Well, the M72 light anti-armor weapon packs a nice little whallop. Why the riff-raff prefer those damn Rusky RPG-7s to this I’ll never know.
Of course, nothing beats the M136 AT-4, in my book.
I don’t remember my specs when I was playing it but they weren’t the minimum. And the specs you have are way above normal when it first came out. It would have been cutting edge at the time if not more.
You forgot Fallout (how many nonlinear role playing games can you name that I haven’t mentioned I liked? Name some and we’ll see where I fall. :D) . I’ll bring up X2:The Threat it’s not a role playing game by any means but the story actually detracts from how fun and non-linear the game is. However ‘whatever you want to do’ doesn’t really work in Morrowind because whatever I wanted to do is pretty much a quest. I can’t build an army and take over the nation for example. I can’t start a business selling goods. I’m looking for quests gosh darn it and I expect to be able to do them.
I started playing it on a p3 800 with a TNT2 card. That was pretty near the minimum, and while I couldn’t run in high res like I can now, I neve experienced long load times. I honestly have no idea what could have caused the problems you experienced. Low RAM, maybe?
Actually, Fallout (and Fallout2), while they allow you to go off the path, or more precisely to skip steps of it, are still pretty linear. There is a main questline and you either follow it or don’t, and there is a defined end to the game. Morrowind is different, in that the main questline is about 20% of the available content. Also, many of the quests can be completed in various ways. At one point, you (may) get a quest to go get a potion from Person A and bring it back to Person B. FedEx quest, right? Sort of. Any potion (of the right type) will work, so you can get it from Person A, steal it or buy it somewhere else, and so on.
There really aren’t a lot of games that offer the kind of nonlinearity that Morrowind does. It sounds like it’s not your cup of tea.
Okay ‘whatever you want to do’ is kind of an overstatement. The game is mostly defined by quests. You do get a lot of leeway in deciding what you want to do – follow the main questline, become head of the Thieves Guild, Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Imperial Legion, Imperial Church, Tribunal Temple, Morag Tong (Assassins Guild), one of the three Great Houses (Telvanni, Hlaalu, Redoran)…
I understand the frustration with one quest not working. I think you’re missing out on a great game because of it.
I’ll go ahead and also recommend Neverwinter Nights.
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Great and large community.
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HUGE number of downloadable mods (adventures) for single and multi-player.
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Large number of persisten worlds (Like MMORPG’s on a smaller scale) for free.
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The toolset in and of itself can be a great diversion. Creating your own adventures is not only fun (if a little frustrating at first, learning the system) but a great satisfaction.
Snorrowind was the only game where I fell asleep while playing. I’ve tried several times to get into it, but I just don’t find playing a virtual mail carrier fun at all. Jeez what a boring game, it’s like playing an MMORPG without any other players.
Gearhead! It’s an ascii-based mech-based roguelike game. Think Mechwarrior: Crescent Hawk’s Inception on steroids.
My guess is the video card. I first played on a Athlon 1800+ with a 64Meg on-board AGP video and Morrowind was almost painfully slow. I got back into it after putting in a 128Meg Radeon 9200 AGP and found a huge improvement. There’s an almost imperceptible slowdown with everything cranked to the max but otherwise it’s smooth as silk.
Oh, and so far the only problem I had with a quest is when I somehow missed a signpost and went off in the wrong direction. That’s when I ended up helping a pilgrim in search of a shrine near a farm.
I was thinking about it and my setup would have been 1.1 Ghz Athlon with 256MB Cas 2 ram and a Geforce2 Ultra. I typically try to play at 1024x768 I don’t remember if Morrowind has shadows but I always turn them off if the option is there. I always adjusted the fog fairly far out because I had little slowdown walking around or in town. Only between sectors did the game grind to a halt.
Anyway it’s kind of silly to declare Morrowind a genre upon itself and then declare I don’t like that genre. I have stacks of RPGs I’ve liked in the past Morrowind is one of the few I never bothered finishing because of pure frustration. I have plenty of games I’d consider non-linear that I’ve loved. Even if it’s your favorite game in the world you have to admit (especially when it was first released) it had problems and deficiencies for me they made me lose interest in the game. For you some weren’t there others you coped with and loved the game.
As for Fallout 2 saying it was linear is ridiculous. 
There was what? 10,000 things you could do outside of the main storyline. I’d wager that it has about the same 20% ratio you mentioned for Morrowind. And there was usually at least 3 different ways to solve each quest with different long term/short term consequences. Morrowind is just a heck of a lot bigger with less info on how to accomplish your tasks.
