Tarhiel: ...it was
first truly open world RPG ( first two Gothics were not...
Enebias: I agree with what you say, exception made for this point.
...
All I wrote before is just my opinon, so please, notorious Bethesda's fanboys, don't lynch me. Let's have peace even if I don't like your favourite games, yes?
ped7g: Well, I have problem with that point too...
Hi guys,
Sorry for a later reply.
Good point, let´s have a look at it:
Right of the batt I will say I am not here to lynch you or ped7g, all I want to say is that Morrowind, out of many Bethesda´s games, was unique and back in its time equally interesting as Gothic.
And allow me to repair my statement, you got me there (thanks, ped7g): first fully 3D open world RPG :)
I will go on a limp and say that the only game from Gothic series that should be compared to Morrowind is Gothic 1 and Gothic 2, although G2 wasn´t released yet when the Morrowind was out.
I would argue that Gothic´s freedom of movement was quite limited + the few loading screens you mentioned, thanks to which I didn´t consider it an open world.
What do I mean? I mean that, although Gothic´s world seems vast and open, what you have are carefully designed areas with manually placed monsters, which you had to go through in a certain order.
If you would try to skip that order, you would get killed, because enemies in that other location were much tougher and developers WANTED you to go through the first location first, so you would gain enough experience to be able to survive in the second.
This is by no means a critique of a design, I consider it a conscious decision on a developer´s part and one that´s functioning - and I liked it. But did not consider it an openworld because of that.
Also, you were limited to move in one enclosed location - mining colony, but well designed with various places to explore.
Second Gothic I would not hesitate to call an open world. You could actually feel being freed, because you could visit locations from previous game and see how small they were compared to second game (granted, you could not visit everything).
Apart from open world topic, I still remember people had difficulties getting used to the combat system. I had those too, but me being younger and stubborn I got used to the system, altough I couldn´t play any other, more streamlined game (like Morrowind) at that time - it would get me out of the control mindset for Gothic and I would need time to get be used to it again.
That´s one of the things they addressed in Gothic 2, allowing 2 modes of control, old one and new one.
Also, Enebias, you wrote:
"yet ALL of Morrowind's dungeons were separate maps, so I'd rather say that Gothic was more open that Morrowind..."
And despite that, also Oblivion, Skyrim, F3 and F:NV suffer from the same problem (because of Gamebryo), yet they are considered openworld games. Why? :)
Regarding the game not aging well - I agree, as I would say almost any game from that era needs at least Hi-res mod to be playable nowadays, same goes for Gothic. But when it comes to story and mechanics, I find it equally intriguing, just like back then.
Only other thing missing in Morrowind and first two Gothic games is Havoc system, which became more prevalent later, thanks to Half-Life 2.
Bethesdas writers are awful - agree as well, but I would still argue Morrowind was well written and had more atmosphere than Oblivion. Skyrim I didn´t played, so I can´t comment on that. FO3 wasn´t anything to write home about (especially after playing F:NV) and, from what I head, FO4 is no better in this regard. They should definitely invest into writing department.
Arena more known - well, that is why I said it is not true it was just another chapter - Daggerfall was enormously large, but for it vastness it lacked polish, uniqueness of locations (all the locations were the same assets repeating over and over) and it was not 3D. And by the time Morrowind was released, 7 years have passed since it was released. In a gaming, that is quite a long time, and people had expectations, especially after E2 trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGELOngSiRc In general, Morrowind was considered much smaller than Daggerfall, but more lifelike and interesting thanks to attention to detail + being handcrafted - just like Gothic was! :)
That is all.
(Goodness, this post will be long.)