Morrowind vs Norton Internet Security

I saw recently that it was the twenty-fourth anniversary of THE ELDER SCROLLS III: MORROWIND.

That was a great game. I think OBLIVION and SKYRIM had improved game mechanics and were more fun to play because of that, but MORROWIND had absolutely the best worldbuilding in the series.

Fun fact. MORROWIND is the reason I no longer use Norton products.

I had reached the end of the Main Quest, and was about to start the final climactic battle against Dagoth Ur. As I rushed into the heart of his lair to engage him, suddenly my screen went black. Baffled, I wondered if my game had crashed, and then I saw a popup informing me that my Norton Internet Security had expired and I really needed to renew.

It had minimized all other windows, including my impending final battle against Dagoth Ur, which of course crashed the game.

At the time, I lived in a very sketchy apartment complex, which was all right because someone shouting profanities at night wasn’t unusual. 🙂

Anyway, once I calmed down, I uninstalled Norton Internet Security on the spot, and then reloaded my game and continued.

Of course, that was back in the Windows XP days, and XP was very insecure until Service Pack 2 came along. Windows 11, for all that I dunk on it, is inherently a way more secure operating system due to a lot of under-the-hood upgrades and changes. The one big weakness of any antivirus or internet security software is that it can’t protect the computer from the number one source of malware these days, which is the user clicking on an email attachment or link or installing something that he or she really shouldn’t have.

But I digress. MORROWIND was indeed a great game, and you can see how it has influenced many other games since.

-JM