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Author Topic: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind  (Read 49946 times)

Sappho

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« on: January 16, 2014, 03:29:34 pm »

I just won this in one of the holiday drawings and I was very surprised to discover there's no recent thread on it! (Last one I could find was in 2012 and it got locked due to arguments - NO ARGUMENTS please guys!) I know there's more recent ones that many of you are playing, but there also seems to be a general consensus that Morrowind is one of the best (some still seem to say the best) of the series, and since I haven't played any of the others...

I've already sunk nearly 6 hours into this game and I haven't even really progressed. I've been exploring, completing a few simple quests, and more exploring. There's just so much to see and do, it's a little overwhelming. I created a character based around fighting with axes and wearing heavy armor, because it just seemed like it'd be pretty easy to stay alive that way, but now I'm starting to get the itch to restart as a stealth character. Then I remember that with practice, I can make any character as stealthy as I want, so I'm trying to do that now.

I know I can't be the only one still playing this game (and surely many of you at least played it in the past), so I'm curious if anyone has any good stories of stuff they've done in the game, tips for fun and interesting things to do, sights to see that are a little off the beaten path... Please keep plot spoilers properly tagged, though.

So far I've taken out the smugglers near the starting village, traveled to Balmora and wandered around a bit, joined the Fighters Guild and done the quest to kill rats and the one to stop the egg thieves, wandered over to Vivec and started exploring there, doing a few simple quests. I feel like I should be striving for some loftier goal, but there's just so many distractions... I did meet the guy I was supposed to meet in Balmora, but he basically told me to fiddle around for a while before he gave me my instructions, so I'm not in a hurry to continue the main plot.

I also notice that I've only gotten 2 points towards my next character level. Where do these points come from? Major quests only?

Culise

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2014, 03:37:51 pm »

First of all, welcome to one of the best, if not the best Elder Scroll games.  It's a little old, but it's quite a bit of fun, especially with mods.  ^_^

You gain levels as you gain stat points in your Major and Minor skills.  Basically, once you gain ten skill points in those skills, the next time you sleep, you'll gain a level and distribute stat points to your Attributes (Strength, Agility, Speed, Willpower, etc.).  You tag which three you want to increase, and you get a point in each multiplied by some number based on how many times you leveled up your skills linked to that attribute.  So, if you increased your Heavy Armor skill once (affected by Endurance), you get a 2x multiplier to Endurance.  If you increased it five times, you'd get a 3x multiplier; 4x for an increase of 8, and 5x for an increase of 10.  Right now, since it says 2/10, you've gained 2 skill points in your Major or Minor skills that count towards your next level.  That's true even if Heavy Armor is not a major or minor skill - even your miscellaneous skills count towards stat increases, even if they don't count towards your next level. 
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 03:39:31 pm by Culise »
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Sensei

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2014, 03:48:38 pm »

First off, I highly recommend installing the community overhaul. This includes a massive amount of bugfixes, as well as new assets to make the game look less ugly (it was ugly when it came out).

You might also notice that the current level up system gives you attribute points in three attributes of your choice, and the number of attribute points you can get is based on the skills you gained in that level, meaning you have to level up your tertiary skills just to get the most attribute points out of every level, and you can make yourself weak by leveling up without getting the most attribute points you can. For that reason, I might also recommend the Morrowind Rebalanced mod, but that's not as necessary as the community patch in my opinion.
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PanH

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2014, 03:51:30 pm »

Heh, I still remember that time when I was searching the dwemer puzzle for hours  :P
Also, cliff racer.

And, I'd recommend going around the starting village to do 3 things : the smugglers, the burial crypt (though, remember you need a magic weapon to hurt ghosts and stuff) and the stuff in the marsh.

Edit : The MOSG or any other overhaul should be installed. Morrowind has always been quite unstable and buggy (at least for me). Be careful though, since most only work if you have Morrowind in English (but that you can modify with steam)
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 03:55:01 pm by PanH »
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puke

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2014, 03:55:55 pm »

The character advancement system is a very specific art.  If you abuse (maximize all your advances) you'll be far ahead of the level-scaled monsters.  If you don't, you may find yourself ineffectual.  Not sure if there is a middle ground.

Based on my shoddy memory, this is how it goes (edit - wow, ninja'd x4):

Skills are tied to stats.  As you advance (train or practice) skills, you earn multipliers for improving the associated stat when you level up.  Use lots of mind skills, you might get 5x the value for putting a level improvement point towards your intellect or whatever

You have some limited number of "Major" skills.  These start at higher values, and might be easier to raise.  As you improve these, you earn points towards leveling up.

So if you make your major skills things that are easy to improve through constant repetition (running, jumping, sneaking, armor) you might find that you level up faster than you can get enough stat bonuses, and might be stuck with 1x or 2x stat multipliers.

I'm not sure if that made sense?  I can dig up a wiki link or something if it wasnt clear.

Thieving is fun, but I find lockpicking to be a waste of skill investment -- it is easy enough to get decent "open" spells early in the game, and to design custom 100% lockpicking spells by late game.

enchanting items for stealth or camouflage and then stacking them to get crazy levels will make you nearly invisible.  It is fun for a while, but it sort of breaks the game and saps the fun out of it.

