On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, Gomi no Sensei wrote: @> > What the game Does Right is, of course, the freedom. There are very few @> > games out there that let you murder someone and live in his house, for @> > instance. Which is actually something I didn't do in the game, but it @> > makes me feel better about myself knowing that I could and didn't. @> @> The problem is, you could do anything, but there wasn't anything to, @> you know, do. There was no real sense of direction or mission or plot, @> and thus no real reason to give a crap or choose a side. It might as @> well have been The Sims: Ren Faire That's not precisely true - the game loads about sixteen goals onto you right at the beginning. It just doesn't force you to pursue any particular one, which may harm the urgency a bit. (Perform your mission for the Emperor, join all the guilds, join a great house, free the slaves, become an assassin, etc.) I never felt like there wasn't anything to do - quite the opposite, in fact; I always had six or seven things that I was trying to do at the same time. @> Fallout, by contrast, had large quantities of freedom, but with an @> overarching sense of mission and urgency. I'm not saying Fallout isn't a superior game in every single possible way. Because it was, with a couple of very minor exceptions. But not everything can be Fallout (and even Fallout can't be Planescape: Torment). Morrowind is acceptable in Fallout's absence.