The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

I can't believe we don't have a thread devoted to this one yet. Not even an old one. Alright, so the reason I'm here is because I got Morrowind from the Steam sale, and am on my second character now. I botched the first and got bored with him. This second one . . . will be harder to get bored with.

I custom created a class called Sith and loaded it up with almost every magic I could. This is not a nice class. I specced him out to be a magical thief with long blade and medium armor skill for survival, Illusion, Conjuring, and one other magic type I've forgotten for the moment as primaries. Alteration, I believe, is the only Misc one. So the reason my character, Harridan, won't be boring is because I made a massively fun error in judgement early on. I went into a couple of the shacks of Seyda Neen and killed the inhabitants.

Now, whenever I go to sleep I get interrupted and attacked by an assassin. This has lead to the amusing problem that Caius Cosades, the guy in charge of the main quest, tries to kill me whenever I'm at his house. I went to sleep there to recharge my magicka and the predictable ambush happened. Somehow, he got pissed. I don't remember hitting him, but I might have.

I've managed to kill two of those assassins, and their armor's pretty awesome loot to sell.

edited 3rd Jan '14 7:33:30 PM by Journeyman

If you want to stop the assassins, go to Ebonheart and talk to Apelles Matius.

I talked to a guard and he told me that one already. However . . . I kinda like it. It gives me a fight every time I level up and challenges me to find non-sleeping ways to restore my magicka. Like potions. Considering my character's skills, and the fact he's called a Sith, it seems like the perfect tradeoff for him.

And whenever he needs spare change, just go to sleep, let an assassin attack, and take its stuff when it dies.

P.S. Caius is dead by the hands of an ancestral ghost and myself. Took three reloads, but it got done. The world is doomed, and I shall revel in playing with it.

Well, technically it's not. The actual main story can be completed regardless of who's alive or dead. (You have to be a high enough level or build your character a certain way to complete it if you do kill certain NPCs, though.)

we sorta just resorted to talking about morrowind, daggerfall, oblivion in the skyrim thread, rather than make a dedicated thread.

-shrug-

the assassins dont strike every time you level up. to get them to do that requires some save scumming.

unrelated, but i feel this needs mentioning:

Telvanni ftw!

Ah. I don't need them to, I was just going by the fact that I've slept twice and I've been attacked both times. Luck of the draw, huh?

I'm taking over Caius's house and using it as an Alchemy den. This shall be my base of operations for . . . whatever world conquering schemes I'm going to concoct.

Ah yes, this game. It was one of the first RP Gs I've ever owned on PC alongside the original Knights of the Old Republic, the very first open-world RPG I've ever owned, and one of my first PC games in general. Had a physical copy of the GOTY Edition for years, played it a lot, yet never finished it. Someday, I'll dig up my old save files and continue where I left off.

There was a general Elder Scrolls thread that was mostly Oblivion and Morrowind as well.

When I first played Morrowind, I killed most of the sleepers required for the main quest before knowing that I had to. I think there were temple quests that required exploration of the final dungeons. Good thing I had enough sense to keep unique items safe.

edited 5th Jan '14 9:09:17 AM by supergod

Stole everything I could that wasn't bolted to the floor when I first played Morrowind.

Good times, good times.

I've been stealing everything not bolted down and either stashing it in Caius's house as a safehouse or selling it off for gold.

i just used alchemy.

and the creeper.

ey, strongholds are expensive business, especially with mods to expand on them like tenfold. dont judge me.

The game sort of encourages you to go crazy grabbing stuff by making everything in the outdoor containers in Balmora (and only Balmora) not flagged as owned. Looting all of those will get you quite a bit of vendor junk, soul gems, and usually two or three magic items (which may or may not be useful depending on your character build).

The downside is that you'll get a rude shock when you go to another town or city and try to do the same thing.

One of my save scums . . . okay, scratch that, at least two of my save scums from my original file had been because I tried looting a crate at Fort Moonmoth.

And for now all I'm doing is using Caius's place to store alchemy tools so I can make potions.

I'm assuming I'm doing the smart thing by beginning to stash every bottle I find there, right? Gotta store potions in something, after all.

edited 5th Jan '14 3:58:13 PM by Journeyman

Rule #1 of Elder Scrolls alchemy: Making a potion does not require an empty bottle.

O.o Well heck, I can sell all that table-clutter and . . . Naw. I'll just arrange it neatly and make it decorative. It should look like a proper drug Alchemy den.