Similarly, health and stamina regen items are fun but sap the challenge from the game.  There is a particularly broken set of robes, and of course you can have your own created.

Offensive spells and ranged weapons basically suck.  Melee is where it is at, long blades tend to be the best but enchanted short-blades can strike more rapidly and discharge their enchantments more often, so there is something to be said there.  Using other weapons is fine, but you'll be doing it because they look cool rather than any practical benefit.

Having some points in enchanting -- even if you plan to pay someone else to do all you enchanting for you (recommended) is good as it improves the recharge rate of your enchanted items.

Gosh, lots more, but basically HAVE FUN and EXPLORE a lot.  Tons of side quests, lots of awesome story to discover.  Great game.

It's pretty old, so you can probably load up a bunch of visual enhancing mods and a modern computer wont break a sweat.  I think someone put together a crazy 2GB or 5GB modpack or something that wrapped up a bunch of patches and graphic enhancements and such.  Careful though, you have to sort through a lot of fan-boy nudey garbage and elf-porn to find the quality work.

Which reminds me, be careful of some of the books -- the Bethesda writers are a little pervey sometimes.

What else.. The city of Vivic basically looks like a big piece of shit, big let down when I got there.  there was one really good mod that added all sorts of Mexico DF style floating gardens and markets and things around it that makes is 1000x better.
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Dutchling

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2014, 04:02:16 pm »

Also, kill some dude who doesn't seem to vital to any quests and steal his shop/home.

Seriously, the game is way more fun with a proper home.
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puke

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2014, 04:02:45 pm »

(though, remember you need a magic weapon to hurt ghosts and stuff)

is that true?  I think you just need "silver or better" and "better" happens to include elven, orcish, dwemer, ebony, glass, daedric, but somehow not adamantium.

I think you can still hurt them with the normal weapons, they just have damage reduction.
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Remuthra

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2014, 04:04:21 pm »

Morrowind, at least for me, occupies an interesting place. It's the objectively best Elder Scrolls game, but my favorite is actually Oblivion. Mainly because Morrowind is more grueling than Baldur's Gate.

puke

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2014, 04:04:31 pm »

Also, kill some dude who doesn't seem to vital to any quests and steal his shop/home.

Seriously, the game is way more fun with a proper home.

Oh, but you can earn them through the guild quests and it is so much more rewarding.
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Sensei

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2014, 04:04:55 pm »

Which reminds me, be careful of some of the books -- the Bethesda writers are a little pervey sometimes.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And that's from a quest where you help someone join an acting troupe. Yes.

Personally, I think this is a reason to read every book, not avoid them. Many are interesting and some are (moreso in Morrowind than later games) darkly humorous.
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Darkmere

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2014, 04:09:37 pm »

I know for certain I never finished the main quest just because I was so busy doing everything else, ever. It's been so long since I played it (my first Bethesda sandboxy RPG thing) that I've lost most of my memories of non-spoilery stuff, but... The absolute best time I had with it was the spellcrafting system and item enchanting. You can craft a soul-draining fireball (I think) and fill gems to make all kinds of fun trinkets like light rings or a belt of permanent levitation (permanent spells are more involved, I leave you to figure those out on your own).

Raid some dwemer ruins, loot daedric caches, be a vampire, meddle in dunmer politics, get annoyed by cliff racers. There's so much to do I wouldn't know where to start. You could even leave it on the menu and listen to the title music and pretend you're in a lord of the rings movie.

Ninja'd by the Argonian Maid! How appropriate!
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And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

PanH

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2014, 04:11:28 pm »

(though, remember you need a magic weapon to hurt ghosts and stuff)

is that true?  I think you just need "silver or better" and "better" happens to include elven, orcish, dwemer, ebony, glass, daedric, but somehow not adamantium.

I think you can still hurt them with the normal weapons, they just have damage reduction.
I'm pretty sure it needs to be enchanted. Silver might work, but I think the other materials don't. Though, I'm not sure, it's been quite some time.

And that book about a dunmer (a dunmer queen or whatever ?) and a khajiit. Gotta say I laughed the first time I read it.
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puke

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2014, 04:12:21 pm »

Personally, I think this is a reason to read every book, not avoid them.

I guess that depends on how much you really want to know about cat genitals.

edit: doh!  ninja'd again!
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 04:14:00 pm by puke »
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Remuthra

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2014, 04:13:13 pm »

(though, remember you need a magic weapon to hurt ghosts and stuff)

is that true?  I think you just need "silver or better" and "better" happens to include elven, orcish, dwemer, ebony, glass, daedric, but somehow not adamantium.

I think you can still hurt them with the normal weapons, they just have damage reduction.
I'm pretty sure it needs to be enchanted. Silver might work, but I think the other materials don't. Though, I'm not sure, it's been quite some time.

And that book about a dunmer (a dunmer queen or whatever ?) and a khajiit. Gotta say I laughed the first time I read it.
Pretty sure daedric works too.

Dutchling

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Re: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2014, 04:13:15 pm »

I had a great time in Vivec once. Got lost like fuck but I kept stealing stuff and avoiding guards :)
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