Agree.

Elder scrolls games certainly have their good points (immersive environments mostly) but they've never held my interest for very long.

Now that I am discovering some of the classic RPG series through GOG, the elder scrolls is looking worse and worse. I'm almost glad I never previously played Ultima or M&M or lands of lore before so I can play them for the first time now.

I reccomend buying any one of the highly rated RPGs on this site and maybe once you've finished them all you can go play elder scrolls.

Thing is, though, that TES games are basically completely different games than those. They're less about the story and more about the sandbox interaction with the world and the exploration. I personally immensely respect games like Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Fallout, and Planescape. But those games never really scratched the same itch that Morrowind has, simply because Morrowind has no qualms about letting you break it through your actions or completely disregard its plot in favor of going off on your own to explore (and yes, I played all those games first).

All that being said, I'm still very confused about how the franchise ever gained the sort of mass appeal that it has. To me, Morrowind is the very definition of a niche game. Its disregard of traditionally important elements like plot and precise balance, and acceptance of less marketable elements like exploration and ridiculously vast sandbox possibilities makes me wonder why it's as popular as it is.

Yeah I wasn't knocking TES as a whole. Morrowind if my favorite game of all time and I think Skyrim is amazing.

I haven't played skyrim but is oblivion really that different from morrowind and the other elder scrolls games? especially in terms of dialogue and story.

Yes, it is. Oblivion is gash. Have you played Fallout 3? Remember the idiotic writing, horrendously stupid storyline, laughable voice actors, a completely broken game in terms of balance? Oblivion is Fallout 3 with swords.
Without trying to be overly pedantic (too late), Oblivion is essential Fallout 3.

As for the OP, do not skip Tribunal, even if it involves annoying encounters with said villains in the early part of the game. Personally, for me Tribunal had the best storyline out of Morrowind and its expansions.

It's the single-player MMO experience.

MMOs sacrifice story-telling, plot and exquisite environments for the ability to let people play as they want to play. The most popular MMOs are largely sandbox games as far as I can tell, with players choosing what to do when and where, and the activities usually fall along the same lines as activities in real life: Get Stuff, Fight Others, Learn/Explore. Anyone who knows fanfiction can state with absolute assurance that the vast majority of people couldn't recognize a coherent plot if they were smacked with one, and most of the people who can tell just don't bother. Story in games isn't as important if there's something else to be the central motivation for playing. Sandbox games let the player decide what the motivation is, and I'm pretty sure everyone appreciates that.

People always talk about MMOs being great because of friends/guilds/etc. But when actual players talk about actual MMO social interactions, they're usually full of complaints. A lot of the chatter/activity in MMOs is actually directed around getting items, PvP/raids and exploring. Elder Scrolls has exploring, combat and item-gathering without requiring an Internet connection (pre-Steam) and with a better atmosphere since each player isn't competing with tons of other players for the same quests/items/achievements. Modding provides new content and an invested community just like an MMO will have regular content updates and an actively-maintained community.

I think Elder Scrolls games grew out of the same urges that have made MMOs so popular.

Oh yes. The only thing I wanted at the end of Tribunal was the option to replay it and change the outcome. I was upset when I found out there wasn't a mod that would let me do that. The story actually got me invested. It does feel very, very different than the rest of Morrowind, though. Bloodmoon is more similar to the original game.

Morrowind is not a writing tour de force but it is massively better than Oblivion. Perhaps more importantly it has amazing lore and a world you want to explore. Oblivion was blandy-bland-bland.

Skyrim is sort of between the two, but very good compared to Oblivion.

Morrowind was a very good game, I think probably my favorite in the series just because of how otherworldly it was. Comparing to the fourth and fifth game, it's hard to believe that it exists in the same world. Except for Dragons, Cyclops and Mammoths, I don't know anything of the creatures in the fifth game unique from the others. But Morrowind has creatures both in the air, in the water and on land to surprise you, and every enemy is as common as the next (Meaning yes, you can get your ass handed to you if you wander somewhere past your skill).

