Morrowind memories

[Jiawen]

Another thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=3843039#post3843039) reminded me how much fun I had with Morrowind a couple years ago. Ah, those were the days... My Wood Elf archer had glass everything armor and a Daedric bow. Taking out Daedra with one shot, before they knew what hit 'em... Collecting every kind of armor... Flying hither and yon... Ah, pleasant memories.

I'm kind of trying to convince myself to start playing again. I just wish I hadn't lost those saved games.

What about you?

[The Scribbler]

I picked it back up last year and tried to play it with a different tact... it wasn't supported by the game, sadly.

Still, lots of fun!

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I used to play Morrowind a lot on the PC. I got the GotY edition for XBox and tried that... but a few months of playing World of Warcraft have spoilt me - I really didn't like it at all, it felt so restrictive to play after WoW! Haven't looked at it since...

[eyeballstew]

The computer I'm currently on is falling apart on me. As soon as I get it replaced, though, I'm buying Bloodmoon and Tribunal on the cheap and installing the gazillion or so groovy mods that turn Morrowind into wholly different game(s).

I just love the college of alteration and nice acrobatics/athletics coupled with archery. Bounce. Shoot. Run. Shoot. Fly. Shoot. Sit on top of a mushroom, grab the explosive arrows, and shoot. While I'm being pursued by a huge dragon or a giant or something that my altogether puny character in netch leather couldn't possibly face hand-to-hand. But then, the netch leather thing is one of those self-imposed in-character handicaps that make the game fun (for me).

Glass armor is just tacky.

[John R]

I became horribly disillusioned with the game after completing the story arc and deciding - as such was, I thought, possible - to kill everyone. No NPC is immune to combat, and I thought I could eradicate the whole continent if I really tried hard enough.

I'd wiped out a couple of small towns, and then all of Vivec, which took hours. Then I happened to go back to one of those first towns and discovered that all the wandering unnamed guards respawned.

I cannot tell you how disappointing that was. My glorious dreams of filling the Vivec arena with loot collected from a continent of peasants and being able to wander around entirely empty settlements forever - destroyed. Along with, more importantly, my sense of immersion. I got one of the expansions, but I never got back into it at all.

It's an odd way to lose an attachment to something, but there we go...

[Thornhammer]

I remember my first character. I believe I bought a couple of spells and was dicking about in Seyda Neen. Climbed up on a rooftop for some reason and wondered how I'd get back down. "Ah, the Feather spell! I'm sure that's just like Featherfall. Fear my magical prowess, peasants!"

*cast*

*graceful leap into the air*

*THUD*

So I soon learned to read the spell description. :)

-Thornhammer

[Geoffrey21]

My first character was a thief, though I gave her the custom class title of Wealth Redistribution Expert. Oh and did she ever. I remember first hearing about the great House treasury vaults in Vivec and working her way, making the necessary magic items, and then robbing the damn place blind. My greatest heist!

Oh and when she was fighting Dagoth Ur, she pushed him off the cliff, so that fight was kinda anti-climactic but very in keeping with her sneaky stealing nature.

And then there was the time she lost her magic Daedric Dai-katana, Li'l Bastard, in some ruins...

[dalziel_86]

I borrowed a copy of the X-Box version a couple years ago, played it for a couple months and loved it. I had a Dark Elf thief character. She rocked. Then I tried starting over with a magic user, and got bored very, very quickly.

A few months ago I picked up the GOTY edition for the X-Box, and played through the main quest and all of the Tribunal expansion with a Nord Warrior character. It lacked the immersiveness of my first play-through, and I found the range of things I could do with a character geared towards melee combat got boring.

Plus, there's the huge issue with the X-Box version being horrendously prone to crashes. After finishing Tribunal I headed to the northern island to start in on Bloodmoon, but I didn't get very far before it became unplayable because of the constant crashing. I haven't attempted to play it again in a while, so I'll probably trade it in for something else pretty soon.

