake of anything. We want new games.
Your fits are always on point ❤
We built a reputation on drip in this channel 😎
I agree with your points completely. The major thing I would be worried about is them switching to a quest log instead of the journal. It was one of my biggest let downs in with Oblivon and Skyrim. The fact tou actually had to read and sovle the puzzles from your character's writing. Instead they gave us map marker for your quest for Oblivion and Skyrim!
Well for one thing, wtf would even be the point of a remake when the technology under the hood of their engine has essentially remained unchanged since Morrowind other than the physics system lmao.
100% honestly even skywind looks so different it really throws me off. Plus Mw's mechanics get really fun once you finally get ahold of them
The game is already perfect. Let the modders continue their fine work.
Well said! The modding community is still alive and well, and I still play Morrowind to this day. Let the masterpiece remain.
Agreed!
hot eyeliner my queen
Interesting points you bring up!
I'm definitely making a response video to this, cause I have a few things I'd love to add.
Great work!🌮❤
there's already a morrowind 2 - tamriel rebuilt
I am also both a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and the Diablo series. My favorite game that I've played from the Diablo series is Diablo II: LoD. I haven't played the Resurrected version, but playing the original Diablo II was still such a blast. My favorite class was the Assassin, and my favorite Act, in terms of soundtrack, was Act V. In the Elder Scrolls series, I've only played Skyrim, in terms of the mainline games, but I was always interested in the games before it. I've watched full playthroughs of every mainline game, I believe. I always though Morrowind was pretty cool, in terms of lore, but of course, I haven't played Morrowind.
2:20
All the creators of the game are gone. Rolston, Goodall, Nelson, Kirkbride - none of them profit from the game getting more attention.
Also extra attention brings with it the desire to change and to cater to a wider audience. That's worse than death for a game like Morrowind.
For a person who opposes gatekeeping, the video feels like a series of points in favour of it with only one or two that are not relevant in that context.
On the topic of art-direction: I think taking a look at ESO expansions, including ESO: Morrowind, would be a good (but not ideal) representation of general changes in art-direction of the series as a whole.
I, personally, enjoy these interpretations of familiar locations, being the Gold Coast, island of Vvardenfell or Blackwood, but it does feel different. Quite different in the case of Morrowind chapter: Velothi towers becoming similar in architecture to Dunmer Strongholds, Telvanni towers going full fungalhorror, Dwemer ruins looking like a mix between TES III and TES V variants.
I liked it - Vivec City is beautiful, even though it's still under construction, Kogoruhn (as Forgotten Wastes) is creepy. But it is not the Vvardenfell I grew up on.
А, ну и ещё Красная Гора с определённых ракурсов почему-то выглядит как гигантский кулич.
I haven't played Morrowind, but I'd be curious to know what those who did think of Morrowind in ESO. From what I can tell, it does give very similar vibes. So maybe a remaster by Zenimax people would work better on the art direction
In terms of the environment, ESO is a really good recreation. Already Stonefalls (their original stand-in for Vvardenfell), and then Vvardenfell itself, and more recently the Telvanni Peninsula, are imho amazing modern takes on the world. (If you can live with being able to see further than a dozen metres ;D ). The art department at Zenimax is quite consistently great.
But then, this is very subjective. Art direction, and what you value in that, in highly about how the world _feels_ , and which parts are imprtant to transport that feeling will vary from person to person. For everyone who likes the specific modern style, you'll find at least one who would dislike it - for all attempts.
I think a lot of people who ask for remakes have never played the original of whatever they're asking for. They want to play old games without having to adapt to old gameplay.
Thank you for addressing this controversial and complex topic with such balance and thoughtfulness. It's refreshing to see content that encourages constructive dialogue rather than perpetuating division. Let's hope this video sparks the beginning of a more productive and inclusive conversation on this matter.
Glad you enjoyed it, and as always I really appreciate your support!! ❤❤❤
I'm loving the mechanics after not playing for 8 or so years. The only modern thought I've had is instead of constantly striking at a stationary enemy, it'd be doable to animate dodging. So we can get pissed off watching rats be all squirmy while our arm moves too slowly and stiffly at a low level.
