Elder Scrolls Forum: WIP Undernourished NPC's

It is to my own disbelief that I allow myself to be drawn into this topic. I do so admitting ignorance of recent Morrowind particulars, such as who ThePal is, and so on, but I will direct myself to what I hope to show are the pertinent generalities.

I have seen many searches made for what seems apt to term a “best-set” of mods; either from a desire to avoid mod-to-mod conflicts, or to avoid having to search all over to find the “good” mods, or what-have-you. All these attempts to find the best-set of mods fail because they begin without first answering the question of What is best? Without first knowing the answer to this question how can one expect to find out what mods fall into the category of best? It would be like trying to sort out the red marbles from a bag of red and green marbles without knowing the difference between red and green. Without knowledge of what is best such mod lists become instead “What I like.” Who can argue with someone who says I like green marbles, or I like red marbles? There will never be consensus on things that are mere likes and dislikes, and thus the mod search ultimately devolves into pointless bickering over why my likes are better than your likes.

Fortunately, the things that are important are not subject to likes and dislikes. It is meaningless to make the statement, “I dislike oxygen,” or “I like gravity.” These things are beyond the realm of preference to address. Preference only possesses importance when there exists no other compelling reason for a thing.

Knowing the purpose of a thing will allow one to know what is best to achieve that end. If a game is a thing whose purpose is diversion achieved by a contest of skill, then those things that achieve this are best in a game. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone who will think that a game’s purpose is something else, just as one may use a book to prop up a table - it isn’t a book’s purpose to do so and hence misuses the book.

The objection may here be raised that what is a contest of skill is actually defined by the challenge that it presents and thus will vary from person to person, and therefore suggest that this introduces subjectivity back into the question; consider if this were true: For instance, Lance Armstrong would not be challenged by what may well prove beyond the ability of you or I to surmount. Failing to best Lance Armstrong in a bicycle race – failing in a contest of skill – doesn’t mean that it wasn’t challenging, just as winning a contest doesn’t mean that it was challenging. What is challenging is independent from what is a contest; Lance Armstrong isn’t much challenged by racing against you, but it is still a contest that determines the bicycling skill of the competitors when you race against him.

In a contest of skill the property of challenge introduces a new element. Consider that it is the qualities, or skills, that Lance Armstrong possesses in his sport that make him a champion. One is not a champion for overcoming an ant, but by showing himself to possess the best of skill. As shipped, Morrowind required essentially no skill to overcome and thus did not allow for excellence to differentiate its players – it lacked challenge. If the challenge that an individual overcomes is what allows one to become a champion, then reducing the challenge necessarily reduces one’s ability to become a champion – it diminishes one’s ability to achieve excellence in that environment. A contest without challenge is a contest without the capacity to distinguish excellence. Will anyone seriously argue that what lacks excellence can ever be what is best?.

Morrowind does, however, posses a splendid graphical environment, and other qualities (including the latent potential realized through the malleability achieved with the construction set) that provide diversion in ways other than those that pertain to the contest of skill that serve to define a game. However, if one wishes to make a game better, then it must be by making it better as a game – a contest of skill – and not by making it better in what it is not, say, as a breakfast cereal; a mod that adds nutritional content to Morrowind when served with milk in a bowl would make Morrowind more nutritious, but not a better game qua game. Likewise, a mod that adds new, or different graphics and visual art does not make Morrowind a better game; it may add to the diversion that Morrowind can offer, but not to the contest of skill that is what defines a game – if one wanted diversion by viewing graphics or visual art he would be better served by visiting an art gallery. The graphics of Morrowind are not essential to itself as a game, but an unessential property (consider text based adventure games). You may like or dislike Morrowind’s graphics, but they are unessential to it as a game, and hence as a game they do not make it better or worse. Please understand I am not arguing for my like or dislike of graphical enhancements for Morrowind (for the record, I can be just as entertained and distracted by eye candy as anyone), I am arguing for what is essential to Morrowind.

I thank Iudas for tolerating my here addressing things in general and the definition of what a game is and does; in fine: a diversion that is achieved by a contest of skill, in which, if excellence is to be achieved, must provide a challenge. And providing a challenge is the reason for nourishing those under-fed NPCs, no?

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