Fable

[wolf]

When I was at Rich's party this past summer, Dragon17's son had Morrowind running on a TV upstairs. I don't know if I got a good introduction to the game. The graphics were pretty, but the action seemed to involve a lot of walking around and killing people and alienating powerful guilds either by intent or by accident.

I don't know if I'd give that a try.

Of course, I still find Duke Nukem to be fun.

[vsp]

Originally Posted by wolf

When I was at Rich's party this past summer, Dragon17's son had Morrowind running on a TV upstairs. I don't know if I got a good introduction to the game. The graphics were pretty, but the action seemed to involve a lot of walking around and killing people and alienating powerful guilds either by intent or by accident.

I don't know if I'd give that a try.

Of course, I still find Duke Nukem to be fun.

Nothing wrong with Duke.

Morrowind is extremely open-ended; you get off the boat and emerge from the character-creation building with a package, the name and vague location of the recipient of said package, and very little else. You can head off to Balmora and deliver the package to begin the main quest immediately, but there's _absolutely nothing_ compelling you to do so. Caius doesn't care whether you show up with his package on Day 1 as a confused stripling or on Day 245 as a decked-out uberadventurer wielding powerful artifacts, as he'll give you the same entry-level FedEx missions in either case.

Likewise, with the exception of one specific segment of the main quest, the passage of time does not affect your quest significantly (and even that one can be played to your significant advantage if you know how, curing the handicaps that it causes while retaining its benefits). You can pick up the main quest and leave it whenever you feel like, concentrating on other quests, activities or general mucking about the field.

There is a lot of walking around and searching the landscape for particular locations, as many who give you directions to Ancestral Tomb X or Egg Mine Y aren't particularly specific. You will find yourself cursing the Wise Woman who told you something like "it's somewhere to the southeast" on many an occasion. Long-distance travel is aided by boats, striders, Mark/Recall, teleportation mages, Levitation magic, Jump magic, and a particular artifact with negatable side effects that greatly enhances your walking speed.

As for the guilds, they all have something to offer, so it's wise not to piss off any particular one more than is necessary. There's really only one semi-inevitable conflict in the early game (a Fighters' Guild mission that seems likely to get Thieves' Guild members booted), but there are ways around that. The Three Houses are basically oversized guilds, and while you can only become Guildmaster of one of them, you have to work pretty hard to piss any one of them off beyond the point of potential reparation.

I liked it a lot (as well as its expansion packs), as it's one of the few RPGs I've played that didn't hand-hold the PC through a rigidly defined storyline, and not only allowed but actively encouraged exploration outside of the main quest. If you'd rather get down to business quickly instead of digging through mountains and bandit caves randomly looking for adventure, loot or trouble, you can plow right into the main quest, too.

[crossfire]

See the thing is that I love games where you have a variety of missions, but plenty of action in between. Apparently KOTOR isn't like those. How's Xmen legends, what other games fit this. Maybe i'm just better off with action instead of RPG.