[RemyDuron]

I remember, shortly after I had discovered a lot of H.P. Lovecraft's work, playing Morrowind. When I learned of the Daedra, things got interesting. I got really into character, mumbling to myself about daedra and dagoth ur, buying up every book I could on the subject, reading them all, trying to question those Seventh House cultist, trying to join their cult...

Man, what a cool game. I remember the wonder the first time i actually saw Vivec... I remember how scared I was of all those sounds in the dwarvish ruins. I remember how unnerving the Ashlands can be, even if you go there far before any nasty monsters will spawn. Man... awesome game.

[The SkaerKrow]

Morrowind was a great game, and one of the few Xbox titles that I miss. However, the world is far too static. Because every major item will always spawn in certain places, I invariably had low level characters sporting the best in armor and weapons simply because I knew where they were. It can't be helped to a degree, but still. They could have included a little more random item disbursement. When I get a real PC however, Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon will definitely be one of my first purchases. The concept of Morrowmods makes me salivate.

[Fade]

I remember, shortly after I had discovered a lot of H.P. Lovecraft's work, playing Morrowind. When I learned of the Daedra, things got interesting. I got really into character, mumbling to myself about daedra and dagoth ur, buying up every book I could on the subject, reading them all, trying to question those Seventh House cultist, trying to join their cult...
There's a mod that allows you to do that.

"Fear my magical prowess, peasants!"

*cast*

*graceful leap into the air*

*THUD*

Did you meet the Amazing Aerial Wizard?

[Five Eyes]

There's a mod that allows you to do that.

I have the sixth house mod. Haven't run with it yet, though. <_<;;

God, I've played this game so damn much. Still do, from time to time. I have three 'character saves' wherein I selected X amount of Guilds to finalize, then just dick around with whatever mods I have on at the time.

My Telvanni wizard-type was such a hardass by the time I got around to Tribunal that I fought Almalexia toe-to-toe, despite being a frail wizard sort. I won, but I think I had to not use the particle weapon...

My archer's been to Bloodmoon, which sort of hurt his status in my eyes. He can't slaughterfy on that continent as well as he can elsewhere... I feel like I need to go in and alter the HP on Bloodmoon stuff to get the fun out of it, 'cos the challenge isn't as much fun as it is, 'Great, now I need to recall and buy more arrows again.'

I've made a point of mastering every form of combat with my warrioress which, when paired with an excellent combat mod that includes combinations(!), means I tend to just have her leave her lair in Vivic unarmed (and often unarmored) to go on missions, pummeling monsters with my fists until I find a weapon to use. She's got a sizable stockpile of 'trophy weapons' lying on the ground - I just drop whatever I used in her house when the mission's done. My favorite was going on a Redoran mission and literally pummeling a guard in Dwemer armor to death while the hostage I was rescuing watched. Good times.

Edit: Think about this from an enemy standpoint.

You're a bandit, secure in your cave wherein you and your bandit compatriots move on preprogrammed routes, presumably because you're bored with actual banditry and wish to sort your randomly-generated loot. The door to your cave swings open and a demure Bosmer woman in an inexpensive skirt walks in.

She proceeds to beat you bloody and use your knife to eviscerate your friends.

[Fade]

'Great, now I need to recall and buy more arrows again'

I always used Mark then Divine (Almsivi) Intervention. Then I could do my stuff and Recall right back to where I left off.

[Five Eyes]

I always used Mark then Divine (Almsivi) Intervention. Then I could do my stuff and Recall right back to where I left off.

I use MultiMark. I played the game through once legit, now I've earned to right to make it as enjoyable (read: less juggling magics, less time travelling) as I like. :D

It's only an issue with Bloodmoon stuff - one of the Marksman mod bows makes its own arrows, but obviously ice-damage arrows aren't going to help much against polar life. Plus nothing in the core or Tribunal can eat that many arrows.