Tribunal, yes, very very hard even when you're somewhat leveled. Most of the missions have characters with powerful and overwhelming enchantments, and in all my tries I've not been able to defeat the final character of Tribunal despite having 3 elemental shields, as many buffing potions as I could bring with me, several scrolls and magics that make me harder to hit. And there's someone about 3 quarters through the missions who's practically as powerful but with less health. The assassin's do help in leveling however.

By the way, here's an easy way to deal with the original assassin in the PC version if you start with a new character: He usually waits until you've left the first town at least for a little bit. If you gather some items and gold and freebies around the village and go into the nearby caverns just past the Stilt Rider platform, then you can get a couple better weapons if you can beat the first person. Equip whatever is best suited to your character at the moment, and then go back to the shop and buy a summon skeleton. Rest outside the town, wait for him to appear, summon skeleton, use whatever attack magics you started with to weaken him and finish him with your weapons. Retreat into town if you have to and try to force him to stall around corners and people.

I think one problem is the requirement for a mass market game to have no reading what so ever without a voice over.

Some of the older games (elder scrolls included) would have narration describing certain events in more detail then could ever be simulated. And the amount of dialogue in Planescape: Torment for example, is impossible when it all needs to have voice acting.

Just a note here, but with Tribunal installed, as soon as you go to Ebonheart and talk to Apelles Matius, the assassins stop attacking you. So you really only HAVE to fight one of them. Alternatively you could just save before resting... the attacks are random and won't happen every time.

Really though, you should visit Mournhold relatively early, if only for the vendors there. The various merchants in the Bazaar and Godsreach have a lot more gold on hand than most of the Vvardenfell merchants, so you're more likely to get a good deal selling expensive items... without having to resort to shenanigans (like stockpiling Indoril armor for Creeper). Most of the actual quests there are aimed for high-level players, though, so be careful about picking fights with folks. And yes, Tribunal does have some of the best story in TES, and it's fun to boot, once you're ready.


edit:
Oblivion and Skyrim can cheat a little because a lot of the lore is in readable books, but this is still very very true. You can still have depth, but only if they're linear single-story games like what Bioware does, or movie-games like the Metal Gear Solids. Railroading allows a tighter and deeper story to be voiced, because there are very few (if any) options. For big open-ended games, though, it quickly becomes very prohibitive from both cost and disk space perspectives.

As a comparison, Wizardry 7 has a good bit of really neat text in it, some of which is remarkably deep. There's not a LOT of it, but what it has is pretty excellent, and the game is still extremely atmospheric, especially considering how primitive the graphics are. Wizardry 8, with better graphics and everything voiced, is substantially more shallow all around. It's still a good game, but it doesn't have the same sort of magic to it that 7 does.

This!

Maybe I'm reaching a little bit high here, but the conclusion of the Tribunal storyline was the closest any game ever game to Planescape. I was really shocked.

Morrowind had a great story and even greater lore. You had to "work" for it however. Reading ingame books, talking with non essential characters etc. But once the whole thing unfolded it was just beautiful. Few games ever game close.

Hmm sounds promising. Maybe I need to give morrowind another go some time. I remember a lot of the game mechanics but its been a long time and I can't really remember the story/lore.

I probably just did the whole, "rush through and level up as fast as I can" style of play

Well to me Morrowind is pretty much a lifestyle. It's that gritty old world that I find to be the easiest to immerse myself in. The people of Vvardenfell are mysterious and eccentric, the landscape fantastical and outlandish, the towns familiar and comfortable, the lore pervasive and deep, the factions many and convoluted, and the cliff racers loud and annoying. It's home on my hard drive.

I cannot predict what it will be like for you, but I recommend finding that out for yourself.

Just wanted to respond to comments about Oblivion..

OK, we get it. Oblivion was a step down. Does that have to be brought up in every single Elder Scrolls thread? I've yet to finish off the main quest line and any guild quest line because I keep restarting, and I'd like to finish the damn thing for once without being made to feel bad for doing so.