So I bought and downloaded Morrowind yesterday.

It’s the third game in the same series of games that Skyrim is in, a series called The Elder Scrolls. Skyrim is the fifth (and apparently last) game in that series.

I decided to get the game so that I would have something besides Skyrim to play that would not be too different from it.

And that is sort of what I got. But also, not.

Predictably, it’s a great deal less sophisticated than Skyrim, and I am not just talking about the graphics. It takes way way longer to get around in Morrowing than Skyrim because there is no Fast Travel function which lets me, in Skyrim, teleport to places I have been before.

Nope. You walk most places or you don’t get there. You can pay a mage to teleport between towns and board a giant insect called a Silt Strider to move between continents, but it’s not the same.

But that would not be so bad if it wasn’t for another factor : destinations are not marked on my map. Instead, I get directions to where I am supposed to go and I haaaate (and suck at) following directions.

To me, one of the most dreaded phrases in the English language is “you can’t miss it”.

Want to bet?

And I am not much for wandering and exploring, especially when the landscape is highly repetitive and devoid of landmarks like in Morrowind. That just increases my sense of disorientation and makes me want to flee to the last place I’ve been that was an actual place.

Usually a town.

And this map thing is a major potential deal breaker for me. I am mission-driven to a considerable fault, and to have to hunt around forever to even find the place where I am supposed to do the thing really frustrates and depresses me.

And I play video games to escape my depression.

Sadly, I have played it for too long to be able to return it, so I am stuck with it. And it cost me $20. and that’s big money in my little life.

So I guess I will try to make the best of it. To be honest, in hindsight, this was the perfectly predictable outcome of my purchase. What did I expect from a game that is over a decade old and two games behind Skyrim? Did I really think it would be a comparable experience to Skyrim?

If so, I was a fool. Honestly, I think what happened was that my goal-oriented mind clicked in and when that is active, I do not think about the decision to do the thing in between said decision and doing it.

That explains a lot of the more questionable decisions in my life. I get an idea to do something in my head and that shifts all my mental resources into doing it and, in a sense, I don’t return to the state of reason till I have done it.

Kind of scary, in a way. Like I am not really in control. But it also means I can get things done with great speed and energy, so there’s that.

And it’s not just that the games are so far apart in terms of sophistication and playability. What I failed to take into account was that I have been playing Skyrim for a very long time and thus have added a ton of mods that make the game into exactly what I want it to be, more or less.

To go from that to raw Morrowind was quite a shock. I have started getting mods for it but there are, of course, far fewer of them and that mod scene is not nearly as well developed as the Skyrim one.

So I dunno. I have started a new character who is a mage in Morrowind and that should suit me better than my previous character, who is an archer.

In Skyrim, I like playing archers. But in Skyrim, ammo is WAY cheaper. Mages don’t need ammo, they need magic energy, and that regenerates on its own over time.

So it is possible that I will be able to find a way to have fun in Morrowind despite the radical culture shock I am experiencing.

But if not, I can always go to plan B, which is to re-install one of the 32 or so games I have purchased on Steam in the past and which are therefore just sitting there on my Steam account, ready to be downloaded and installed.

Probably the original Dishonored. I bought Dishonored 2 but found it quite overwhelming. I had forgotten just how complex the game’s controls were and what a learning curve I had to surmount in the original game in order to play.

The difference is that in the first game, you were introduced to the various elements were introduced a lot more slowly. So I am hoping that if I play through the original again, I will pick up the necessary skills to play the sequel.

And if not that, it would probably be Witcher 3, an amazingly deep and fun game that I played a LOT back when I first got it. And back then, I knew neither jack nor shit about modding, so this time through could be a LOT more fun.

Same goes for Fallout 4, which is a lot like Skyrim but in a post-apocalytpic science fiction setting instead of the usual Tolkein fantasy setting of Skyrim.

Modding THAT could be a lot of fun, and I know for a fact that there are plenty of sexytimes fun mods for it, so that could add a whole new kind of fun, and this time, it would be in a somewhat realistic-ish setting.

So I got possibilities. The one thing I don’t see happening is my going back to Skyrim. I am quite thoroughly sick of it now and I really need to move on.

I am sure I will return to it someday, but for now, I am glad to be out of it.

It’s springtime. Time for renewal.

Even for shut-ins like myself.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.