[Elizabeth Brooks]

I became horribly disillusioned with the game after completing the story arc and deciding - as such was, I thought, possible - to kill everyone. No NPC is immune to combat, and I thought I could eradicate the whole continent if I really tried hard enough.

I'd wiped out a couple of small towns, and then all of Vivec, which took hours. Then I happened to go back to one of those first towns and discovered that all the wandering unnamed guards respawned.

I cannot tell you how disappointing that was. My glorious dreams of filling the Vivec arena with loot collected from a continent of peasants and being able to wander around entirely empty settlements forever - destroyed. Along with, more importantly, my sense of immersion. I got one of the expansions, but I never got back into it at all.

It's an odd way to lose an attachment to something, but there we go...

You can make a plugin that makes guards not respawn.

[Thornhammer]

There's a mod that allows you to do that.


Did you meet the Amazing Aerial Wizard?


Oh yes. I thought the game was making fun of me at the time, actually. :) I went to Pelagiad in a fit of rage, and I just remember flashes after that. Flashes OF STEEL! Mua ha haaaaaaaaaa!

Then the computer froze up and I decided to start a new character.

Good times.

-Thornhammer

[The Scribbler]

I was just really dissapointed that you couldn't sweet-talk your way through any of the important stuff in the game.

[Fade]

On the subject of MW, can someone remind me how to delete spells from your spellbook? I know it can be done, but I can't remember how.

[Something Else]

On the subject of MW, can someone remind me how to delete spells from your spellbook? I know it can be done, but I can't remember how.
I think you just right-click.

[Mapache]

When I played, I had a disdainful attitude towards all the dark gods and such, never referring to them by their actual names, just calling them Dagoth Loser, or other versions of Dagoth &lt;Expletive&gt;. I wasn't random about this, but rather renamed them consistently. When I set out to slay Dagoth Asswipe, he stayed Dagoth Asswipe until I'd killed him and made his soul into an enchantment for my sword.

[Deacon Blues]

I was just really dissapointed that you couldn't sweet-talk your way through any of the important stuff in the game.Important to the main quest, no.

Important to the Guild or House quests? Man, my smooth-talking Imperial got away with everything. I remember one Mage Guild quest from Balmora - "go to this Dunmer stronghold and find this guy who hates Imperials. Convince him to join our guild, or kill him." A little use of Voice of the Emperor and the guy was eating out of my palm.

[Santiago]

Man, I remember making some pretty powerful magic weapons and getting my level up so high that I killed the last boss guy without breaking a sweat. I know that some people have complained about that aspect of the game (that it's too easy to become uber-powerful and take the challenge out of the game), but for me, that's the kind of stuff I love.

I had become death, destroyer of worlds, and I liked it. I summoned Golden Saints just to kill them (with my Daedric sword with massive fire damage added to it) and steal their souls just for the hell of it. I remember charming parts of my armor to refilled my health or stamina faster than I lost it.

Good times. Hey, now that I've got a PC that can run Morrowind without even blinking, I really need to reinstall it.

[The Scribbler]

Important to the main quest, no.

Important to the Guild or House quests? Man, my smooth-talking Imperial got away with everything. I remember one Mage Guild quest from Balmora - "go to this Dunmer stronghold and find this guy who hates Imperials. Convince him to join our guild, or kill him." A little use of Voice of the Emperor and the guy was eating out of my palm.

I just remember people swearing their allegiance to me as my best friend... and still threatening to arrest me as if we'd never met. Or women swearing they'd do anything for me... and still not having the option of them helping me with a quest that involved them.

That sort of thing bothered me.

[Deacon Blues]

That sort of thing bothered me.Yeah.

I'm unfamiliar with the extent of the Morrowing modding community, because I own it for XBox.

But a cool mod (if it doesn't exist) would allow you to order subordinates in your Guild or House to take on quests for you. Give each quest a difficulty rating (0 to 100) and an orientation (Combat, Stealth or Magic). Put any keywords for your House or Guild quests in a dialogue menu with a subordinate. You might have to "pay" them (i.e., bribe them) to go on a mission, or you may be noble and famous enough to inspire them to do it of their own accord.