Angelika, I am so impressed by your videos. Your arguments and points are so well thought out, I love your attention to detail. I grew up playing Morrowind and the Elder Scrolls, I feel lucky that we have your channel in 2024 and that we are still talking about these great games decades later. It's also just so comforting to me and brings me back to balmy childhood in the early 2000s. Thank you!
- A stressed guy in his late 20s
15:33 great point. Remakes of games feel exactly the same as seeing a recreation of a famous painting. Yeah might look good but it's missing all the context
you're so amazing where do i find more people like you
*Ace Attourney pointing* I AGREE!
I also think the best way to (re-)experience Morrowind is in it's Elder Scrolls Online chapter. It's a super newbie-friendly format as a MMO and still has the whole charme and world building of Morrowind itself. So either play the clunky Original or play the Morrowind chapter in Elder Scrolls Online. I know a lot of people bash TESO for being a bit basic, but that's what happens when you are true to lore and true to a legacy - you will always end up with a basic version of it, unless you do some crazy moves that will throw off a lot of the old fans.
And if, fore some ungodly reason, somebody actually does an official Morrowind Remake with the license for monetary publishing, please let it be by Saber Interactive or Nightdive directly or as a supporting studio. Because both of them, as far as i know, know the Creation Engine and/or Bethesda code in general. I hope Saber and Nightdive become XBox studios in the future as well, so all the licensing-barriers between the companies are being lowered.
Also two crucial facts that will make a true Morrowind Remake impossible:
* Jeremy Soule was sadly fried from Bethesda because he became victim of a cancel mob and the company caved in
* Bethesda themselves stopped using and implementing the more chaotic AI they used for Morrowind and the absolutely chaotic AI they used for Oblivion, by their own words most of the bugfixing and optimization for Oblivion especially was literally fighting the AI in it's decisions head-on
Fredrik Jonasson is more than an adequate replacement for Soule.
Remake? No. Remaster? Hell yeah.
With the amount of graphical upgrades involved, this would be a full fledged "Remake"
@@Arrowz_88 depends really. Upscale the textures, switch to DX12 by using a pairing system and introduce improved global illumination maybe even RT. Quests and gameplay can stay the same for all I care. Just touch up a few systems so they're less broken and iron out a few kinks, that's that. Still a remaster and not really a remake.
All I want is for the walking to be faster and take less fatigue.
OK, but hear me out...Morrowind... 2.
Would love a return to the design philosophy of the original. Not sure it's possible to accomplish that, along with the high writing (literally) and quest design standards, but it would be most welcome, Moon and Star.
Tamriel Rebuilt?
@@Suwako__Moriya I guess that ticks a lot of those boxes, but in a modern engine as an official release. TR is an incredible project, not to diminish their amazing work.
I wouldn't mind a remake in the sense that it wouldn't mean the base game would disappear if it is a failure.
The most important part of a remake in my mind would be the atmosphere and immersion.
What set Morrowind appart to me was this unique atmosphere, with the dunmers having their own unique rich regional cultures, from the mushroom building s in the east, the carapace based houses in the west, the red sand desert in the north with its nomads living there, the dwemer ruins etc...
This unique, oniric universe is at the core of the enchantment to me.
After that, there are quite a few things which would benefit from a rework. A visual overhaul might help, as much as a rework of the dialog system.
Another one is the city of vivec, it was a good idea but just bad in execution.
Anyway, Morrowind has a special place to me because of its unique universe. The other products of bethesda have been way less originals (hence why i hated so much oblivion, or why i hate starfield... skyrim barely passed in my mind).
PS: Beyond good and evil 2 is in development hell, just like skull and bones was. Skull and bones was released because there was an agreement with the singapore governement (who invested in it), but i don't think there is such agreement for BGoE2, so my guess is that at some point they will annouce that they gave up with it.
They wouldn't do a remake. They'd just update a few textures and add a paid mods store.
