What, specifically, does Morrowind offer that Skyrim does not?
Frank already threw out a short list. To pretend that Skyrim has even a fraction of available character options as Morrowind is either being deliberately argumentative or demonstrates that one never played it. And I'm fairly sure you played it.
But sure lets start off with a generic "pool" stats compared to the more comprehensive stat system in Morrowind. For instant gratification, the ability to be more easily understood by those with less intelligence, and perhaps less frustrating to those with a lack of patience/attention it's great. But every single freaking race is now a virtual twin of every single freaking other race other than a resist and a racial ability. Yes, they are all naturally the same strength, run the same speed, jump the same height, just as hardy as each other...blah blah blah. Yay, Generic for the win.
For those that want have a specific type of hero in mind that they want to roleplay or to represent them in the game/simulation it's severly lacking. The fact that Stamina also affects carry weight isn't intuitive in the least. So everyone with X level of Stamina is the same as a person with X level of Strengh, Y level of Agility, and Z level of speed?
Perhaps I want to play a slow and plodding heavily muscled Knight. Oh wait. NM. Can't do that. EVERYONE moves at the same gdamn speed in Skyrim. EVERYONE has the same gdamn jump height. Which brings me to skills.
No athletics? You mean people in these worlds might not have trained to be a long distance runner? After all sprinting is the only thing "trainable" via Stamina. But that only affects sprint duration since everyone sprints at the same gdamn speed. In the world of Skyrim, EVERYONE is Usein Bolt.
How about merchantile versus speechcraft. A good merchant isn't necessarily a very good speaker. But no, in Skyrim that same merchant running the General Store is also an extraordinary speech writer, diplomat, wooer of women, and whatever else is lumped in there.
Oh hell, and lets eliminate medium armor. It's far far too confusing to players. Oh and blocking as well. Because well EVERYONE is a master at blocking with a shield.
Oh and spears as well. Because those just don't exist in fantasy settings...at all. And yes, no one ever fights hand to hand or unarmored. Sure none of those may have been widely used or incredibly effective, but again in a fantasy simulation to not have them is incredibly lacking.
Spellcrafting? Oh wait, it's not even there. Instead replaced by dualwielding or to put it another way a clunky way to craft spells except your only limited to 2 without the ability to modify any part of them. Smaller pool of possible enchants and less interesting to boot. Less potential types of potions. Less schools of magic, some of the spells being relocated but others just missing entirely.
Birthsigns. Oh how tedious it must be be for short attention span gamers and "I win button" gamers to be tied to something that was set at birth of your character potentially 2 decades before you join him in the virtual world. Much easier to keep the attention spam (snaps fingers), eyes back here your attention was wandering player... As I was saying much easier to keep their interest if you can just change those types of affects willy nilly depending on the whim of the player. I'm sure Samson would have loved not to be tied to the weakness of losing his hair, or Achilles to that damn heel of his.
[edit: adding in} Speaking of which you can't even have a weakness for your character. WTF? Yay for more generic bland sameness as other games.
Geez, one could almost go and on and on and on and on about the way this game is lacking as a TES game.
It did have one notable decent advancement. Perks. But again. The comment of mine in a previous post about 1 step forward and a leap of hundreds of steps backwards. One fantastic addition does not in the least make up for all the subractions to the franchise.
As a small, tightly encompassed, and limited game like Battlespire and Redguard it would have been fantastic. As a TES game, it fails horribly.
And yes, you can certainly argue all of the above is useless and meaningless. Well of course. Just like in Fable you don't even really have visible health/stamina/magic stats. But just like that isn't Fable. Or Fable isn't Skyrim. So is Skyrim not a TES game, IMO, and in the minds of many original TES fans.
Call it, An Elder Scrolls Adventure: Skyrim, and I would have been behind it 100% of the way. But call it TES V: Skyrim, and there are expectations that need to be met, but aren't even remotely close to being met.
Regards,
SB
Anyway I had to skip ahead in the quest while being in a different sport to finish it.
