"What if Morrowind was Good?" (Part 1) - Mechanics, Systems, a call to Programmers

Unlike Skyrim and Oblivion where I say "It's never going to happen." with proposed versions of the Elder Scrolls, Morrowind is a special case. This isn't the same as the previous series, this is an appeal to any programmers who want to grab a version of the OpenMW and start developing. This is my top list of features I'd like to see in Morrowind via the OpenMW engine.
openmw.org/en/
OpenMW is an Open Source Morrowind engine available for download via Github. Developers can write their own code for it and recompile the game as their own special version. Unlike complex Skyrim mods that use workarounds, script extenders, or tax the in-game scripting engine, it is entirely possible to create your own custom version of Morrowind with this engine.
Play Morrowind ONLINE with a custom OpenMW build: steamcommunity...
What if Oblivion was Good: • "What if Oblivion was ...
What if Skyrim was Good: • "What if Skyrim was Go...
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[@DeadlycheesePeople]

every once in awhile, I’ll watch this series. The ideas within are addicting

[@lxjuani]

The pathfinding issue is awful, even in Skyrim. I don't know how many weeks my Dragonborn waited for Lydia...

[@gamermanh]

New OpenMW patch did a big redo of their pathfinding, they chase me up rocks now and it's better than skyrims

[@AcceptGamingDKD]

@@gamermanh yea but open mw doesn't have support for like 99% of mods

[@gamermanh]

@@AcceptGamingDKD totally untrue, most major mods you'd want to use are either functional in it, have patches linked in a chart on the OpenMW site, or have their own versions entirely There's ONE major mod that's not supported that I can think of, MGEXE, the main purpose of which is being incrementally added to OpenMW in patches, essentially removing the need to even mod it to begin with

[@AcceptGamingDKD]

@@gamermanh idk man most of the mods I use are openmw incompatible. Like the newly released Ashfall. Wich is basicly if you combined skyrim's Realistic needs and diseases mod with the campfire/frostfall mod. Among many many other mods that require mwe Lea and the script extender to function. Just because the functionality will be built into openmw doesn't mean right now those mods are compatible. Edited for typos

[@sevdakrasteva7640]

"a little" late but imo pathfinding algorithms are not easy to implement especially in games

[@yellowmaskdude553]

Weapons like swords should get a damage reduction when used against a well armoured opponent, but maces and axes should have armour piercing damage in my opinion.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

And spears need more flexibility. Shield plus spear should be highly defensive, but slow to kill strategy while two-handing a spear should give potential extra reach or trip attack sweeps, but obviously be terrible for defense. Doing stuff like blocking with a spear while two-handing it opens the spear up to a massive amount of damage to the spear itself (which should be the same with all two handed weapons really). Also, I'd love to see some kind of system in place for non-lethal takedowns that allows you to KO others for longer than a few seconds as their stamina rebuilds. Maybe shackles or binds or something that you can apply once they're KO'd. And if that personality system were in place, changes in personality at low health. Like, you could nearly kill a bandit, who pleads for their life and turns into a coward at low health. So they flee to the nearest guard, but since they're flagged as a criminal they capture them and end up in a cell for the rest of the game. They live, and you might even be able to encounter them if YOU end up in jail for your crimes, but your combat with them and their near death experience fundamentally altered their willingness to live a life of banditry. Also, give Imperials more spears in general. They're based on the godsdamned Romans for oblivion's sake.

[@TheArthasmenethril]

The Imperials are based on Romans yes but I don't know why that would get them more spears? A unique one probably but more spears I don't know.

[@yellowmaskdude553]

The Roman legionaries only used their spear once every battle, when they threw it at the enemy before attacking with the gladius. So the Roman legion infantry didn't rely on the usage of spears very much.

[@TheArthasmenethril]

Yellow Mask Dude That's not a spear. Pila is a Javelin Legionarys had two.

[@icantthinkofaname6790]

Yellow Mask Dude a sword can pierce better than a mace irl though

[@SpaceP1rate]

30:49 I think if you were to sell the stolen goods in the same town that you should be charged with theft. It would make sense for shopkeepers/citizens/guards all in one location to communicate. For example, if you stole from the weaponsmith overnight, he would wake up to find his inventory has been ransacked, he would then report this to a guard, after which point the appearance of any of those items at any other local shop would give them indication of your crime. So basically, I'm thinking you would have to take the stolen goods at least one town over to sell off if you want to avoid being charged with a crime.

[@Tbonedoesfsx]

Diceroll in daggerfall really worked for some reason, but in morrowind it fucking sucks

[@Orbrun]

TbonePlays Maybe it's because Morrowind's accuracy involves fatigue.

[@shadekerensky3691]

Then after this we need if Daggerfall was good, point out some fixes that would be good for it, such as the dungeons and quests.

[@BazookaTooth707]

Isn't Daggerfall being redone with the unity engine right now?

[@dobster3231]

Ya

[@Nerobyrne]

@@BazookaTooth707 check it out now, they are around halfway done. It's perfectly playable, but it does look kinda weird if you have low-res 2D sprite lamps exuding high-res volumetric light ^.^

[@subtledemisefox]

@@Nerobyrne That's what the painted models are for. Someone is also working on making the character sprites 3D.

[@TheRealFrankWizza]

I would love to see a mod that makes the adoring fan a grizzled merc, but with the same personality and dialogue as the adoring fan. It would be so silly.

[@jesfest]

You mean Cicero?

[@tylerjohnson7141]

"once an enemy aggros, it is aggroed forever, also it is locked in by satellite" haha, that's great

[@Medicesca]

5:00-5:20 FUCKING LISTEN TO IT. LISTEN TO IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN

[@TheKrensada]

Yeah when i play fallout 4 I definitely don't feel like im playing an RPG

[@finnenhawke]

I'm still waiting for some big overhauls like Requiem or at least SkyRe for Skyrim that would make Fallout 4 gameplay much deeper and more RPG-ish. Anyone know if something like that is in works? Or is it too early?

