THE GRINDSTONE TRIBUNAL:

Newcomers and vets alike as Dreskar, Karochi and myself offer up thoughts on the new expansion, while Killfrost11, MrAnnoyus, and Vinícius Machado have some quick takes.

Dreskar:

Morrowind is one of those names that plays double duty in my mind. Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind was a game that really helped to shape and define my childhood. It is one of those games that really ignited my true interest in RPG’s and writing, which certainly is more than alive and well today. Yet I can look back at the game and remind myself just how clunky and old it has become, and how grateful I am that time has moved on and games have gotten better.
ESO Morrowind in that regard is like reminding me of those childhood joys but with mechanics and systems that make traversing the island of Vvardenfell more pleasurable. I am not fighting systems to merely advance but actually able to sit back and enjoy the plots and intrigue that make up the storyline. This is one of those things that could have easily been screwed up, and I am a bit torn on the monetization for the expansion. On the one hand, I do feel like there is about 30 hours of content, not including grinding, within Morrowind and the new class adds more value to the deal making it worth that 40 dollar price tag I paid. On the other hand, I almost feel like those paying for ESO+ should have gotten a further discount, as it does account for a large change in the usual formula for added content in the game.
I still would recommend the expansion, just as I would recommend the base game as I feel like it is just ESO but with more content and thus far that has always been a good thing. I am still wary of the day when Zenimax will really screw up, but so far it hasn’t happened and perhaps more importantly is they feel like the only company actually willing to listen and give generously back to their community. Sure you have stuff that may be overpriced like the specialty islands, and renaming your character is very much on the high side, yet this is also a company that gives regular content updates, constantly streams to talk with the community and run giveaways, are very active on their forums and has one of the most hilariously nonstandard Subscription services that is actually more than generous to the player than it ever needed to be.
I would say that I fully understand if people think the price is just too high and will choose to wait on giving ESO Morrowind a chance. I honestly believe that if they even dropped the price down by 10 dollars so the upgrade was 29.99 and buying the game new was 39.99, then it would feel far better and be more than worth the value. All I know for sure is that I will keep playing it, and continue to see what twists and turns Zenimax can add to the Elder Scrolls universe, I just hope it will always remain such a pleasant ride.

Recommended?:  YES, Praise Sithis!

Killfrost11:

I really like the warden class for some reason.

Recommended?: YES, so much yes.

Mrannoyus:

If nothing else, Morrowind showcases that Zenimax is definitely willing to improve on almost all fronts when it comes to actual zone substance and storylines. The voice acting as well as the general plot of the journey is much improved over what the base game zones give us.
I was also partially nervous about the big changes that Zenimax put across many ingame skills, however with play I can definitely see it was a necessary sacrifice. Forget whatever people left after the patch went live; they weren’t here for the actual game. I won’t go into details here, but tl;dr resource management is back into the forefront of the gameplay.
As for the Warden class, it is definitely filling a space that no other class can fill, providing excellent utility as either stamina or magicka based, being capable of supporting with either resource effectively. If you’re on the edge about whether to spend the 39.99 USD on the new zone then the Warden might end up being worth it for you.

Recommended?: YES

Vinícius Machado:

Yes, my only complaint is farming for skyshards, and even then I understand that it motivates exploring

Recommended?: YES

Karochi:

Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind is an expansion to a game that already had 5 DLCs, which makes me irrationally angry. The game already had more content being released in forms of the DLC and it already had balance changes and gameplay fixes in the way of patches, but oh, Morrowind is both! At the SAME TIME! Imagine the time it’ll take to update that!
The more I think about it the more I feel Zenimax shat the bed on making an ‘expansion’ be a big deal, with how they’re handling releasing extra content. From a crafting perspective, Morrowind doesn’t really do anything for me except release a couple more recipes. The biggest change in crafting recently was the housing update, which put in a huge amount of new recipes to gather and new ways to using the crafting skills you already had. But that was just a fuckin’ patch, it just got drip fed like the rest of it, making the ‘expansion’ less awesome. That’s why it’s difficult to look at ESO:M as its own entity and you instead have to look at it as part of the ESO content output.
I couldn’t tell you if Warden’s the bee’s knees because I don’t read numbers because numbers are for nerds. I can tell you they don’t look nearly as cool as Dragonknight, but that’s good because at least it’s really obvious when you have a Warden around. If a Dragonknight drops their standard of might, that doesn’t say shit about who they are because standard of might is just awesome. If a Warden comes in and plants a tree, you’ll see it, you’ll probably be disappointed it’s not a standard of might, but you’ll accept that it’s not an enemy attack and move on.
Vvardenfell’s a lot smaller than it was in Morrowind, but that just means Zenimax knows what the fuck they’re doing. The appeal of ES3:Morrowind was being in this expansive, varied and cliff-racer-filled land where you would have to learn about the world, figure out the best ways to solve problems and stack mad paper. ESO:M isn’t about figuring shit out, everyone who gives a shit has already read all the l̶o̶r̶e̶legends about Vvardenfell and the people in it, so ESO once again sticks to delivering solid and interesting quest lines while giving subtle nods to the people in the know (probably, I wouldn’t know).

Recommended?: YES

ChaosD1:

I don’t know how Dreskar convinced me to do an expansion as a full episode, but here we are. The market is so stagnant that an expansion is the most exciting thing to look at not stuck in hype betas or a “coming soon” status while it drains suckers of money on Kickstarter. Yeah, this genre has jaded me, which is why I can appreciate everything that ESO does.
I agree that it does seem a little odd to add a new zone with no (instanced) dungeons, or contain all of the content onto a single island, but we got a new class out of the deal, and there are some pretty cool things going down in the various stories.
Speaking of the new class. I still don’t know how I feel about it. That Shalk skill seems weird that it takes so long to cast, like I’m playing an even slower version of Battlerite, especially since the damage of said skill seems so unimpressive for the payoff. Still cool to have the closest thing to the druid class, and an interesting change to the way plenty of skills work.
I have an even greater appreciation for the game now, and I’ll be doing a lot more of it on stream until… you know… next time. This may end having to be my favorite MMO after all…

Recommended?: YES