I just figured out that I cannot do too many things at the same time. And that when I work on something I just lose completely the perception of the time. But I love when it happens and I’m so absorbed by something. I wish it could never stop because it makes me feel good. Learning new things, toying with them, experiment, swear against everyone because I broke something. Then rinse and repeat. Oh, I so love it.

Anyway, after two days of full immersion in Morrowind and nothing else than Morrowind, I logged in WoW to update my trackers (btw, Mannoroth 64.23%, Medivh 71.65%), and I was like “Whoa!”. I felt as if I logged in Toon Town. All at the sudden the graphic I loved so much became total shit. Like if it was a completely different game I never saw before. I really couldn’t swallow it. Everything was so flat, blocky, completely devoid of any appeal.

I always liked the graphic and style in WoW but during these two days I rediscovered how absolutely stunning the graphic in Morrowind is. It’s still *unmatched* right now and you really feel like the time didn’t pass AT ALL for the game.. There isn’t any fantasy-themed game out there, mmorpg or single player, that can be considered on par or even near the same quality. MW has still, by far, the best skybox I’ve ever seen. The nights are marvelous and all the lighting in the game is superb. It changes so much based on the time of the day, weather and zone. It’s really the ultimate “world” simulation and it demonstrates how the graphic can be effective to immerse the player in the game and feel within a believable, self-consistent world. Travelling is incredible, the style of each zone and the architecture of the buildings is just pure art and talent. From this perspective the guys at Bethesda are the best out there. Without a doubt.

Digging in the structure of the game through the toolset I also got a better idea about how incredibly HUGE is the game. There is an insane number of NPCs and objects and I also slowly started to appreciate how the overall design and structure of the game. I can finally see the wheels of the game, the logic that makes it work, the distinction between generic tools and the specific detail. How you could mix or balance your choices. Or toy with them for different results. It is really powerful and open to many possibilities. It’s sad that the game was ruined by some awful choices in the gameplay (insane missing rates, annoying combat, database indexers instead of “characters”, “cliffracers” and generally awful MOBs AI and behaviour, no schedules for NPC, rather sterile and pointless dungeons.. And I could continue for long).

I’m highly skeptical about Oblivion, though. From a side this new full immersion in MW taught me again how talented are the guys at Bethesda and what kind of amazing things they can build, from the other I could also see some very basic flaws that could have been easily avoided to make a SO much better game (mostly the character managment/progression and the mechanics of the combat). MW is so incredibly huge that you wouldn’t believe it’s replicable. It’s like a one-time event. You just cannot imagine the devs restarting from zero and redo all that work. It’s insane. Oblivion will probably focus on the smaller things, trying to do less but do it better. Experimenting with some new ideas (the AI patterns and physics) while refining all the elements that were already part of MW. Some concepts are interesting and some concepts are less. There’s a thread on Q23 that already lets you anticipate what will be the weak points of Oblivion, if you have some insight. I can safely say that the new experiments with the physics, and the AI will probably be the weaker points, while what didn’t work in MW will do a step forward, making a better game overall. Many will complain about Oblivion not being on par with MW in the mood and sheer scope. Oblivion will try to automatize many aspects. While the new tools are powerful and have lots of potential, something will still feel missing. I’m more then sure it will be a great game, but I’m also sure that it will open so many “what if” about things that could have been possible but finished to be rather deluding. It is promising so much but not everything will work smoothly or will be polished and solid enough. It’s another of those projects with a huge ambition and scope, and not everything will go as expected, some part will be weaker and neglected. Waiting the next project to be analyzed again and better explored.

But isn’t this the fun of making games and the fun to play and discover new possibilities? You always build on top of what you learnt before. Always doing a step forward and experiment with what didn’t really work in the previous attempt.

For now I’ll continue to collect/test/edit the mods for MW. I feel already at a good point and I’m starting to edit some of the stuff more heavily to tweak the balance. At least for what is possible. Most of my ideas to improve the game are beyond the scope of my skills and beyond what’s possible to do with the toolset, most likely.

Btw, it seems like I forgot that mmorpgs exist. The single-player RPGs can be so much more immersive and addicting on their own. I miss so much to be in one of these worlds, exploring them at my pace, enjoying the discovery and knowing that everything is accessible for me. Instead of wasting an incalculable number of hours in a mmorpg, chasing goals that I don’t really feel interesting, not seem to offer me something worthwhile. But that I have to do to remain at my place and not be left out from the massive brainwashing. And, despite all the effort, always feeling “at loss”. Always seeing clearly that you have achieved nothing at all and are still behind whatever the goal is supposed to be. What the hell.

That’s something unique that the mmorpgs will never be able to capture: a distant word where you are alone. Alone with the world. Alone and ready to immerse yourself, forget about the time, forget about other people, forget about someone saying what you have to do, or time constraints because you have to compete with someone else. You are completely alone with a world in your hands, waiting for you to discover it. Waiting for your exploration, discovery and enjoyment.