[@TheKrensada]

***** That's only half the problem with Fallout 4. the other half is that Fallout 4 takes itself way too seriously. it doesn't have that level of camp, or the profoundly cheesy , well written dialogue that the original 2 had.

[@xBINARYGODx]

Well, except, even if you DO remove the hit-chance - I am pretty sure I (and most gamers as well) know nothing about swinging a sword or how to properly critically wound someone with a dagger - so even if that is removed in lieu of hits being more like they are in an action game, it's still role playing and about the character, now the user. I mean, ignoring that you could argue that DS is not a true RP game, and imagining the necessary changes to the story and "quests" to more appropriate give those games that title, would DS then not be a RP game just because there IS twitch associated with it's combat? That said - Zaric's ideas for keeping the dice but having the action in the game play out as he described is, IMO, just as good of a solution (arguable better since you satisfy, I believe, both camps). To use DS again, because why not, you could mod that game (imagine a creation kit for it or something similar) where you have a stat-vs-enemy-stat that dictates how likely they use their shield or roll away and it would still feel like an ARPG will also being dice-based, or at least a stat-based, to dictate enemy combat behavior. EX (in modded DS) - Enemy has an avoidance stat, which would be the likelihood they roll away, but you have a chance to hit that lowers it. If yours is low and theirs is high, they seem to roll rather often, and effectively a pain in the ass. Twitch that around, and it's the opposite. It feels action-based, but really it's partially about the stat, which influences the dice rolling that all AI does.

[@VaultNightmare]

You want a more harder DS combat? Monster.

[@sygos]

"Are you married or do you have a group of friends?" of course not

[@spartanq7781]

I know right? What would make someone ask me that?

[@thecondescendinggoomba5552]

:(

[@thegamingjunkieoflegends1546]

As someone who loves the story and world of Morrowind, but grew up on newer games, and always had trouble getting over the games mechanics, these ideas would be a dream come true if they came into fruition... Zaric is hands down my favorite Elder Scrolls community channel.

[@SifArtorias]

This video became valid when you said you didn't care about graphics. Good on you.

[@Cherrywick76]

Holy shit, you actually said EXACTLY what I was thinking when it came to Morrowind Multiplayer. Even down to the whole "Game Master" and DnD-style roleplaying part. I was imagining exactly those sort of things when I was playing Morrowind in a hardcore roleplay playthrough. So yes, you definitely earned my like for bringing up something that I thought would never be brought up. You might've just made a step towards making my dreams come true.

[@AryanWarriorBogpill]

The render level of graphics isn’t necessarily the primary factor of “quality”. Art style and graphics are always separated when they shouldn’t be. A game can have “poor” graphics which fit the art style and thus they are superior to better rendered graphics of an inferior or non-evocative art style.

[@desther7975]

OpenMW is a great opportunity to modernize Morrowind's graphics, for sure. It could have high resolution textures and high-poly replacement models that could all make the game look something like Oblivion or Skyrim. What would be _really_ interesting to see would be an open source engine that could _combine_ the last three Elder Scrolls games into one :D And allow you, perhaps, to retain Morrowind mechanics throughout, so that you could play through Oblivion and Skyrim content under Morrowind leveling, combat and other rules. Wouldn't _that_ be something to see!

[@ancient122]

Misses are already extremely rare if you build your character correctly. Or abuse Adrenaline Rush and Berserker Rage.

[@Grey_World1]

Fatigue in Morrowind: Wheeze! *Drinks potion Stamnina Skyrim: lol what? *100 potions in chest

[@NerdHubbers]

I think dice roll systems would work with ranged weaponry more, as misses are very common with poorly skilled shooters/archers, and the dice roll could account for the distance of the opponent. I see that being way better in fact than the common "bullet sponge" enemies of shooter RPGs like Fallout now. So what if your bullets hit every time? It's not like it's more realistic that way, bullets are supposed to hurt, and in fact, it's way harder to hit your target IRL than in games. A dice roll depending on the skills related to shooting for example work way better, and could be influenced by stats like (working within the example of Fallout) Guns, Strength (this influences your ability to aim and operate the weapon, some weapons have higher requirement threshold, New Vegas did this) and repair (for gun upkeep, like New Vegas again) Anyway, dice roll systems actually seem better than the new "well I shot them so it has to register" systems of today. Swords however are a different matter, but you covered that.

[@theanonymousmrgrape5911]

Man, watching this footage makes me realize things I take for granted playing a modded game. In the Morrowind code patch, there's an option to select a spell by pressing the character it starts with. Which means when you make spells, you can immediately get them with one or two button presses and not having to scroll and click. Also in the code patch you can just cast with C rather than switching to having your hands out.

[@FlockOfHawks]

MCP is brilliant . Any issue mr Z has , is either solved there or irrelevant to me .

[@NerdHubbers]

Though in my last comment, I'd also say that for the FPS style of Fallout, having your character's actual aim (shaking hands, wobbling back and forth etc, also done in New Vegas) works more realistically than simple dice roll, as that's what the dice roll would represent anyway.

[@jacksquatt6082]

"When a character is walking around they look like they pooped their pants." I was going to say that they looked like goblin clowns (especially while sneaking), but your description is just as accurate.

[@marcfaur]

I installed OpenMW a few days ago, installed a ton of mods that I've red work with it and I must say this seems like the most stable installation I've had of this game. Granted, I can't make it look as good as Morrowind Overhaul, but I think it's worth it. I use to have plenty of crashes with this game, but none since I started playing OpenMW.

