Morrowind

[Steerpike]

I recently bought the Game of the Year Edition on Steam and have been playing it somewhat obsessively (I played it a long time ago, and I played Oblivion, too).  Anyone else still play Morrowind?  Any crazy anecdotes?  Favorite (or least favorite) quests, NPCs, tricks, equipment, towns, plots, or other aspects of the game?  Has it influenced anyone's world-building, and if so, how?  If you've played any of the other Elder Scrolls, how do you rate Morrowind in comparison?

Also, I seem to recall an issue of Dragon (or Dungeon?) did a brief d20 version of the game... does anyone know which issue that was in?

[Elemental_Elf]

I *LOVE* Morrowind. Everything about it is awesome.

Morrowind was a superior game to oblivion because the story was vastly more interesting (and emotionally powerful) main plot. The Guilds were more interesting and there more of them. The skills weren't streamlined to the point where every character sort of feels the same (i.e. Oblivion). Plus, and this may just be me, but Oblivion was waaaay too sparsely populated for being *the* heart and soul of the Empire. It may sound odd but I felt Morrowind exused a sense of 'real-ness' because of the sheer number of small towns and NPCs present. Oblivion was twice as large as Morrowind yet possessed the same number of NPCs. Further, Oblivion felt much too wild and open, especially for the central province of the whole empire.

one of my favorite little tidbits is that you can get a magical axe right in the very starter town. If you stand with your back facing the lighthouse's front door in Syda Neen, you will see a large stump. Jump from the porch on to that stump and look down - there's your magic axe!

Another cool weapon to get is the Ice Blade of the Monarch, which can be found up in the Dunmer ruin/castle that's near Dagon Fel. I was able to get it with an Argonian at level nine... But I abused the heck out of some paralyzing daggers and clever use of running outside to heal myself. :)

At any rate, Morrowind has definitely informed some concepts in my Aeolond setting, including the idea of Spellcaster's Guild that offers a teleportation network (as well as the standard Wizard supplies).

My friends and I tried to make an Elder Scrolls RPG. We made a system that was a unique mix of d20 and Dark Heresy. I've included the character sheet (just for fun :) )

[spoiler= Character Sheets]



[/spoiler]

[LordVreeg]

Funny you ask.
Morrowind is the *only* crpg a generally play, still.  I've tried a lot of others.  But in between working on my game, I bop through Morrowind.

Favorite stuff would be the story arcing.  No matter how clunky and ourtdated it looks now, it feels right to me.

[Steerpike]

Awesome character sheet E_E.

I agree that the factions are what make the world so interesting... particularly interesting is the way they set up rival guilds, like the Thieves' Guild and the Cammona Tong or the Dark Brotherhood and the Morag Tong, or the Imperial Cult versus the Dunmer Temple (versus the Neravine and Sixth House Cults) - there was much less of that in Oblivion, to its detriment.

I'm not surprised you enjoy Morrowind, Vreeg - the detail in Celtrica reminds me of Tamriel.

[Superfluous Crow]

I really liked Morrowind, even if I never finished it (I rarely get around to doing that with games).
On the other hand, I wasn't much for Oblivion, but Morrowind really caught me with its dark, windswept island-feel. It felt vastly more unique than oblivion with the dwarven (can't remember the real name...) ruins, the crazy arrogant dark elf wizards, the many different factions, the multi-layered multi-cantoned city, etc. etc.
Sadly, I think I found some kind of loophole which might have disrupted the feel of the game for me slightly. There is some cave which I was intent on completing even though I didn't know what it held, and after some clever ruse that I can't quite remember, but I think involved plenty of scrolls and an underground lake, I made my way to the treasure and found a two-handed sword. The problem with this sword was that it delt 50-72 damage or something like that, while the max I saw on ANY other weapon was like 25 or something... Long story short, this weapon was pretty damn powerful, and even though I think i was rather low-level I could hold myself in battle against rather powerful enemies.
Oh, and I wore light armor so I never got to wear all those awesome heavy armors they introdced in the game, which saddened my heart deeply since I had to stick with my glass armor...
I also like the part just in the beginning where that guy falls from the sky and drops three scrolls that grant ultimate jumping ability (admittedly, I never found a use for them, but they were cool).
(Oh, and as far as NPC's go, I like they put a single "cyborgish" dwarf in the game)

EDIT: final note, after some digging around I found some Morrowind: Tribunal stuff in one of my Dragon magazines (issue 308 - June 2003). But I don't know how much use they are, since the rules are just for two epic prestige classes, the Ordinator and the Empowered.

