Arena

[Great Rumbler]

Graphically, of course they are going to be different... but by that I meant a more encompassing thing -- not just the graphical look but also if there are, say, quests that are specific for the region, design differences in the overworld and dungeons in addition to towns, NPCs that actually say different things, etc... this is hard to do really well when you have such a large area to cover in making your game.

Morrowind is a lot like America. There are many different peoples all living together in a single country, but different areas of the country have a larger percentage of one group than another. But in all areas your likely to find at least one person of each group. Each group of people has a certain way of talking about things and beliefs, that's where you get a difference in dialogue. It depends on the race of the person you talk to, not what area you are in. With the quests, it doesn't depend that much on what part of Morrowind you are in since a quest in one part of the land can send you all the to the other side. You may get more region specific things in the expansion packs, but the version I have doesn't include them.

but all reports say that the main quests aren't exactly engaging... the games are still great, reviews say, but the main quests are lacking. Fun games to play but not to focus on the main story on and actually finish?

I've actually gotten quite far in the main quest, though I've put quite a bit more time into Guild quests and exploration [including treasure runs].

Ah, in the first two you can ask about a lot of things too. Except in Arena it is 95% about 'Where is building X', and 5% 'Can you tell me about any jobs?' or 'Can you tell me about any rumors (read: quests in town, generally fedex stuff early on). Daggerfall gives you a longer list, but it's still a majority about "where are things" and a minority about other questions that they will all either not answer ('what is your opinion on this or that faction/thing') or answer similarly... this is not exactly a strength of the series, I'd say, unless it's changed a lot from the first two... but as I've said, when you are dealing with that much scale, how much can you really do?

In Morrowind you can ask people what their job is, about local people, where to find things in town, what they think about certain things or some of the more important issues, and so on. You're not going to find any engaing conversations in Morrowind, but I've never really felt the need to do so.