[@liamsamples]

I was having Steam load errors (far too complicated for me to understand) but I started using OpenMW and it works perfectly!

[@thebattalion8938]

Was going to ask you for this, then I see this. Pleasing

[@michalmoroz]

Wery nice video :) I'm in the middle and I'd like to add to different NPC modes of behaviour a kind of "yield mode". Basically, if during combat you did something that shows you being totally overpowering (high-level spells, buffs to visible stats many times larger that the level of a NPC, using Daedric armor/weaponry) the NPC should be able to yield to you enabling options such as being able to loot them without killing or, just maybe, becoming a bandit leader in the area. It would feel pretty natural - no normal bandit would fight you if you just showed them how you can jump hundreds of meters in the air by exploiting scrolls of Icarian Flight, they would rather quickly reiterate their choices and stop before you try hit them. From the player's perspective, as you progress more in the game you gain more choices to intimidate some of your opponents in combat, some of them might be unconventionally funny to do, and by choosing not to kill mindlessly you should be rewarded by repeating loot, or new pieces of info, or (with bandits) a new questline to become a smuggler. Always dreamed of this one with so much of skooma and moon sugar gathered in the basement of a certain house in Balmora ;)

[@hitomisalazar4073]

The funny thing about the staggers for me is how much it shows most people haven't messed around a lot. Now most every single guide or online discussion I've seen for Morrowind has said: "Do not ever Hand-to-Hand, it is terrible!". And this is funny. I think most people haven't really tried it. Instead they've done the Reviewer try of "I have 5 points in short blade out of character gen, took my iron dagger, was out of fatigue, and kept missing the mudcrab. The system is broken!!" sort of tries. Because... if you're not good at Hand-to-Hand, you'll miss a lot. And when you do hit? You damaged fatigue, which isn't something that is visible player side. And that it'll take something like 15 hits early game to kill a rat (as Hand-to-Hand damage is entirely factored around your skill). Now what's funny for me is that I always viewed the weapons in Morrowind as being fairly interesting with decent advantages. For example Shortblades are usually good for spamming light attacks to buzzsaw a target down. High level Shortblades end up with damage expressions like 12-20. Meaning you're not missing out THAT much to take a long swing. Compared to say, a high level Spear that might have 1-50 damage wise. The Spears are good for bopping in and out damage wise. Functioning well with a speed and agility build as their best damage is on thrusts and highly variable. They have good reach as well rewarding that style. Axes and Blunt weapons are best for standing still and trading shots with their overhead smash blows. And Longblades are best typically at dancing side to side for horizontal slashes. But what's Hand-to-Hand best at? Just making a fool WORTHLESS. You damage fatigue meaning they're more likely to fail at every action that they take. You also get an absurdly high stagger rate. Like I've found high end with other weapons about a... 20-25% stagger rate on hit. Varies a little but about that ballpark. But with Hand-to-Hand? More like 80-90%. Combine with the fact that the vast majority of fights in game are basically 1 on 1 duels... with its stagger and fatigue drain, as well as never having to repair, always able to hit all enemies regardless of their "Immune to weapons less than..." status and such... it's stupidly powerful. I think that's probably why people don't like Hand-to-Hand though. in their low level experiments when they didn't build a character for it (Needs to be your Major skill), it just doesn't seem to DO anything. And conversely when they are attacked by people with hand to hand... they get staggered, a lot. MOre so than when billy broadsword there is smashing their helm in with a heavy two handed blade. They're more likely to be juggled, stamina drained, and killed off. You see this with a lot of Wizard/Lich enemies as they say, Summon a Ghost and then just punch you into a coma. So most people's experience with Staggers is likely to be being staggered by Maggie the Mage down in the crypt punching hteir lights out while a summoned daedra caves their skulls in. Rather than how they just clowned out Umbra or the Ebony Warrior by punching them into stunlocked juggle combo states.

[@hitomisalazar4073]

This said... I think the advantage to Morrowind's Diceroll Combat is exactly as you pointed out. That it does something that Fallout 4 barely does, New Vegas doesn't at all, Oblivion and Skyrim don't either. And this is the idea of giving a progression to your character. When you are some fresh out of a Vault survivor or no name never was a warrior chump... effortlessly managing to defeat armed bandits just feels weird. You are (effectively) as good in the beginning as you are in the end. You go from hitting like 20% of the time with a major skill your character has SOME training in at the beginning. To hitting like 95% of the time when you're Alsavar, Master of the Sword. It's a simple little thing most RPGs don't realize. And to be fair... most RPG Players don't realize. Roleplaying doesn't mean "Dialogue Choices". That's where most people say things like Fallout: New Vegas is a great RPG while Fallout 4 "isn't an RPG". Now I'm not saying Fallout 4 is better, hardly. But it IS still an RPG and not some "Looter Shooter FPS" (Particularly funny when the most powerful way to play the game is a purely stat and probability based VATS build). They see it as "Not an RPG" because the dialogue system might as well not exist. All four choices lead to "Yes NPC" in it for the most part. But an RPG, be it D&D on the tabletop, to video games isn't just based on talking to an NPC. Part of this is just build choice. Part of this is how you choose to resolve situations. Part of this character growth. It's as much "I am roleplaying" as how your battlemage likes to open up combats with Drain Fatigue Spells to handicap the enemy before casting Enchant Strength and bashing them over the head, as it is to pick NCR or Legion. When you have that Oblivion style where you're basically as good (Ranking up skills give you Power Attack perks, but Power Attacks are WORSE than just normal attacks in basically all situations) at Rank 5 as you are at Rank 100... well you miss out on that growth and opportunity. The lessons you learn because you're not good. Like... your Battlemage might not have developed that Damage Fatigue spell. You developed it because in Morrowind Fatigue directly impacts effectiveness. Draining an opponent's fatigue can knock them over. And even if not, reduce their chances of success up to 50%. Which gave you an edge in the early fights when you had only 15 points in Blunt with your Club. It's Roleplaying and character growth... that you might have not at all realized even was going on. But is missing when you're playing say Skyrim. Where your tactics remain the same the whole time because nothing fundamentally changed. You find that optimal tactic early on and stick with it.