They then vanish. The game rolls some random numbers, based on the subordinate's skills and abilities (are they a Combat type? better suited for Stealth?) and the predetermined Quest Difficulty Rating. In 3 days, the subordinate re-appears and tells you whether or not he was able to complete the quest.

[RemyDuron]

I believe Dracandros' Voice mod does something like that, and it is pretty badass. The mod community has done a lot. Every game should be as moddable as Morrowind (Sid Meier's Pirates, I'm looking at you...).

[EOT]

I believe Dracandros' Voice mod does something like that, and it is pretty badass. The mod community has done a lot. Every game should be as moddable as Morrowind (Sid Meier's Pirates, I'm looking at you...).


If only so as that i did not have to put up with elves that look gayer than a sack of gay. Jusus those character models pissed me off.

Still. One of the greatest games ever, though oblivion does have it beat on many points there's something missing....

[Jiawen]

If only so as that i did not have to put up with elves that look gayer than a sack of gay. Jusus those character models pissed me off. just so you know, "gay" as a negative adjective isn't cool. Not remotely.

[Darren MacLennan]

If only so as that i did not have to put up with elves that look gayer than a sack of gay. Jusus those character models pissed me off.

Still. One of the greatest games ever, though oblivion does have it beat on many points there's something missing....

Please don't use "gay" as a negative descriptor on these forums. We'd appreciate it greatly.

-Darren MacLennan

[Yook]

Aww, poopsicle. Y'all have got me thinking about Morrowind again. Just re-installed XP, and the only games I've got installed at the moment are NWN2, SWKotOR2, and a couple MMOs (CoX and GW).

I half want to re-install Oblivion, just so I can finally finish that game...but then, I never did finish Morrowind in any way, shape or form. Heck... I never finished any of the darn Elder Scroll games! I just did my thing for a while, enjoying myself, until another shiny-shiny caught my eye.

Poopsicle. Looks like I'll be re-installing a bunch of stuff now. Thanks, guys. /fake-sarcasm

Oh, though now that I think about it, I doubt it would be necessary to install Arena or Daggerfall...

So, suggestions on fun things to do and fun mods to get for a pseudo-newb coming back to Morrowind with the intention of A) finally finishing it and B) also having tons of fun?

I tend to enjoy brawlers the most, though sneaky bow and arrow snipers are also great fun. Magic is great as an addition to either style, but not as the focus of a PC.

Anywho, this is likely not the right thread for this question, I just realized, since this is a Morrowind appreciation thread and not an advice thread. Heh. So, um, never mind!

[Old Geezer]

Gee. I just couldn't get into Morrowind. The utterly static, lifeless, drab NPCs turned me off.

I'm not talking about voice acting, I'm talking about writing. The NPC dialogue trees were just plain dull.

[Jiawen]

So, suggestions on fun things to do and fun mods to get for a pseudo-newb coming back to Morrowind with the intention of A) finally finishing it and B) also having tons of fun?There are various walkthroughs out there on how to finish it, so I won't give you any advice there. But favorite mods, that I can recommend:

Some sort of home. Probably in Balmora, and the portable tent is really, really cool. I ended up making my own home in Balmora with a gazillion chests and lots of cool water effects.
A teleportation thingy is a must, at least later on when you regularly have to trudge all the way across the continent and back.
Once you're nice and high-level, Giants is a very cool mod with lots of high-power monsters (dragons, ogres, etc.).
Ingredient-sorting devices are nice if you're doing a lot of potion-making.
Once you can make it yourself, I've always found a nice Daedric katana with 30 points of fire damage is handy.
I can't remember any others; it's been a while since I played. I'll try firing up the Windows partition and giving you a better list later tonight. Sorry that I didn't give any specific URLs, either; again, I'll try to get you those later tonight.
I tend to enjoy brawlers the most, though sneaky bow and arrow snipers are also great fun. Magic is great as an addition to either style, but not as the focus of a PC.I think I've only ever played as a woodelf archer with lots of stealth abilities. There's really few things more satisfying than shooting and killing a Daedra when it's barely emerged out of the mist and doesn't even know you're there.
Anywho, this is likely not the right thread for this question, I just realized, since this is a Morrowind appreciation thread and not an advice thread. Heh. So, um, never mind!I don't mind asking for advice here. It was mostly a dead thread, after all...I'm not talking about voice acting, I'm talking about writing. The NPC dialogue trees were just plain dull.Aren't most computer "RPGs" like that? I mean really, no computer game will ever reach the conversational depth possible in a face-to-face game.

[Old Geezer]

.Aren't most computer "RPGs" like that? I mean really, no computer game will ever reach the conversational depth possible in a face-to-face game.

It's true you'll never match table top.

My only other experience is Knights of the Old Republic. The dialog trees for NPCs are pretty good. And the dialog trees for your in-party NPCs are excellent, to the point where you will get different gameplay experiences depending on who's in your party.

After playing KOTOR with a party of 3, I guess mostly Morrowind just felt very lonely.:(

[Phasma Felis]

You can make a plugin that makes guards not respawn.
I imagine the reason for guards respawning is so that they don't get attrited down to nothing by fights with random bandits or woodland creatures or whatnot.

For a mod, best bet would probably be to have them only stop respawning if all the guards are killed, or everyone in town period is killed, or 60% of the town is killed, or something like that. The ideal would be that any reasonably "inhabited" town would have active guards, ghost towns wouldn't even if you'd left one or two survivors.

[EndlessChase]

Ahh, creating my "Bounding Travel" spell.

Jump + 100 for two seconds. Still cost a third of my mana to cast, but two leaps were enough to cross the continent.

[Sceadugenga]

Favourite memory?

Playing it and well getting bored with being pretty much god-like walking around with no real threats... and then installing the Adventurer (or some other mod like that) and starting over - and experiencing that wonderful fear of the unknown again, and for many many levels ;)

I recommend hitting up Rpgplanet.com and visting their Elderscrolls page and looking through all the mods - some are pretty first rate, and give the game a whole new life.

[Elizabeth Brooks]

I imagine the reason for guards respawning is so that they don't get attrited down to nothing by fights with random bandits or woodland creatures or whatnot.

For a mod, best bet would probably be to have them only stop respawning if all the guards are killed, or everyone in town period is killed, or 60% of the town is killed, or something like that. The ideal would be that any reasonably "inhabited" town would have active guards, ghost towns wouldn't even if you'd left one or two survivors.

Yeah, they respawn mainly because of attrition. I don't think what you describe is all that easy, though. You'd have to do a lot of scripting to set that up, and even then I'm not sure it's possible.

[Phantom Grunweasel]

One of my fondest memories is one of the missions for your cat-girl girlfriend, whose name eludes me. A chapter of Camonna Tong, based in one of the northern fishing villages, have been leaning on her to leave the Thieves' Guild and join them instead. Nobody talks like that to your girl, so off you set to teach them a lesson.

After bloodily massacring them all, I had a huge bounty on my head -but I knew that, if I managed to get back to her in one piece, cat-girl girlfriend would make it go away. Guards were descending on my position. And so began an epic chase across north-west Morrowind. I had to stay away from the towns, so I was running across swamps, hills, cliffs and finally diving into the sea and swimming down the coast. I'd been battered to within an inch of my life by the fight earlier, and naturally there was nowhere safe to get healing (guards everywhere), so I also had to dodge most of the Morrowind wild-life. When I finally got to Pelagiad, I had to sneak into the village without getting spotted by any guards and immedietely report my success. It just felt so breathless, chaotic and exhilarating.