Morrowind remake would be like:
Her Hand's Armor skin $50
People wouldn't call you an N'wah in every second sentence.
Caius Cosades is now gay.
Now Lord Indoril Nerevar canonically was a Redguard, and female.
One thing I feel like remakes miss often that I'm glad you brought up was the 'vibe' the colour, lighting and art direction in morrowind gives it so soul for lack of a better word and I can't say I'd want modern Bethesda to handle such a overhaul. Morrowind is a time capsule flaws and all
In a way I want a remake to experience it in a higher quality but I'm also afraid of them changing it too much or making a low quality crash grab full of bugs. I'm more exited to play Skywind, knowing that it's made by people who love the original game and want to preserve it the best they can. I also believe a remake would take the attention off of Skywind
Least insane hypothetical Morroboomer take
I take this as the highest of compliments
Thank you for holding it together better than I. I see what happens now. I ranted this shit till I was blue in the face, instead of doing constructive things with the burn. (From not getting what I want out of the money I spend, and now just don't spend money). I learned this the Hard way with ff7
Unfortunately gatekeeping is necessary not to be cruel but to protect and preserve that which we love. Look at Star Wars, Marvel and Dr. Who all forsaken by fans who loved it for years because they were taken over by those who wanted to destroy them.
😂 you will still have the original game. It's not like it's going to disappear because a remaster or remake is made
My opinion is morrowind is a story that would be amazing to experience with modern tech, but it would have to change things that make morrowind feel like morrowind like the voices etc… unless ai can actually make the voices work possibly
The reasons I still want a remake:
1. Full voice acting.
2. Settlement building.
(I don't care about bugs)
A remake? No. It's virtually perfect. No need.
A remaster? Absolutely a worthy cause. Updated graphics, bug fixes and a few mechanics (such as sneaking). The reading text for NPC's is fine and interesting. Remastering Morrowind is worthier than an Oblivion remaster or remake which is rumored to be in the works. Morrowind was a godsend for Bethesda. Elder Scrolls only exists in its current for because of Elder Scrolls 3.
Based, 'updating' to a current remake format would be to the detriment of the alienating atmosphere thanks to the idiosyncratic art direction & non-photorealistic graphics of this sincerely rimeless anomaly. Sure as hell can't, improve upon the glorious soundtrack. Echo your sentiment completely, killed it ma'am.
great points, and applicable to lots of older titles.
The insanity is what gives the old games their charm, the only thing that should be "upgraded" is the graphics.
I think it's a better phrasing to say I want a remaster. I want voice acting and graphical polish as an out of the box feature, without work on the player's part to mod. But I want them to use the same scripts/sheet music, the same mechanics (re-optimized). Given Bethesda's recent games, that feels like the best thing they are capable of producing. The creative work is already done.
I would like someone to fund Peter Jackson to make the story into a 3 part movie 1- Veloth & the Exodus, 2 - First Council, Tribunal and 3 - Nerevarine prophesy fulfilled. If we could just get the Tribunal story alone, I could settle for that. It is incredible lore and I was able to struggle through the game for the story.
Those who engage in gatekeeping often extend their passion beyond merely the property itself to encompass the entire fandom. Their reluctance to witness significant shifts in the culture of said fandom within a short span of time fuels their reactions when something "niche" garners the attention it deserves. Their aim is to uphold the existing cultural norms within the fandom, fearing rapid alterations. However, this phenomenon presents a double-edged sword. On one hand, preserving the original culture is essential for the continuity of the fandom; yet, on the other hand, if insufficient numbers adhere to the original cultural norms, the fandom risks fading into obscurity.
People dont want niche things they like getting mainstream traction because that paves the way to its demise. What the elder scrolls IP has become proves this. Gatekeep the things you love. Not everything is for everybody and thats okay
100%
My thoughts exactly! Everytime I look into an classic video game on youtube, there are always people in the comments who want it remastered. But seriously, the way the game looks is part of the experience and the reason why it worked so well and became a classic! Even that Seyda Neen in Unreal engine, while impressive, still looks a bit off and not... morrowindy enough.