[@Colenzo22]

Zak you are such a scholar you have made me a fan of yours during my recent time replaying Morrowind, you are awesome, that is all. And thank you for what you do.

[@cjware316]

Yay! A new Zaric video, I fucking love this series, thanks for making these!

[@owenw.1643]

the "i beat things with my fists" bit gave me a good laugh

[@aquathird5918]

For anyone interested in Dagoth Ur and Ash Vampires stats Stats of Dagoth Ur (1st phase) in actual game: Health: 300, Magicka: 300, Fatigue: 500, Str: 200, Int: 100, Wil: 100, Agi: 100, Spd: 80, End: 100, Per: 100, Luc: 100 Original Stats of Dagoth Ur (1st phase) before the change in development: Health: 1000, Magicka: 5000, Fatigue: 1000, Str: 200, Int: 100?, Wil: 100, Agi: 100?, Spd: 100, End: 100?, Per: 100?, Luc: 100? Each of the 7 Ash Vampires should reduce Dagoth Ur's stats by: Health: 50, Magicka: 250, Fatigue: 50, Str: 5, Wil: 5, Spd: 5 So Original Stats after killing all ash vampires were supposed to be: Health: 650, Magicka: 3250, Fatigue: 650, Str: 165, Int: 100?, Wil: 65, Agi: 100?, Spd: 65, End: 100?, Per: 100?, Luc: 100? Note, Original Dagoth Ur's Intelligence, Agility, Endurance, Personality and Luck are just my assumptions, since they aren't left in the game files, unlike the other stats.

[@umwha]

I really dont know why I find these so pertinent, since it will almost certainly not be watched by any bethesda devs. I suppose I just appreciate the thought and understanding it takes to make these. I feel like you 'get it' better than alot of people.

[@NoMastersNoMistress]

At some point, OpenMW needs the equivalent of Duke Patrick's combat mods from Oblivion. That is certainly doable, but we need to stay on top of the OpenMW to get them to include the MWSE functions after they reach ver 1.0... because they're still debating if they even want to bother as of ver .42

[@lukemcinerny8220]

I've thought there should be some mention of edge alignment when it comes to the misses so you always hit but sometimes your cut is not aligned with the edge so you do a lot less damage.

[@theLIESyouTRUST]

Yes!!! I was gonna say something along these lines or instead of rng possibly making you miss it will just determine whether you do 25, 50, 75, or 100% damage which scale off your stats.

[@kelvinshadewing3175]

I think another way to improve people running away is not just reaching that health threshold, but remembering the damage of the last attack, and if another attack like that is enough to kill someone at their current health, this triggers the flee state, and a third threshold, attack strength regardless of how many it would take, just knowing that you're that powerful would be enough to make them run. This way, say an attack would take three hits, they'd still realize that's enough to do a third of their health, they should run or surrender right away if they want to live.

[@speedygun198]

As soon as you talk about quests, e.g the main story-line, the C0da fan boys will attack you haha

[@Yuudaddy]

As someone who loves Morrowind and the Elder Scrolls Lore I say fuck them and All Hail to you.

[@Yuudaddy]

The entire TES lore could use a reboot to get rid of the inconsistencies.

[@Yuudaddy]

Well truth to be spoken I hate them as well but we might sooner or later need one if Bethesda wont pay close attention to the lore in future games. As for your idea. That would be a splendid idea and they also could do the same with Daggerfall especially in terms of fixing the dungeons.

[@delvisomanda1]

i'd like a Redguard remake.

[@four-en-tee]

A daggerfall remake would be really neat. I've recently started playing a few MSDOS games like Daggerfall and the two DOOM games, and i'm absolufely loving Daggerfall so far. It does take a bit to get used to the combat system, but having played Morrowind before it, it made transitioning to Daggerfall so much easier.

[@thedarkspecter9532]

Thanks so much for this. I was hoping you'd get to Morrowind, but I thought the what if series was finished. Could you please do this for Star Wars KOTOR, assuming you played those games?

[@Medic3000]

since open MW is more of an engine, one could either make brand new models/animations/textures to "remaster" morrowind, OR make completely new games that play similarily to morrowind, such as a scifi RPG or a different setting with that addition of new graphics :D

[@meh855]

I simply _love- this series of videos, thanks!

[@mr.fantastic7756]

I always liked how they walked in morrowind ^-^ they got that strut going on.

[@goldenelfgaming4327]

10:30 that whole shield thing reminds me of Chivalry's blocking system.

[@MrPobanz]

After playing Morrowind again recently, there is one thing it really needs imo: active skills (aside spells). Non-mage characters are fairly dull honestly, tho i found a workaround by making enchanted items as pseudo-skills. "Berserker Rage": fortifies strength and agility for a short amount of time, "Sprint": gives feather and fortifies speed, "Zealots leap": jump+ reflect and so on. Sadly the enchantment system could need an overhaul as well, as it should be possible to combine the usual beneficial effects with negative ones and thus increase the strength of the enchantment (aka either you chose the simple buff of +30 strenth, or you chose something like +40 strength at the cost of -20 intelligence). Morrowind is superior to its successors in that department, but it still could be so much more.

