THE GOOD:As far as RPG's go, Morrowind shines past most others. The graphics were far superior for its time. The storyline is extremely deep and very well developed. The optional side quest stories can keep a player busy with unique content for hundreds of hours easily without ever starting any part of the "main quest". The character development system is one of the most complex to have been put to pixels since pixels existed. A very fun alchemy system exists which can keep a new player busy by itself creating new and interesting potions for hours at a time. The sheer mass of items ranging from spoons and books to enchanted armor and weapons is enough to fill even the largest dwellings in the game to overflowing. Also(surprisingly because it is strictly single player), this game has an astoundingly robust online community.
THE BAD:
In the original Morrowind, sans expansions, bugs and crashes were very common. The GOTY edition has greatly reduced issues of frustration for the player, but has not eliminated them altogether. A new player will often find themselves reloading their game due to a freeze up, if not suddenly finding themselves falling in a void after entering a new area. The PC version has a console to work around most errors, but XBox users have to rely on a strict regimen of save game maintenance to prevent rampant crashes.
In addition, killing certain NPCs forces the player to reload when following the main quest, as they are necessary for certain plot developments. The only way to work around this if you've already saved your game before realizing it is to use the console for the PC version. XBox players would be forced to use a backup save, or start over from square one entirely.
Some quests can be downright frustrating in themselves, due to lousy in game directions, and the size of the environment.
A player without enough time to fully appreciate the depth of the world could be disappointed without a rudimentary guide, because distractions abound. The game can end up as a copious time sink, just because there is so much in it which is unnecessary.
SUMMARY:
The added content in the included Bloodmoon expansion introduces its own intriguing main quest, adds around 20% to the explorable landmass, and piles on numerous new quests to perform. After adding the various new dungeons to explore and purge, new items, and new creatures, one is left with a very strong expansion that easily adds tens of hours of gameplay by itself.
The entire Tribunal expansion pack is plotted within the capitol city of Mournhold, which is a bit restrictive compared with the vastly open ended gameplay which made the original Morrowind famous. Tribunal is very structured, and the plot all but forces the player down a quest line that changes very little each time through. This limits replayability in addition to being rather narrowminded. For an easily distracted player, however, Tribunal is perfect, because there are very few things to serve as distractions. Even when lost in one of the mazelike sewers of Mournhold, finding your way out is mostly fast and easy given the limited size of Tribunal's maps. Despite all this, the storyline of Tribunal does a great job of expanding on and nicely wrapping up the original storyline of Morrowind. This is commendable, given the original's lack of closure.
A player will not run out of things to do in this game even after exhausting every available quest in the various villages and towns, as there are portions of the game that will only be revealed upon fully exploring the land and discovering the myriad hidden locations. Some have funny outcomes, others dangerous, so the player is almost always surprised. The GOTY edition has added some fun "easter eggs" for the veteran Morrowind player to find and ruminate over as well.
I'd also like to point out that the creators of this game did an impressive job of fleshing out the world's backstory(history), which is lacking in its sequel, "TES IV:Oblivion", not to mention many other games in the genre. Whereas some games include a novella inside their manual to flesh out the game's story, there are numerous in-game novels to read and learn from in Morrowind, which altogether lead the player to be able to piece together a flavorful history of the land and inhabitants very much aside from what can be learned through the main storyline.
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