[Steerpike]

Thanks Crow - I was hoping the article would provide races and birthsign rules... ah well.

I can see why having a powerful weapon could be game-breaking, but to me the one big negative in Morrowind is the combat - prolonged combats are pretty boring, in all honesty, and I'm so much more interested in the stories/plots/atmosphere of the game that I feel the shorter and easier the combats, the better.  I also like that the game actually makes a "charimsa-based" character viable, since such a vast amount of the game is built around persuasion and dialogue.

[Superfluous Crow]

Yeah, I often felt the combat was a bit tedious as well... I actually think I would have preferred less hacking and wacking (as long as it didn't take less of it to send me back to my last save).

[brainface]

The funnest thing in morrowing was equipping boots with slowfall 1, (waterwalk as a bonus), as much jump as possible at current skill level; then hulk-jumping from the northern to southern edge of the island. ^_^

(The funnest thing in oblivion was getting athletics and speed high enough to chase down deer and punch them to death. Catching vampirism helps.)

I think my favorite thing about the worldbuilding of the world is that at least half the gods/daedra are lying. And you don't really know which ones. Backstory revealing books beside each other on the shelf often flagrantly contradict each other. ^_^

Morrowind was a superior game to oblivion because the story was vastly more interesting (and emotionally powerful) main plot.

painful[/i]. (Leading to my creation of a character called "runner", with primary skills acrobatics and athletics, and speed boosts. The goal is to just run in, dodge all the daedra, jump up to the shiny magic rock, grab it, and shut down the portal.) Taking out morrowind's big bad was pretty awesome in comparison.

[brainface]

I feel the need to talk about this game more:

Favorite (or least favorite) quests, NPCs, tricks, equipment, towns, plots, or other aspects of the game?

matters[/i] in this game. Put athletics/acrobatics as a primary skill and you can book it.

If you've played any of the other Elder Scrolls, how do you rate Morrowind in comparison?

Daggerfall:[/b]
The vastest, most customizable, deepest, and by far buggiest. Walking down stairways dropped you into the nethervoid due to bad geometry. Mechanically, it's a horrible game (i.e., things don't actually work), but it's got some awesomely ambitious worldbuilding.
Oblivion:
The smallest, least customizable, and most stable mechanically and gameplay wise. It's not as interesting, but most mechanics in it actually work pretty well. I mean, mana automatically regenerates! You don't have to sleep every 5 goblins! On the other hand, many fun spells got dropped. (In particular, any movement spell was removed, almost certainly to make dungeon design easier--you can't bypass the scripted route with levitate or divine intervention.)
Morrowind:
Somewhere in between. The story is probably the most interesting though, as I believe the writers tried to make it more "alien" with the foreign locale. I mean, ash vampires are frigg'n scary. The other games rely more on stock villians, like goblins and trolls. In addition, a lot of the zany daggerfall skills were dropped/consolidated. (No more nymph and centaur language skills.) It still had a lot of gameplay issues though, but not near as much as daggerfall. (Stability was a big issue, some spells Just Didn't Work, etc.)

[Steerpike]

That's a good point about speed... I've never tried actually putting athletics/acrobatics as major skills since they tend to go up quickly anyway, but I can imagine that being an insanely quick character.  Right now I'm slogging through the main quest/fighter's guild quests in Morrowind in a suit of Ebony Armor (plus the Mask of Clavicus Vile for the Personality Bonus), so it's rather slow going.  And I agree that all those Oblivion Gates were tortuous.

What really redeemed Oblivion for me was the Shivering Isles, though I really wish they'd added some new music for the Isles (I ended up making my own playlist, mostly out of Danny Elfman tracks, and playing that with the normal music turned off).  Admittedly a lot of the look of the Isles is quite close to Morrowind in places, but the zaniness and strange quests - plus actually opposing factions - made it a great expansion.

[LordVreeg]

That's a good point about speed... I've never tried actually putting athletics/acrobatics as major skills since they tend to go up quickly anyway, but I can imagine that being an insanely quick character.  Right now I'm slogging through the main quest/fighter's guild quests in Morrowind in a suit of Ebony Armor (plus the Mask of Clavicus Vile for the Personality Bonus), so it's rather slow going.  And I agree that all those Oblivion Gates were tortuous.

