Apothos

When people say the U.S. is horrible and warmongering I really hope they're not talking about the country as a whole. Tons of people in the U.S. are really tired of how militaristic we are and equally tired of how negatively the rest of the world seems to view us. The huge amount of old farts in congress are mostly to blame, not the actual U.S. people. We want all that military money to go towards education and infrastructure but it just doesn't seem to be happening and it's hard to figure out why. Probably because our government seems obsessed with sticking their noses in external affairs and can't withdraw because doing so would cause turmoil.

Eh...I don't know. I'm just frustrated at feeling like I'm being blamed for causing bloodshed.

On topic: North Korea is weird.

Spaaaace. I love space. Spaceships are cool. Spaceships fighting spaceships is cooler.

I rarely hear Sins of a Solar Empire spoken about. It needs some recognition.

I should preface this by saying I've never played any other space rts games before Sins. I picked it up maybe two years ago after getting a craving to watch giant fleets of spaceships blow each other to pieces. I did a little research before hand trying to find what the best space rts was and I was surprised to see how few of them there actually were. The only games that popped out at me were Homeworld 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire. I watched gameplay videos of each and ultimately decided on Sins.

And man did Sins scratch that space warfare itch. You can field fleets of hundreds of ships led by powerful (although smaller than I would have liked) capital ships. Manage planets you conquer and build defenses to stave off invading enemies while your fleet is off bombarding new planets to conquer. There's unmatched exhilaration when sending your massive fleet to an enemy held planet only to find it defended by a fleet equally matched in size and fire power to yours and watching in wonder as the two collide. Destroying a capital ship results in an explosion the size of what seems like 100 nuclear bombs and you feel a sense of loss when that capital ship is your own.

It's a slow game unless you crank the speed up to 2x (still easy to manage your fleets and economy while not having to wait nearly as long for your ships to reach the edge of gravity wells). Depending on the number of systems and size of each system, matches can last anywhere from a few hours to days. If you don't have the patience for rts matches to last that long then this game isn't for you.

I just want to talk about all the cool things in this game! The expansions add quite a bit more depth to the experience with Entrenchment allowing you to build Star Bases, massive constructs half the size of a planet that can take on entire fleets when fully upgraded, and allowing you to upgrade your defensive structures (a big problem with the vanilla version of Sins was defensive structures being pretty useless. You were afraid to foray into enemy territory because it would leave your own planets effectively defenseless even if you did have 35 Beam Arrays "protecting" it). If you jumped to a planet guarded by a fully upgraded Star Base be ready to lose a lot of ships unless your own ships are fully upgraded as well. Star Bases just made you go, "Oh....shit."

The most recent expansion, Rebellion, splits the three major factions into 6 factions. Two new factions for each major faction (Rebels and Loyalist). Both the rebel and loyalist factions of a major faction share the same technologies but have a few differences when it comes to the skill trees and, probably the most exciting change in Rebellion, Titans. Titans are aptly named; these ships are larger than Star Bases (not necessarily as powerful though) and level up like your capital ships. Think of a titan as your capital capital ship. Your flagship. It feels like it too. Your titan feels powerful because it is. Most have around 5 or 6 different weapons at their disposal while most capital only have 3. Masses of missiles fly out of one titan, another fires a massive gauss cannon that drowns out any other weapons fire sound when said weapon is fired (the cannon basically is the ship. It looks like a giant flying cannon). Titans take a lot of resources and time to make. It makes sense why when you finally unleash it in battle for the first time. It feels like you're controlling a god.

I've only scratched the surface on the depth of this game. Mostly conveying the spectacle aspects. There's a lot to it besides that of course. Diplomacy plays a factor in matches if you want it to (you can switch diplomacy off if you're not into that kind of thing) and resource management is incredibly important. Setting up trade routes, upgrading your economy as well as your ships and weapons. This game is complicated but probably much easier to jump in to than other space sims. It helps that the tutorial isn't half bad either.

So if you were willing to read up to this point, share your thoughts on Sins of a Solar Empire! Did you love it, hate it? Or is it something you're interested in but haven't picked up yet? I want this game to get the recognition I feel it deserves.

