The Metaphysics of Morrowind (2010) | Hacker News Reader

The Metaphysics of Morrowind (2010)

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> We can also talk about metaphysics: meta being Greek for “beyond”. This is where science meets philosophy, where we might try to identify underlying principles of reality that go beyond standard physics. Theories of time and space, of causality and determinism, of the nature of existence itself.

The etymology of the word "metaphysics" is more complex. The word was at first only a simple bibliographical ordering term denoting those works of Aristotle which were sorted into the Aristotelian corpus "after" ("meta") his works on physics (propably two centuries after they had been written). Aristotle himself never used the word metaphysics (his term was "first philosophy"). It had then been later philosophers who assigned a deeper meaning to "metaphysics". However, theories of time and space, and to some extent[1] also of causality and determinism are still part of "phsics", not of "metaphysics".

But leaving etymology aside, I have a deeper discomfort of the article's use of "metaphysics". Except from a few remarks, the article is primarily concerned with game lore. That is something that is much closer to (religious?) mythology than to philosophical metaphysics.[2]

[1] Causality, for example, is discussed primarily in Aristotle's "physics", not so much in his metaphysical writings.

[2] Not that religion and philosophy are complete antagonists, but when it comes to literary genre mythology and philosophy are quite distinct.

The etymology is lots of fun when it comes to programming. As one of my friends used to say "meta is greek for after, which is why metaprograms run before programs"

"After" could also be interpreted as "beyond" in a way. From a baseline point, the meta of it is "beyond" or "comes after" that point.

Alternatively, after programming comes metaprogramming. You couldn't have a metaprogram if there wasn't a program in the first place.

Should be "proprogram", but that sounds stupid. Perhaps "hyperprogram"?

However, programmers seem to have a tendency to represent things the other way round, or even up-side-down: trees.

There is another aspect of metaphysics in the Elder Scrolls games that I find incredibly interesting, and that is the propensity for TES engine games to be buggy and susceptible to game- and narrative-breaking exploits. Things like item-dupes and locked-door-phasing and crafting potions while quaffing potion-making-buff potions in ever increasing sequences to create massively overpowered potions that make you a literal god capable of nuking an entire dungeon in a single spell.

To me, when you start discussing "what is the gameworld like for the NPCs", this gameworld that already includes a concept of magic as de rigueur, these sorts of exploits become the "real" magic, the actually mystical arts that are surprising and terrifying to the denizens of the game.

I don't usually have the patience to perform most of the exploits myself, but they definitely make for some very entertaining YouTube videos.

Anime/manga have been exploring this with various fantasy worlds with explicit game-like mechanics. I've always considered them lazy attempts at power fantasies/wish fulfillment stories, but in light of this comment maybe there's an interesting story about "player character as God" in there.

Actually now I can think of one that fits that bill exactly: https://j-novel.club/series/endo-and-kobayashi-live-the-late... It's not high literature, but it's a fun read, especially if you're aware of the genre tropes it riffs off of (villainess/isekai).

Oh dear god I can't afford an Elder Scrolls lore rabbit hole today

Fortunately this thread will just be bike shedding about the definition of metaphysics so [close tab]

I really appreciated this deep dive into how the writers of the game wove an exploration of the meaning of gaming into the lore and story of their games.

>CHIM is the realisation that your entire world, everything you experience, does not really exist. It exists as the dream of a power, which, since it must be called something, is called God. Everything that exists is just part of the dream of God, including yourself. You are just a tiny fraction of the Godhead, that has managed to gain a modicum of self-awareness.

recently installed (and can't stop modding). read 'Dance in fire' in-game book series - genuinely one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had in my life

also - posted article feels too spoiler-y. marking for laters

As someone whose first Elder Scrolls experience was Oblivion, I can't get used to the combat. Having to worry about stats, skills, and hit percentages AND having to make sure you're accurately aiming at the enemy feels like the worst of both worlds. Morrowind could've benefitted greatly from a VATS system.