[@ZyrusSmith]

This video was too long. Halfway through it, I got hungry so I left it playing and went to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich. But then I found out that I'm out of mayonnaise so I went to a store. There, I saw the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my whole life. But I'm a really shy person so I took up a three-year personality development course so I could introduce myself. She was very friendly and all, but unfortunately, she had a boyfriend. So I said, all good, I'm a mature person. I wanted the best for her and I harbored no illusion that I am the best person for her and she seemed happy with her boyfriend, so I didn't bother her anymore. But we kept in touch and we became friends and I got over my crush on her. Then she broke up with her boyfriend, we drank some alcohol because of it. I told her she'll be fine and I wished her well. I still think she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but like I said, I am over my crush on her. It was like five years already since I first saw her. Besides, I am quite happy with the friendship I developed with her. It was more important than a crush. So we kept hanging out, drinking, having coffee, and all. I had a girlfriend, she started dating other guys. My girlfriend wanted to live some other life without me in it, so I said, "Okay, I want the best for you and I want you to pursue your happiness." My lady friend and I drank alcohol about it, and she gave me the same advice I gave her when she was in that position and I became okay with the breakup immediately. But we were really drunk, so she spent the night in my apartment. I only have one bed, so you know what that means: She took the bed and I slept on the couch. But on the couch, I really can't sleep. Something was bothering me. So I tossed and turned for about three hours, then I finally couldn''t take it anymore, I stood up and went straight to my room where she's sleeping. I approached the bed, gently sat on it and I reached for her shoulder to pull her closer to me. She stirred and woke up. She asked what's up. I told her, "you know, the first time I saw you, I was watching a video and left it playing to get myself a sandwich then went to the store to get some mayo then I got so distracted by life that I forgot to finish the video." She said, "You know what, I've been wondering about a weird noise in your night drawer." So we opened that drawer, and lo and behold, there's my phone and this video still has two minutes of play time on it.

[@Spacefrisian]

Would these series be an option for other game series in the future, old and new a like Mass Effect, Fallout, Sacred or Summoner (and many many more) but as a single part video instead. Or alternatly how you would do a new entry in the series, provided the game series in itself isnt continued at the moment.

[@ironreed2654]

"Populate the World with real people as NPC's" yeah bro, 3 years in the future and they fucked that idea all to hell and back in Fallout 76.

[@stevengrant4117]

I get why everyone hates the dice roll but I love it. Once I understood what the dice rolls were and how the mechanics were I never had a problem with it after and when I became so strong I could leap from the heavens then punch to death the leader of the Redoran as if you was a child I was taking candy from

[@stevengrant4117]

I do prefer you're reduced damage idea instead of misses though

[@Leonardo01569]

Argonians and Khajiit have claws instead of hands. So what if, instead of punching when unarmored, they attack with a type of short blade, which is not very strong, but in compensation, never degrades with use? I would also like to see a different animation for the running of these races.

[@CallumClave1]

Great list, I agree with pretty much everything! I would really love to know which magic effects mod you are using in the video?

[@werwtgrtfg2643]

I always think, what if Fargoth's quest is not just a fake show for NPC schedueling? what if Morrowind had NPC schedueling like Gothic and Oblivion?

[@spatrk6634]

there are mods that simulate that.

[@DARamosYT]

Hearing these mechanics makes me wish to implement them into any games I wanna make. Funny, after failing at Kingdom Hearts 3's blocking a lot, it's refreshing to hear a blocking system that is a hybrid of timed, random, and active.

[@fenrirthedreadwolf3448]

has any of this been made yet i would love to play it. it has been 4 years now

[@roti1873]

Curious about this 7 years later. Shaders came a long way.

[@GooglyEyedJoe]

Your idea of the Game master is similar to Persistent Worlds, a roleplay mod for Mount & Blade: Warband, my group owned a server once for it and as admin, I was able to become invisible as you state, walk around and keep an eye on things, refill supplies and stocks of certain merchants, replenish trees that had been cut down for building purposes but mostly to keep everything running. So quite a few times you'd get a message about someone trolling or messing about, you'd teleport to their name location and whilst invisible watch whats going on without revealing yourself etc so as long as Elder Scrolls had that "game master" system which is essentially "roleplay police" then I think it could work very well.

[@G.B...]

In general, I agree with your wish list. However, I have to point out two things: (1) We do not need the graphics extender in OpenMW, and I couldn't care less about shaders. This might make the game looking "prettier" but it's far from being needed, and somehow it won't be Morrowind anymore if you change the graphics drastically - I never liked MGE because of they do that. I think OpenMW looks very nice as it is. Morrowind graphics stand very well even today, unless you care that much about "realistic" graphics. I fail to see how you say you don't care about graphics but at the same time you say "we need those shaders desperately". (2) Yes, visually hitting an enemy while no damage is delivered (because dices say so) is annoying and we should have a visual feedback. But you also say you want "to make misses extremely rare", and I strongly disagree with that. I do not think the rate of misses should be tweaked at all. You miss a lot only if (a) you try to attack with a weapon you didn't specialize at all, or (b) you use an attack style not suitable for the weapon at hand (like slashing with a spear while weapon description shouts for thrust attacks instead). If the player does that, it's his/her fault, not game's fault. A visual feedback for a fail hit would be nice, but that's it. In any case, even without any of the fixes you recommend, I think Morrowind aged like a fine wine anyway. It is still by far the best Elder Scrolls game, and I doubt we will ever see another RPG like that - definitely not from Bethesda. Thankfully, OpenMW developers seem to be very conservative as to what they should add to the engine and what should be left for modders. That's one of the reasons I like OpenMW; they do "modernize" Morrowind's engine with all due respect to the original masterpiece. P.S.: I Couldn't agree more with what you say about the multiplayer project, which was tied to OpenMW from the beginning.

[@interstellartravel]

Morrowind was the best of them all...