@ll_Exile_ll said:

What is with the abundance of new accounts lately who are perplexed about not being blown away by decade plus old games after playing them for the first time in 2013? I'll say the same thing here that I've said in the other threads.

It is impossible to have the same appreciation for something playing it well after the fact as those who played it when it was new. Especially if you've played improved sequels first.

It's the same reason why I couldn't really get into the first Persona game, despite loving P3 and P4. It's just not the same playing something that old for the first time in 2013, and even more so if you've played subsequent games in the series previously. There is no secret element of the game you are missing, no hidden moment where your opinion will do a 180. Sometimes you'll just have to accept that you missed your opportunity to truly enjoy a specific game that many hold as a classic.

Obviously it is still possible to make an effort and find some enjoyment out of Morrowind, or in my case Persona, but being able to pick it up and immediately love it is usually not in the cards in these types of situations, especially when you go in with the attitude of "I am going to find out why people love this game so much." I am amazed that people still can't understand this.

EDIT: I am not making a judgement based on the fact that you are a new account, only pointing out that there have been several other instances of threads similar to this one (but with a different game as the topic) recently that also had new accounts as the OP.

I've been coming to the site for years but never really cared to make an account until now. My want to love Morrowind spurred me to make the account and seek advice and give my current thoughts on it. I don't read threads much so I didn't know new accounts being made was such an issue. Not trying to start anything, I was legitimately curious as to why Morrowind was so beloved when I couldn't find it after 10 hours of gameplay.

Now that I actually have an account I'm going to pay more attention to the forums and share insight etc and generally contribute to the community.

Sorry if this is an issue.

Also, I love older games. Another reason why I was so interested in Morrowind was because it wouldn't be as polished as modern games and would have incredibly different systems. Morrowind just happens to not be a game for me. I'm not saying it's bad at all. It's just personal taste. I played Oblivion at least 5 times. Oblivion is sort of my Morrowind. I love it to pieces. It's more in the vein of morrowind than skyrim so I was perplexed as to why I couldn't get into morrowind.

Also, you come off as incredibly hostile in your post. It's a little deterring and makes me feel like I need to defend myself.

Thanks for the help everyone! I don't want to keep bashing my head against the game hoping something will eventually click. Glad I finally decided to ask.

So the consensus seems to be I just missed my opportunity to play it. If there's really nothing I'm missing then I guess I'm done with it. The world is great but it can't hold me if there's not a whole lot to do in it besides cast levitate 100 for 60 seconds and zoom around (just an example on the customization)

@cruxking said:

its just the winds of change. older games just wont hold up forever, even if you try your hardest to forget all you know about modern game design it's still in your head all the time making you judge things. take for example the fact that you dont always hit things in morrowind. You can aim right at an enemy and swing but that doesnt mean a guaranteed hit. acceptable at the time but if a game did that now it would be looked upon harshly. its little things like that that will make enjoying morrowind kind of difficult without nostalgia. (kind of, not completely)

weapons missing was a little jarring at first but it's just something I got used to. plus if you start out pumping points into agility it's never much of an issue.

@ArbitraryWater said:

Why did you pay $19 for Morrowind? It's like $5 every other week or whatever. It took me a while to "get" Morrowind, but when I did I started enjoying it (only for Skyrim to immediately come out and distract me and I haven't been back since). It still has the whole "explore everything" thing that one would expect from an Elder Scrolls, but it's a slower, more deliberate game with a lot more old RPG-isms. If it's not for you, it's not for you, but I finally did see part of what made the game so enthralling back in 2002.

I'd had my eye on it for a week but there was never a sale so I just decided to go for it.

@emkeighcameron said:

MORROWIND IS GREAT AND YOU'RE A BAD PERSON FOR HATING IT

OK, it's old as hell and probably doesn't hold up anymore. But at the time, it was pretty sweet. I wouldn't play it again myself (with Skyrim/Oblivion being available now) but I played it 2-3 times, including expansions, when it first came out.

You have to see it as a history lesson, not a modern game. It was a fantastic step forward when it came out, and it set the standard of all its successors.

So I just missed my opportunity to enjoy it? That's disappointing.

