This felt more like an adventure game then it did an RPG. The roleplaying elements or chance for personality-insertion basically didn't exist. It shocked me to learn how many faction/guild & daedric quests boiled down to a simple "go get me that" or "go kill this" despite the same complaints weighing on people's judgement for Skyrim, lacking any sense of narrative or characterization. even the post-game tribunal was more akin to a dungeon crawler then it was a story not allowing me to shake almalexia down for answers despite her given importance. I can't recall any quests that broke this monotonous grind aside from Dagoth Ur and his otherwise excellent if short-lived characterization which is to be expected as the Sixth House's fall is itself that very main quest. Even the tribunal was fairly dull and the dialouge options wore out quick without any allowance for branching paths or personality-insertion. There was many things lacking in backstory and explaination that wasn't just a sense of "keeping it ambigious" as it was intentionally lazy-writing.
It baffles me how anyone can put this as an RPG on the same level as Arcanum, Fallout, Planescape:Torment, Bloodlines. This feels more like an adventure game with some cultural influence then it does a "RPG of all time".
Was anyone else disappointed?
Sure thing, next you'll say it's a walking simulator
For further elaboration; Holla Forums says morrowind not having fast-travel is a point for it but I can't recall how many quests it un-naturally stretched out lacking a fast travel system going through a world mostly of ruins and ash with little to do other then fight cliff-racers inbetween points of destination even using stilt walkers. Outside of maybe or 1 or 2 given main-quest characters how many Morrowind NPCs to you remember being a great example of a well-written character with given depth? The answer is none really.
Bethesda even before Oblivion was never known for their deep writing or roleplaying elements.
Name one Bethesda game, post-Daggerfall, that doesn't require you you walk through a whole lot of nothing before you can fast travel to it. At least Morrowind let you jump to certain waypoints without needing to first discover them.
And, compared with those isometric RPGs you mention, Morrowind winds without contest in terms of world-building and things to do outside the story. At the time, there had not been another RPG since the 90's that gave you close to 100 hours of content without touching the story. Planescape and Fallout are great for roleplaying in terms of choices in a linear main quest. But in terms of being able to roleplay personality and career you want, Morrowind wins for the sheer choice it gives you outside the main quest.
the world is amazing, but I would have liked to see a better game attached to it. I always lose interest about 3-4 hours into a new game because it's just running around, being in-your-face samey
I see you've never roleplayed as a Pilgrim and did the entire Pilgrimage of the Seven Graces
I played Morrowind when it came out, I still have the nice folding cardboard box complete with map and all that.
That said, yeah. It's astonishing to me that even today you'll find people who disagree that Oblivion or Skyrim improved upon *anything* Morrowind built.
Just off the top of my head:
My impression is that Morrowind appeals to people who like to "pen and paper" CRPGs, in the sense they make stuff up in their head as they go along, so they tend to overlook flaws like this. While I'm a fan of pen and paper RPGs, I can't really adopt that mode of thinking to a game to the point I completely ignore its flaws.
That said, I feel all TES games suffer from the same flaws, which tend to be NPCs you don't really empathize with a great deal (compare TES NPCs to NPCs from the likes of Baldur's Gate 2), main quests that don't really get the player invested either and so on.
Anyone who doesn't like Morrowind should be banned from the board. Just sayin'.
You can fast travel to every city in Oblivion from the moment you leave the sewers. In Skyrim they delayed this until you get to Whiterun and have enough money to pay for the carriage.
The linear "experiences" of Skyrim and Oblivion were a step down from Morrowind's guild quests. A huge step down that cut back on replayability. The swashbuckling simulator that is Oblivion's and Skyrims abhorrent combat system, coupled with the speechcraft and lockpicking mini-games obliterated what actual RPG elements were left in the series after Morrowind took that first big nosedive into action-RPG realm. Then there is just the sheer volume of side-quests, skills, spells, and general detail in world design that was trimmed down for Oblivion, then again in Skyrim. At least OP made some reasonable complaints and compared Morrowind with some decent RPGs. But you, user, are a stupid faggot with shit taste.