The journal system in Morrowind was a big step up from the one found in Daggerfall, the previous Elder Scrolls RPG to come from Bethesda Game Studios – but as lead designer Ken Rolston reveals, it could've been even more impressive.
Speaking in a new documentary on Morrowind from Filmdeg Miniatures, Rolston explains that he had a list of ideas for the third Elder Scrolls game – but not all of them fully came to fruition. One such idea revolved around the journal, which he says could've been even bigger had his "great idea that never got made and shouldn't have been made" been implemented.
Describing how it "could have been the foundation of something cool," Rolston says he had "wanted hypertext for every significant word there, so that the user could bounce around and go back and forth through all the dialogue." That… would've been quite the feat. "There's a lot of god damn text in there," as the designer puts it. It would still be amazing, admittedly, and a function players most certainly would've appreciated – hell, we still would.
"You could go through that whole thing, and then you could find anything that you wanted to ask a question about as a user," continues Rolston. "Almost like an in-game encyclopedia. Or worse than that, a hypertext novel." The journal could play out differently "nowadays" with the use of systems like AI, however, which could point developers toward connecting keywords with speakers and highlight "what game state variables might be significant."
As Rolston concludes, "All those things could have been brilliant. This was in the back of my head and nowhere near my action menu. Therefore, there is a completely useless hypertext linking thing in the journal in the original Morrowind" – and although he's not sure how devs eventually "fixed that," he thinks "they just hoped that the users would look at it like cows look at jet aircraft and say, 'That's nothing to do with me!'"
I, for one, would love to see how Rolston's concepts could've fully come to life in an older RPG like Morrowind. The game was monumental enough as is, considering its 10/10 humor – which Bethesda lead Todd Howard apparently said "has no place in games."
Excited for other new games? Here's everything you need to know about The Elder Scrolls 6 after replaying gems like Morrowind.
