u/thedybbuk_

Mechanically, on an engine level, Oblivion and Skyrim accomplished so much more than Morrowind. Physics, combat, animation: Morrowind lacks even a LOD system or inverse kinematics. But they badly regressed in terms of writing, lore, and world-building. The things that matter most to RPGs as a storytelling medium.

There's so much power and energy in Kirkbride's art design and writing.

There's never been a character in TES as well-realised as Vivec. He's an incredibly deeply layered antagonist. He's simultaneously a god, a political ruler, a religious figure, a poet, a murderer, a mythologised historical figure, an unreliable narrator, and a deeply compromised person desperately trying to control the story being told about himself.

What's so brilliant about Vivec is that the game never gives you a clean answer to who he actually is. And the writing actually trusts the player to sit with those contradictions. Vivec isn't just "morally grey" in the modern, flattened sense. He's a character whose entire identity is constructed out of contradictions, and those contradictions are inseparable from the mythology, history, religion and politics of Morrowind itself.

You can peel back layer after layer of Vivec and still find another interpretation underneath. You can read the 36 Lessons multiple times and come away with something completely new from each volume. No character Bethesda has written since has come remotely close to that level of ambition.

It was a creative mistake to move away from that, and Starfield is probably the ultimate result of that shift.

It's incredible that the studio once built entire worlds around artwork like this... https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Michael\_Kirkbride#Gallery

I struggle to remember many of the characters from Skyrim at all...

Mod in the screenshot; https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46342

> There's a part of me that desperately wants to be Neil Young, John Prine or Bob Dylan... We're always looking for 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' or 'Heart of Gold" - Rog

So what happened? No solo album for 25 years? Did his ego take a hit because his solo work sold relatively little compared to the Gilmour-led Pink Floyd releases? Amused to Death sold around 100,000 on release while The Division Bell reached about 12 million. Then again, I would not have thought he cared much about album sales vs artistic integrity. I don't.

Either way, I am just glad we eventually got Is This the Life We Really Want?. There are some absolutely fantastic songs on it, and I would rate it higher than something like Rattle That Lock.

Some unreleased songs like "Each Small Candal" are crazy, crazy good. Up there with peak Floyd for me. Dark, brooding, strange, meaningful, fantastic lyrics. Never had a proper studio release though...

https://youtu.be/XexH1NpjvLU?si=2FTWq8z\_3HdkNA\_I