[@petyrbaelish4245]

U little scrub!!!!!!!!1111Elder scrollz online is much better!!!!!!!111 Stupidd casuallll

[@ДушманКакдела]

No lol

[@caramel7050]

Brando Lebean Which was, then?

[@karp.x]

@@caramel7050 he probably would say skyrim or some shit xD

[@alexfields8785]

TES Novigrad ftw Bethesda really do make the best RPGs dont they... wait

[@Biefbacon]

Yes! Missing your target when you can clearly see the blade pass through it is the number one reason why I couldn't get into Morrowind. I played Oblivion first, and then I think I probably played Skyrim and then gave Morrowind a go. The graphics (even with graphics mods) did turn me off a little bit, but it was nothing major. The dice roll combat, though? I hated it - which is a shame because I liked the rest of it.

[@nubbyboah]

I commented on your more recent Morrowind modding guide about how it's finally opened up to me, but I seem to have a funny problem with GCD: I always insta die while using the better Chargen mod after loading in unless I open the menu the split second I load in (with 10 health remaining) and any stat buffed by a birthsign goes nuclear with like 140 endurance at the moment I gain control of my character. And upon skill level up I get like +40 endurance. I heard it may be OpenMW's engine that misreads the script but maybe it's another mod? Shouldn't be from what I'm using.

[@lukemcinerny8220]

There should be a mention of edge alignment when striking with edged weapons, anyone who has handled a real blade knows there is quite a learning curve more so I've found with straight blades ironically, ah word play lol

[@Haagaustin]

The possibilities for multiplayer are the most intriguing, even with just two people: warrior with thief (thief supplies potions and poisons for the tank to use) mage with thief (two types of cat burglars with their own styles of picking locks, mage uses illusion to get the thief out of trouble/jail) mage with warrior (leader of the mages guild teams up with the leader of the fighters guild to stop dagoth ur) there can be any combination of the three main archetypes in a single character already, let alone a team. A character who would normally be unplayable in single player could be overpowered in multiplayer. Heck, I'd want to be an Imperial who specializes in healing (giving potions, healing spells, shield spells) and equipping (fixing and enchanting armor and weapons) some barbarian friend, selling his loot at a higher price than he could with my mercantile skillz.

[@OttoVonGarfield]

I prefer the classic RPG combat system, though Morrowind does indeed leave much to be desired in terms of execution.

[@morganmccown5572]

With stamina regen and running just get a enchantment that gives like 30 stamina a second constant effect, i got one and its really nice

[@justiciar1964]

I now this is old asf and probably nobody gonne see it but I'mma post somethin anyways. Giving the different attacks of a weapon different stats like armor penetration, speed, accuracy, and raw damage rather than having a best attack per weapon would be a really good idea for a OpenMW mod. Instead of just having flat tiers of damage, the different materials' damage could be less spread out and instead have different qualities to set them apart. Like, adamantium can never break, Daedric ignores a lot of armor rating or staggers more often, glass is brittle but has a high critical chance or causes a bleed effect, stalhrim splits damage between phys and frost or somethin or holds ice-based enchantments better. Also I think blocking, if active and not passive, should damage health at lower skill levels (because your shield arm is shit), and mostly take stamina (at early block levels and maybe low strength, a LOT of stamina.) For timed blocks I don't think they should be THAT actiony, and I think the term you were looking for was a parry. A bash button like Skyrim would be more fun imho, and could stun if done at the right time. With crime, I'd like to be able to use speech or illusion magic to try and convince the guard I'm innocent, with success also depending on how many witnesses. Morrowind's sneak skill and aggro system IS shit, yeah. As for the NPC replacements come on now, 6 months to 2 years?! Has anyone ever reached 1 in-game year in any Bethesda game? For spell clutter, what if you had to attune a limited number of spells like in Dark Souls? Maybe base it on willpower. With sounds, Morrowind uses a lot of shitty old stock sound effects and I guess they didn't think much of it so yeah it needs a complete system overhaul. Actually both sounds and music. Dungeon music, snowy music, night music, etc. That requires some serious talent tho. Now that it has Multiplayer I agree an invisible GM that has godly powers and an in-game editor to guide a custom scenario. Only few games do this and ya mostly people using it just fart around but it has srs RP potential. Also what about vague Dark Souls-styled ghosts that fade in and out if you're online but solo? You basically see them moving around or fighting but you cant interact with em. Maybe restrict it to dungeons, and/or a spell. Just a sorta way of spectating lol.

[@Gigadramon6]

My biggest turnoff for Morrowind was when I slid down about 10 feet on a 30 degree incline into a puddle and died from falling damage at full health.

[@miguelpereira9859]

LOL

[@roach9397]

So I assume you'll be doing Arena, I don't know if you'll go after Daggerfall, but what about the spin-offs? You could make one of these for Battlespire, ES Adventures, the Travels Series, and a 60 hour video for ESO *shudders at the name*

[@TheNN]

Dagoth This and Dagoth That were my favorite enemies in Morrowind. :P

[@benjaminfenn3700]

"Next what I'm going to need is for doors to sometimes slap you in the ass as you pass through them, dealing absolutely catastrophic damage to the player character, and bringing them to their knees. Something else that might be nice to see would be if, for sometimes when, say, a guard strikes you in the back with their spear whilst you're in the midst of fleeing like a pathetic coward, if that guard were to actually bodily heave your character backwards through the air, dozens of feet, as if possessed of herculean strength. This could be a relatively low-chance, die roll-based occurance. And, this next one is just a nice to have, but while we're at it, the Master Longsword trainer at Ghostgate needs a minor tweak to his AI package. When struck by the player, this NPC should really begin combat by running backwards and spellcasting, that the player might swiftly open the chamber's door in order to sandwich the NPC between it and the wall, granting them the ability to slay this particular NPC with pitiful ease. The aim of this change is just a slight increase to player agency - A full suit of Glass Armor, or a Master Longsword Trainer. You decide. Further, and this one's huge for the newer players, especially - Transporting the strippers from Desele's House of Earthly Delights to my stronghold needs to be made easier in some way."