Morrowind's combat is likened to dice rolls, until you get to a high enough skill to reliably hit. Ranged combat is the worst, since you can see an arrow physically connect but not have effect.

Once I got my axe skill boosted to high hell and used a Bound Battleaxe (+10 Axe skill while holding), it felt like I could bring almost anything to its knees. Even better, the axe was tied to a constant-effect enchant on a piece of jewelry, so I could resummon in 0.1s by taking the ring off/on if I needed to.

If they had no had those damn dinosaur bird things attacking you constantly the shitty combat system also would have been a LOT less annoying - especially early on!

Then you have the brilliant idea to craft up a bigass fireball spell that will murder those stupid birds, and all the others around them just to be safe.

And it works wonders! Even if it eats your full magicka bar to cast.

Until you use it a hair too close to a town, and have every NPC out for blood.

Morrowind is all about cheesing the system. It's one of the few games that allow you to go full singularity.

How it works: You make a potion of intelligence. Drink it. Now you're more intelligent and would you look at that, the potency of said potion depends on your intelligence. So you make another one that boosts it even higher. Rinse and repeat until you have astronomical intelligence and then you brew a potion of strength that will last essentially forever and allows you to one punch a god.

Or you can make a potion of paralysis, drink it, and be stuck for years.

It's hilarious and I love it.

100% one of the first things I'd do was make some shoes that had a permanent flight enchant... then use them extensively. Also learn the mark, recall, and the various intervention spells. Too much to carry? Mark, intervention, sell, recall, carry on.

The absolute first thing to do is get a resist magicka spell, and the boots of blinding speed!

For a new player the absolute first thing to do is walk north from the starting city -> investigate the falling wizard -> read the scroll because What Could Possibly Go Wrong -> Jump

And then reload the save or start a new game.

RIP Tarhiel. I'm sure his colovian fur helm kept many new players both warm and stylish in their early runs.

100 Jump for a second or two is my favorite (+ Slowfall ofc)

Other stats also allow you to break physics over your knee:

Titanic strength will, yes, allow you to kill any enemy in a single attack. It will also, however, deplete your weapon's entire durability bar to do so.

Incredible, mind bending speed will allow you to break the speed force (most problematically on stairs or inclines), moving so fast that you blast through the world geometry and into the void beyond. (Playing on console with an analog controller that gave you more control over your movement speed was a godsend, here)

You can actually overflow the signed integers they used for stats and end up with negative intelligence doing that.

Don't ask me how I know.

It was this way in oblivion to an extent too. I remember modding a frenzy spell to be on touch, for the quickest duration, but so I could maximize the AOE range. So I ended up with a spell that would cause massive riots and kill off basically all the NPCs in a give town. So I would just go town to town, decimating everyone who lived there, until basically all the quests are gone and the game becomes unplayable

Yes, the combat mechanics did not age well. I think there are mods that overhaul it nicely, or like a sibling comment mentions once you get some skill then it stops feeling so ridiculous (what do you mean I failed to kill this stationary rat with a warhammer that I swung ten times?). If I remember correctly at around 50 skill is when your misses stop feeling so arbitrary.

There's not much metaphysics being explored in the articles. The game gives the player a world where you could make more interesting and fantastical experiments into the nature of time, space, and knowing with the magic system and altered physical rules.

The author describes the game's plot and has one or two minor points in how the game world differs from our natural world. The dragon's death has the ability to affect time, but exploring the metaphysical implications are dropped in favour of furthering narrative implications.

It would be cool to delve into the theology of Morrowind, it has strong Gnostic influences which was a historical dead-end in theology and yet drives a lot of the enjoyable 'power trip' hero's journey.

I love open world games. Game developers, please make more, more, more.

At one time I felt the same way, but the deluge of Ubisoft and their like games, where it's not so much "something new to explore" but instead "here's task 1 of 100 that's the exact same you'll need to do for map completion" has caused me to appreciate tight, well crafted games just as much. The AAA game industry turned "go around and explore the world" into something really boring.

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