Willing Suspension of Disinterest

[the_gneech]

Last night I picked up Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition, which basically consisted of Morrowind and its two expansions all as one set. I figured that since I will soon (I hope) reach the end of Temple of Elemental Evil, it'd be good to do something a little more adventure-gamey, and a little less tactical-simulationey.

The selling point of Morrowind is its large scale immersiveness ... your custom-made character is dropped in town and you have the whole world to wander around and play in as you see fit. You can be brave and heroic, evil and devious, or scholarly and pacifistic, whatever floats your boat. There are plots to get involved in if you wish, but you don't have to. For that matter, you could walk from one end of the world to the other and never talk to anybody. (You'd probably have to fight off some monsters, but that's another story.)

It sounds really cool on paper, and on an intellectual level, it is. But after an evening of getting my bearings, I found myself reminded of the "U-View" from Mystery Science Theater 3000: a TV invented by the mad scientists that showed you what you would be out doing if you weren't at home watching TV.

(Frank: "Wow, I'm playing tennis with Christina Aguilera! She's giving me a great big kiss! My life is GREAT!")

After all the complaining I do about how I don't have time to write my own stories, do I really want to spend the precious few hours I do have wandering around in somebody else's fantasy world? Books, movies, heck even more convential CRPG's cut out the hours and hours of nonproductive time between scenes because, really, that time is wasted.

For that matter, do I want to bother spending the time needed for my barbarian to practice with his axe, when I could actually spend that time practicing real, live kung fu?

I dunno ... there was a time when I would have thought Morrowind was the bee's knees. Now, I'm not sure that my time isn't more precious.

-The Gneech

Comments

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's all in where our true interests lie. Whereas you spent the time to get to the point where you are almost done with TOEE, I've played only a little of that, finding it difficult to get into. OTOH, you are meeting disinterest in Morrowind, a game I spent hours upon hours devouring. In truth, I made three characters, and took them to a decently high level, with the last one being my final primary one. The first two were learning expeirences, first with the world and how it worked, then with building and developing a character and how that worked.

Given Morrowind's vast nature and complicated nature, one needs a constant score card to remember what one was doing, what one had done and what one was intending to get to cause without one, it's really hard to take time off and then try and go back. I have no idea what I was doing, can't remember what I had done and am not sure what I have yet to get to (that I wanted to get to).

With all three peices (morrowind and the two expansions), there are three main stories to explore and hundreds of thousands of subplots. But if you have a style of play that you keep trying to get other games to let you play, this one will not only permit you, but have a fair amount of interesting things for you to learn, discover, explore and do in that style.

This suddenly makes me want to find out just what I was doing last in that game. I'm sure my character misses me badly. -Frisk

[blackthornglade.livejournal.com]

I was *very* disappointed with Morrowind. I've installed it half a dozen times, updated, patched, downloaded all up to date drivers on my system, and the game *STILL* freezes and refuses to play. I'm rather disgusted by it, truth to tell. I enjoyed Daggerfall a great deal and was looking forward to this one.

If you're looking for adventure style games and haven't given it a try...get Neverwinter Nights and the two expansion packs (but don't install the expansions till you're done with the main game. You can't go backwards.) I've been *very* happy with this game.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Got Neverwinter Nights and got bored about 2/3 of the way through (right after whassname the Paladin Poster Babe had her big conversion). I think that has more to do with the way standard D&D breaks down around 8th level, than with the game itself, tho.

-The Gneech

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

At least it is a fantasy world. People play The Sims. Lots and lots of people play The Sims. I don't understand it.