Got hooked on Morrowind, but never finished it.
Play a lot of NWN- good, but… Linear. At least the modules I have for it are.
Arcanum will always hold a special place in my heart. Victorian steampunk and magic, what’s not to like? Also, not only is it (slightly) less linear than most, but it was the first game I played where the endgame was pretty dependant on what you did durring the game, even the little stuff (who knew that crackpot gnome in the first village really -did- know what he was talking about!!)
I don’t like morrowind that much either. It was fun for a month, but quickly got boring.
The conversations are all painfully boring for some reason.
I loved Baldur’s Gate 2, so I guess I’d recommend that.
I have NeverWinter Nights, but haven’t beaten it. I think I’ll go back to it now.
Can you guys recommend some NWN mods or at least websites? I’d wait until I beat the game to ask, but by then my free trial here will have run out.
I suggest you start at the Bioware page, then follow the links at the bottom. I’ve found that the user ratings are a good measure of quality, provided there are enough opinions in the average.
A couple of people already mentioned Baldur’s Gate 2 and I’d like to reemphasize it. Despite being rather old (2000) its prerendered graphics still hold up very well and it’ll run on just about any machine bought within the last 4 years. It is a solid RPG with many fun quests and a great plot. Also after playing it through for the third time a little while ago I to much amazement realized that it has a very engaging and moving plot. I say if you are looking for some highly polished brick and mortar honest to god AD&D action go with this gem of an RPG
Thank you, Murcielago.
Baldur’s Gate 2 definitely has a lot of replayability. I tried to play again being evil but I couldn’t do it though. It’s just so unsatisfying to be mean to everyone.
My favorites have already been mentioned: Baldurs gate 1 is good, lots of fun. But 2 really rocks, I found myself wishing I could find another sidequest just to keep it from ending.
Same with Knights of the Old Republic, I hear there may be a sequel.
Planscape Torment: Wow, just wow. Play this game!
Morrowind: Playing it now, there is just so much to do.
It hasn't been mentioned, but I like Arcanum. The steampunk/ fantasy game. Had a few bugs, and the storyline really wasn't all that great. But it still had a sort of charm about it.What I said:
"There really aren’t a lot of games that offer the kind of nonlinearity that Morrowind does. It sounds like it’s not your cup of tea. "
I don’t think this rises to either (a) declaring it a genre unto itself or (b) declaring that you don’t like that genre. But hey, whatever. I think this is enough of a hijack of the thread.
Back on topic…
Baldur’s Gate is indeed a great game. I recommend it heartily. The sequel is almost as good, and is now available with its expansion for all of $19.99.
Knights of the Old Republic is an excellent game. Star Wars and D&D together, mmm mmm good.
Sacred is a Diablo II-esque game that’s out now. I played the demo, and it’s, um, Diablo II-esque. 
Heh this is what you said:
“There really aren’t a lot of games that offer the kind of nonlinearity that Morrowind does. It sounds like it’s not your cup of tea.”
“I can see why you don’t like it if you’re not into detail. It’s an order of magnitude more richly detailed than any of the games you reference” (this one bugs me. If Morrowind is the only game that embodies the traits you mention how can I ever provide counter examples of games I like that have those traits?)
"One of the key aspects of the game is exploration and depth. If you don’t like deep, detailed games, then Morrowind is not for you. "
“but that may simply be a style difference – I really enjoy exploring and finding things out.”
So I don’t like exploring, finding things out, depth, open ended, non linear, and richly detailed. I’m just pointing out that’s not true. I just didn’t like Morrowind.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet but System Shock 2 has RPG elements and is tons of fun. There’s a graphics update on the net that makes the first 1/2 of the game look TONS better as well. (I don’t think the second 1/2 has been released or ever will be but hey it’s better then nothing)
Dungeon Siege and Diablo 2 are vastly different than any of the Bioware products (Baldur’s Gate 2, Torment, etc…). The closet thing out now to what you’ve played is Sacred. Let me ask you this: What aspect of those two games did you like?
System Shock 2 is a simply awesome game. Even without the graphics upgrade. It’s much more of an FPS-like game than some may be looking for in an RPG. I enjoyed the heck out of it, though.
As KidCharlemagne asks… what about Dungeon Siege did you like?
Actualy, I must have conveyed my request poorly, because I’m looking for sometnhing different, unique. These were fun enough, but I don’t want more of the same old same old.
Then I’d go with Baldur’s Gate II.