What really redeemed Oblivion for me was the Shivering Isles, though I really wish they'd added some new music for the Isles (I ended up making my own playlist, mostly out of Danny Elfman tracks, and playing that with the normal music turned off).  Admittedly a lot of the look of the Isles is quite close to Morrowind in places, but the zaniness and strange quests - plus actually opposing factions - made it a great expansion.

I always grab the Lord's Mail pretty early on if I am using heavy armor, and Eidon's Shield, as well as the Mask.  I generally make Blunt wep one of my minors, since I am going to have to put levels in it eentually, anyways.
I think I have that and one of the major hammers.  

[brainface]

What really redeemed Oblivion for me was the Shivering Isles, though I really wish they'd added some new music for the Isles (I ended up making my own playlist, mostly out of Danny Elfman tracks, and playing that with the normal music turned off). Admittedly a lot of the look of the Isles is quite close to Morrowind in places, but the zaniness and strange quests - plus actually opposing factions - made it a great expansion.

Huh, I'll have to pick up this expansion. A more morrowindish feel in oblivion engine sounds spectacular.

[Nomadic]

Sheogorath was here... all other Daedra are small time.

[Lmns Crn]

Funny you ask.
Morrowind is the *only* crpg a generally play, still.  I've tried a lot of others.  But in between working on my game, I bop through Morrowind.

Favorite stuff would be the story arcing.  No matter how clunky and ourtdated it looks now, it feels right to me.

Haha, me too. Morrowind and Dwarf Fortress are my two standbys, each for their own reasons. I haven't gone out of my way to consciously incorporate elements from either, but they've both probably influenced my writing. (How's that for a scary thought?)

Although, if anybody here still actually remembers Lords of Meta-Realm (I'd be surprised), it was the result of a "what if there was a game where players were the Daedric Princes?" musing.

I like Morrowind for all the small details. I once had a sneaky character rob all three Great House treasure vaults in Vivec City at level 3-- a really intense heist. (You can't do stuff like that in Oblivion, because there's nothing valuable sitting around worth stealing.) I think I finished the Azura's Star quest at level 6, which is pretty rough, considering all the big daedra you have to kill in the process. (I think that was the result of Boots of Blinding Speed, cheap silver arrows, and a lot of frantic running around.)

Oblivion had things in it I liked, but in the final tally, the game felt shallow and flat in comparison to Morrowind.

I think my favorite thing about the worldbuilding of the world is that at least half the gods/daedra are lying. And you don't really know which ones. Backstory revealing books beside each other on the shelf often flagrantly contradict each other. ^_^

that's[/i] where I got that "say contradictory things and never explain yourself" tendency from! I love this about Tamriel.

No matter what kind of character I try to make, it always ends up with ridiculously high alchemy and a pretty thorough collection of all the in-game books. I guess I'm something of a hoarder. The two mods I consider must-haves are one that makes herb-gathering work more like it does in Oblivion (instead of opening a loot window, facing a plant and hitting spacebar just adds whatever stuff you harvest directly to your inventory), and a mod that gives you the option to place books from your inventory so that they're vertical, spine facing you, rather than flat on the ground (so they'll go on my bookshelves properly). Love the Boots of Blinding Speed and the Ebony Mail (the specific enchanted item, not regular Ebony armor) that you get from the Temple quests.

One of these days, I'm going to get a proper spellcaster character going that doesn't rely on use-to-activate spellholding magic items. I guess I'll just have to chug Restore Magicka potions instead.

[Elemental_Elf]

(I think that was the result of Boots of Blinding Speed, cheap silver arrows, and a lot of frantic running around.)

Boots of Blinding Speed (modified to eliminate the blindness) and frantic running around taking pock shots... Good times, good times. I'd also add the ole' Run out a door that loads to that list :)

~~~~~~~~~

Personally, I feel the weakness of Oblivion was that Beth tried to capture the 'X-Box' gamer, which really isn't the same type of gamer as we are. They value good combat, loot, achievements and a passable story. Personally, I would take the graphic capabilities & the combat system  of Oblivion and combine that with Morrowind to make a truly great product.

I dread the whispers I've heard about a TES MMO...