trainwiz:

That’s precisely WHY people are so endeared to them. Morrowind is rather unique because the game’s mechanics aren’t just unexplained to you, but the world itself is. 

You’re dumped into a strange alien environment, your first view of a town is a swampy town with a giant ass bug parked outside it. Why is there a bug? Fuck you outlander, everyone knows what the bug is for, you stupid ignorant n’wah. What’s an n’wah? Well fuck you again, everyone knows what an n’wah is, you s’wit. See, everyone else but you knows what these things are, they’re not gonna tell you, it’s up to you to figure it out. Just like it’s up to you to gain the trust and respect of the local dunmer.

Morrowind and the dunmer are not things that are welcoming. They are hostile, their ways seem commonplace to them but are alien to you. And that’s ultimately what makes it so rewarding and immerses players, because Morrowind is utterly devoted to its idea that all this weird shit is exactly the way the world works. There’s no time when someone stops, looks at the camera, and goes “Hey look at this weird bug, it’s weird right?”. No, the bug isn’t weird, the bug is the thing people use to get to work.

And because Morrowind forces players to sit down and start obeying its rules, and because those players force themselves to become part of that culture of mad wizardlords and theocratic xenophobes, they ultimately feel more like they belong there, and actually get to know and understand that made up culture. It’s sort of like effort justification. The reason we like dunmer is because we’ve spent all that time getting to understand those weirdos. Sure they’re bug-riding slavers, but they’re our bug riding slavers, and we didn’t trek halfway across the continent in jellyfish-leather boots dodging weird scribs and whatever-the-hells to have someone tell us otherwise.