I could never ever get the hang of alchemy in that game. Of course, I've hardly ever used alchemy

But aye, loved that game, I did. One of my first RP Gs. Some of the music still gets me teary-eyed from nostalgia - specially "The Road Less Travelled". They really knew what they were doing with the soundtrack.

The expansions, though, which I only got when I started playing it again - I mean, they were fun, and both had a wonderfully unique aesthetic, but...eh, perhaps I'm being overly nit-picky, but I had real trouble buying the idea of a snow-covered island - basically a proto-Skyrim - existing just a few miles north of Vvardenfell, where it NEVER snows. That's now how the climate works, I'm pretty sure.

Oh, the reason it never snows in Vvardenfell is because of the Volcano. I think that gets weakened after the main quest, and the expansions are supposed to be end game material, IIRC. So if you're doing things in order, it's not entirely off-kilter. Not correct, but there's slight justification for it.

Vvardenfell is in the same latitudes as Skyrim, so if anything's off-kilter, it'd be Vvardenfell.

edited 6th Jan '14 3:23:01 AM by Journeyman

Ah, yes Morrowind. I tried it because the whole "open world" aspect sounded fun, but finally dropped it because many mechanics were boring me to death. It was my first Elder Scrolls, and it tainted my vision of this series to the point that I completely skipped Oblivion afterwards, before leaping back in with Skyrim which basically got rid of many of the things that were irritating me in Morrowind.

I found a GOTY version however, so I might try it again, but I have a lot of problems making the Morrowind Overhaul mod work. Also, I'm still into Skyrim, so the comparison might not be in the former's advantage.

On that note, was there a way to fast-travel in the game, besides using the console ? I never found one, and that's one of the major reasons I dropped the game (because, seriously, 3/4 hours for a stupid fetch quest ? With characters that are so slow that it's as if they're walking when you're sprinting ? No thanks).

Also, it's a fantasy RPG. Just blame gods or magic if something doesn't make sense.

I actually liked Tribunal a lot. It seemed very polished. My problem with Bloodmoon is that it's not very fun to explore, especially with giant mobs of wolves and rieklings everywhere.

There are teleport spells (useless for escort quests), stilt striders and boats. There's also a levitation spell which I used a lot.

edited 6th Jan '14 6:04:18 AM by supergod

And the Spriggans. I much prefer their reinvention.

Them as well. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to make it so you have to kill them twice before they stay dead.

You can enchant rings and things with spells that come active when you wear them. Enchant one with levitate and have enough soul gems on hand to fuel the thing. You'll get by quicker. Getting that far is a pain, but after? Not so much.

Seyda Neen is noticeably emptier after my recent efforts. Two more dead bodies made and disposed of. Well, more than that. But the others are in Addamasartus, the dungeon just outside of town.

And I'm a couple hundred Gold richer for the raiding.

The only place I went on a bit of a rampage was the Dren plantation, excluding the main buildings, while freeing all the slaves. That was before I knew of the Twin Lamps, so I think it messed up those quests.

I generally never kill innocents in RP Gs even if I'm playing an evil character (unless quest related), because it makes the world look really boring afterwards. In Skyrim, I even used to load my saves if a dragon killed an NPC.

edited 12th Jan '14 9:18:50 AM by supergod

so having learnt from past experiences that destruction is utterly and completely useless in...well, all elder scroll games really. ive decided to make my new character more magic-thief-ish.

enchant, alteration, restoration, sneak and long blade as major, athletics, alchemy, mercantile, illusion and unarmored as minor, which covers almost all attributes (luck excluded for obvious reason, and endurance excluded because it has no useful skills for me and it doesnt do anything other attributes dont.) willpower and intelligence favored, atronach birthsign.

turns out theres a much more efficient and less tedious way to get tons of money in this game than alchemy nuking; mercantile fortification 400 for 1 second. vendor will buy anything for all their money. and i have more vendor cash mod installed so a lot of vendors have around 2k to 8k on them. it can be done with minimal inventory cluttering and preparation, and overall you get much more money per day just because you arent focused on one vendor (creeper, in my case).

i have yet to start enchanting. havent really got anything decent to enchant yet. ive decided ive progressed through the mages guild far more than im willing to tolerate them for, and have now officially moved to telvanni (<3)

(jeez, ive yet to do a single playthrough where i didnt join telvanni. including the hlaalu playthrough where i still joined telvanni cuz they're just too awesome to resist)

edited 12th Jan '14 9:16:21 AM by Tarsen