[@geruy]

Fucking YEAAAAH! Been waiting for this

[@Dan-tc4je]

I tried to play a kind of conpanion ship story in skyrim, taking a mercenary and while I was a sword and board, he was my heavy tank war hammer counterpart, and we would go around the land of skyrim, becoming a powerful and feared duo. I would love to do that with a friend

[@hahamingudersejest]

Just curious, have you checked up on wether or not any of the things you mention have been considered or already implemented in openMW? Good day out there :)

[@ProfounDisputes]

What would make me very happy is if I didn't have to drag items to and from my inventory. The one thing console version did right was a single button click for that.

[@KiaraDex]

The first Time I watched this I thought you were exaggerating the cons of Dice based combat in Morrowind. Yesterday I played Morrowind for the first time. I finished the Character creation gave the ring to the guy outside the census office and proceeded to talk to anyone I came across and harvest anything I could. I saw kelp and a shell it the water, I went for them and I got destroyed by a Slaughterfish. (The one time the name is relevant.) My Dagger hit the Fish, It went through the fish and it made the same noise as a hit but I only hit it three times out of the 20 or so clicks. I died before I reached shore only to find out I had no saves because when I had tried to Quicksave in the census office it was not a point I could save at yet. Thank The Chesse Morrowind creation and tutorial (prison escape) isn't as long and in depth as Oblivion and Skyrim and that I remembered my face, hair, class and sign.

[@KiaraDex]

By the time I died I had leveled up my acrobatics by three levels (Bunny Hopping around town) and given how ripped Jiub was unless the player character was in a coma the entire way from the Imperial City I doubt atrophy was that much of a factor . As for build I picked Female, Dunmer, Assassin and Tower. Because I know how I end up playing the Sneaky Archer in Light Amour no matter my plans in both Skyrim and Oblivion. As for your Love of the game it shows. I don't remember exactly when I first watched this Video or which Video of yours I first watched But I do know I kept watching your content and enjoying it. Thank you for Replying to my Comment.

[@DarksiderDarmoset]

Very insightful! Maybe the combat should be partially skill based, in that you attack, dodge, and parry manually, but like an RPG in that your ability to perform these actions is based on your player skills. The same goes with enemies. Perhaps an enemy's ability to dodge should be based on their athletic ability. This seems like a good middle ground. Also, when my weapon misses in Morrowind, I like to imagine that my sword or spear is passing in between the atoms of my opponent, thus missing completely :D

[@RamseyDewey]

Awesome.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Yesssss I know what I'm watching over dinner today

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Jake Azz ...because I'm single and don't live with my parents anymore? And I did say watch _over_ dinner, not watch _instead of_ dinner :v

[@silentsorrowbane]

The problem with keeping/having skillchecks (lets take your sidestep mechanic as an example) is, that dying because you failed this rng checks just leads to reloading and depending in rng again, which makes the system broken and not fun at all. Unless of course you are a person who enjoys rng so much that you get exited because you know the game could fuck you up any second. Anyway IMO if they'd implement an active dodge/sidestep mechanic, it shouldnt rely on rng and should be actiongame-esque, (like in Dark Souls for example).

[@sunder9363]

Zaric, how many parts of this series do you plan on doing for Morrowind?

[@sunder9363]

Sounds good, thanks.

[@kaktotak8267]

That idea with visible misses would require a complete rewrite of the animation system, or a lot of work in some other way. I'm not familiar with the OpenMW code, but afaik TES3 uses static animations, and openMW (to be compatible) does it the same way. Making miss/dodge visible would either require adding more pre-cooked animations for misses and dodges for every model and every weapon, or implementing a procedural animation system while the static animation system would have to be preserved for compatibility. Regarding the "glancing blows". What about the actual dodging then? What about "no armor" skill, or whatever it's called? The whole idea of that skill is that it allows your character to avoid getting hit altogether when (s)he doesn't wear any armor.

[@stal2496]

Trying to have good graphics isnt always a good thing. If youre working on a game from 2002 and you have a beast computer, you will be able to push the engine to do so much more technically

[@demonphyre6186]

Has anybody made mods like this yet?

[@carlbuford1513]

I wish that endurance worked more like intelligence in terms that it increases your max health, I don't like how it increases how much you gain per level because it always makes me feel forced to level endurance first otherwise my char will suffer greatly. I personally don't see the point of penalizing you for not leveling endurance first. Just make it like intelligence where the higher it is the more Magicka you have.

[@templarkiller2926]

There should be an option to dig a hole and stash your stolen goods or something in there, but if you leave it too long someone might find it and take the things

[@chisasa9509]

I'd like to see animals and creatures Mating in the wilderness. That would be funny and unique. Especially werewolves on Solsthiem.

[@okamichamploo]

how do you spell the text based RPG he mentioned. I tried googling "lensmore" but nothing came up

[@canesvenatici9588]

Found it using duckduckgo. It's lensmoor.

[@AkeemBurns]

Co-op in an elder scrolls game would be good if done right. It doesn't make much sense in Fallout but a few changes to dialog would make most elder scrolls games great for co-op or single player

[@atomcats3445]

You would be the best dungeon master in a game of d&d

[@SockPupet]

I believe you mentioned once you liked Asheron's Call?