Now, I didn't create this as a Morrowind is crap vs. Morrowind is better than skyrim and oblivion thread.

There are parts of Morrowind I enjoy.

I love how there are no quest markers. Characters usually say. "That thing is north I think but I could be slightly off." It makes you explore instead of going in a straight line like oblivion and skyrim do.

I like reading the dialogue as well.

Also man do I love the actual world. Morrowind has such a different feel from oblivion and skyrim. I would find dungeons and stuff because an area looked interesting and just happened to have a dungeon in it. The lack of the compass from the other games made what I would find unexpected. I didn't know if there would be anything in that valley or grove of tree sized mushrooms but damned if I wasn't going to find out.

Ever since I picked up Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion I'd heard how amazing Morrowind was. But I never even considered buying it because, well, I had Oblivion. It didn't really interest me.

Fast forward six years or so to a bored me staring at Morrowind on Steam. $19.00...okay fine I'll buy it and see what's so amazing about it.

First thoughts: man this game looks like a pile of rancid ass leavings. So I go to the Morrowind page here on giant bomb remembering seeing lists of mods to make it look less awful. Eventually settled on the all-in-one graphics and sound overhaul.

Now before I talk about that overhaul I should say that Morrowind runs terribly on my computer. This laptop is less than a month old.

Specs:

-AMD A10-4600M cpu

-AMD Radeon HD 7979 / 2GB GDDR5 graphics card (it's supposed to be one of the best on the market but also affordable)

-15.6" screen, 1920x1080

-DDRIII 8GB of ram

-Operating system is Windows 8 (sadly)

-Overall it cost me about $1200

The framerate when in outdoor environments even with the sight distance set as low as possible was sub 25fps at all times. When I moved it sank below 20fps. Indoors wasn't an issue with 60fps at all times. My understanding of computers isn't great but I can run skyrim on this laptop on ultra settings at a constant 60fps no matter where I am in the world and no matter what I'm doing so I don't exactly understand how this is an issue.

The overhaul made Morrowind look wonderful and actually bumped my fps up to 30 outdoors. However graphical glitches popped up everywhere. If there was no light source on specific textures (say a section of a floor or hallway) it would be pitch black. Not just the floor but everything in the area. I couldn't see anything. If I didn't bring a torch I was walking blind checking my map every two seconds to make sure I wasn't walking into a wall. Enemies could still see perfectly in those pitch black abysses, though, so occasionally I would get hit from somewhere in the darkness and I would have to run back into a lit area so I could see what was attacking me. As I said, graphical glitches everywhere but that was the worst. Not game breaking.

Okay, finally to my main point! I'm just...not having fun with Morrowind. I had to restart after the graphics overhaul because saves made before it were corrupted. But over the two characters I played as (maybe 9 or 10 hours of time played) I couldn't find what made it so spectacular in the eyes of so many. I purposefully avoided guides and outside information so I could find the wonder for myself. But now I'm here asking, "what is it I'm missing?"

I joined the fighter's guild and thieves guild but the quests were so boring; mostly just, "go here and clear out this cave." or "go here and steal this thing." (I never got farther than maybe 6 or so quests in the fighter's guild because my saves corrupted and I wasn't up to playing through them again). I only started the main quest line yesterday because I wasn't sure what Caius (or whoever) meant by, "come back when you've gained notoriety." I just decided to talk to him again at level 10 and got a quest.

The combat is fine. I don't expect much from elder scrolls games. Although do I REALLY hate the stun system. A few times (mostly against enemies using 2-handed weapons, paralyze enchants+dagger, or fists) I would be eternally stunlocked. I couldn't do anything! I would fall down, stare at the ground for 5 seconds (or stare at my enemy for 10 seconds if they were using paralyze), get up, then get knocked down again immediately. I had to skip any enemy capable of doing this. Am I missing something? Is there some way to get out of these stunlocks or paralyzes? They seem broken at times especially with the hand-to-hand fighters.

tl;dr I need guidance on the aspects of Morrowind that seem to set it apart from Oblivion and Skyrim. I want to enjoy it but currently I feel like I could have used that $19.00 on something else.