[@SockPupet]

Zaric Zhakaron I would be interested in hearing your take on Asheron's Call. I think WoW, and I enjoyed WoW, did a lot of damage to the MMORPG genre through its success by homogenising it... which even influenced future Turbine games. I have played games for over 30 years, and I have seen this time and time again. Promising ideas and concepts discarded to codify and by extension limit genre. I was aware of the maintenance mode, and played on and off upto the final patch.

[@W4iteFlame]

Actually I think there were NPC fleeing system in Bloodmoon (it may be modpack I were playing with, but I've seen Fryse Hags flee very often, but only them). And also Morrowind inventory managment system (containers and player inventory) should be changed. Now it is annoying as hell if you has a lot af stuff (at least it should be possible to move item from or to container by single click, like it is in traders screen).

[@PasserMontanus]

"Lord Woodborne" xD I understood that reference and I clapped!

[@igorvuk4454]

"non crashable" morrowind was crash bonanaza

[@jamesmccloud7535]

@Gr8Sc0tt never gonna happen lololololol

[@Cenot4ph]

Opensource might sound like, now everyone can adapt it! No! It takes significant skill and time invested to understand the engine to begin with and THEN you would need to program and test those changes. You can already tell that this kind of effort doesnt make it trivial to say the least

[@macesteffy2066]

If you think dice/hit chance have no place in an RPG, remember you would have no RPG without it. D&D 4 life.

[@FirstMetalHamster]

The dice roll mechanic doesn't work when you see it actually hitting the enemy. That was my main gripe with the game, that and the broken spell system.

[@SUPERMATT5546]

Hitting & enemy & having it miss never bothered me in Dungeon Siege like it does in Morrowind. It's probably because, for the most part, it tends to only happen early on. As you level up your melee skill, you become more & more likely to hit the enemy, rather than it solely being random chance.

[@GoblinLord]

one problem, marksman sucks with dice based combat, you first have to HIT the enemy then you gotta ROLL to hit the enemy

[@karihamilton1358]

25:00 Zaric, you should try the Less Generic NPCs project mod series - it effects ~1/2 of the NPCs in the game and gives them personalities and in many cases minor quests. It's basically interesting NPCs from Skyrim, except more comprehensive and without crappy voice acting or companions Link: lgnpc.org/

[@stevengrant4117]

Can you do a video on Daggerfall game mechanics they should bring back? My favorite part about Morrowind is how big the world felt and not in a physical way but I watched a video where you talked about how Daggerfall politics made Morrowind look like a children's game and stuff like courts that judge you and Im very interested in that but I dont know if I want to download Daggerfall since im told you really need to highly mod it to make it accessible. I just want to see if it's good.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Game mechanics talk: Honestly, I feel like the Elder Scrolls stamina system is kind of a non-starter -- it was hideously annoying in Morrowind (I can't speak for Daggerfall, I've only desultorily fucked around in that game), and neutering it for later games improved gameplay. We already have the athletics skill that the player can invest in to improve their ability to run and sprint, I don't think basic moving around needs any more gameplay mechanics than that. Hell, Morrowind plays fine when you mod Fatigue to regenerate while running. It just removes a layer of tedious resource management. I'd probably just dump Fatigue entirely and replace it with a system that only applies in combat. Call it "balance" maybe, that mainly determines how much attacking and blocking you can do? Maybe take some cues from games like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. Give the player some ways to strategically exhaust their opponent's "balance" too -- dodging becomes more worthwhile if a near miss, or getting hit from the side or back, costs your enemy extra "balance". Skyrim kind of attempts this with its combat stamina mechanics, and I feel it's a significant improvement on previous games. The dodging and attack commitment mods you mention also work really well. We'd just need to figure out how to make the system impactful without having everyone staggering constantly... As for armour, I'd like to see a gradient rather than the strict "light/medium/heavy" categories. Armour in the real world doesn't work that way, it's always a tradeoff between mobility, weight, vision, protection, cost...different types of armour could provide different buffs and debuffs and different levels of protection against cuts/stabs/crushing/magic/etc. Then we can replace the "Unarmoured" skill with "Dodge and Parry" or something. Annnnd this is probably heretical, but I'd like to see some sort of XP system rather than strictly learning-by-doing. I imagine the two systems could be combined pretty well -- maybe have skills be learning-by-doing, but put _perks_ on a separate system where you buy them with XP/Learning Points gained through milestones like quests or defeating enemies or achievements? Perks with discrete gameplay effects are cool anyway, we need more of that stuff and less "you now do 5% more damage with short blades". Bethesda have had the right idea there with recent games, even if they've implemented it very poorly. tl;dr: Dump Fatigue, replace with a combat-oriented stat. Make armour gradual and give armour types specific strengths and weaknesses. Separate perks and skill progress and put cool difference-in-kind perks on an XP system that rewards quest completion and other milestones.

[@Nomad_X21]

Hi Zaric! Do you remember/know the name of the map artist of the original retail Morrowind games?

[@LBlueDust]

Your picture is a bit misleading. Also take not that OpenMW is an engine, not a mod. They will not change the game mechanics. That will be the responsibility of modders that can use OpenMW's tools.

[@Thievishaura]

Wait, Im slow can somebody explain to me.... How is this the fifth Title in the elder scrolls series? but at the same time is the 3rd main title game? im so confused.

[@Thievishaura]

wow that's crazy thank you.

[@1B-134]

35:40 That is the best description I've ever heard

[@Yuudaddy]

May Lorkhan bless you for this video or at least Sithis give you a big cold hug.

[@gr3ybrun1x66]

You mean Mephala ,correct?

[@Yuudaddy]

No I mean Lorkhan and he is dead but for the sake of this comment I`ve decided to ignored it.

[@gr3ybrun1x66]

No you said "Sithis"

[@Yuudaddy]

Yeah that is basically a reference from Oblivion. In the end the Dark Brotherhood wants a hug from the Dread Father.