I am playing Morrowind for the first time

[DeeBye]

I've owned Morrowind plus the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions for awhile, but I've never really gotten into the game. I keep meaning to give it a serious chance, but I always seem to get turned off by the overly-long and complicated beginning. By the time I'm free to roam around, I'm already bored and find another game.

Not so, this time. I think I've finally overcome my reluctance to delve into Morrowind. I've completed (for the most part) the quests available in Seyda Neen. I haven't yet ventured towards Balmora, so I'm trying to stay away from the main storyline quest until I get familiar enough with this game. I've just been wandering around and looking at stuff. I've made it as far as Pelagiad, and even went to the Fields of Kummu to complete a quest I found along the way. The random dungeons along the way are a lot of fun to clear out.

My question, I guess, is pretty vague. Is there any specific type of character that is more newbie-friendly than others? This time I started with a Redguard Warrior, but I don't want to handicap myself. I'm not saying that I need this specific character to be able to complete the game, but I'd surely like to be able to get a good look at most of it before moving on to a new character. I'd like something that's easy yet fun to play.

Also, mods. The only mods I am using right now are Better Bodies and Better Heads. I don't want to run anything that has any effect on gameplay, but can you suggest anything as far as graphics and sounds go?

[Drasca]

LOL

I am having this very conversation with Treesh over PM's... Sometimes never can tell when spin-off becomes legitimate posting useful for other people.

Here:

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

Read that list. Lots of clothing, signposts, etc. Non gameplay stuff. I highly recommend less generic NPC's, real (readable) signposts, the clothing mods, window glow 2.2, and the FPS optimizer.

Qarl's hot girls too ;)

Oh so many top notch mods.... so so many. All of those I have recommended so far do not affect game balance (unless you consider actually being to read signposts without having to step next to them a cheat)

Go to www.elderscrolls.com 's Morrowind Mod forums too. Great people.

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/

There are more but... I'll get to that bridge when we come to it.

[DeeBye]

Here:

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

Read that list. Lots of clothing, signposts, etc. Non gameplay stuff. I highly recommend less generic NPC's, real (readable) signposts, the clothing mods, window glow 2.2, and the FPS optimizer.
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The Readable Signs mod is awesome!


That was the first mod I installed from that link. I am looking forward to checking out the rest of them :)

[Drasca]

Hehehe I could talk nearly forever. Last I checked, I had over 150 mods installed and active. I must have downloaded 300 mods total, and this does not include my own personal mods.

Look for carry-able briefcases, houses, and other little amenities. Heck, the bank mod is worth it too and not really game destroying.

Glad you like the readable signs mod. I have an older version. Never knew it turned so... colorful.

Get the Laura Croft companion mod--and Lilacor sword. Trust me... hehehe They're super fun.

[Treesh]

LOL

I am having this very conversation with Treesh over PM's... Sometimes never can tell when spin-off becomes legitimate posting useful for other people.[right][snapback]67232[/snapback][/right]

I just had to laugh when I saw this thread today. :D BTW, I fired off the next round of PMs. ;)

Go to www.elderscrolls.com 's Morrowind Mod forums too. Great people.
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Linkage to the Mod forums that Drasca mentioned. Be sure to read the Welcome thread which will give you handy info such as the most popular mod hosting sites and such. Many good links in there.

Also, in case you're interested in making your own mods (I don't know if you have the spare time or inclination to do so), visit the Construction Set forums, especially this thread. Of course, if you'd rather just use mods than make them, just ignore all this. :) The TESCS may seem a bit bewildering at first, but since the game has been out for so long, there are plenty of good tutorials out there now.

Hooray for Morrowind plus expansions! :D Can't wait for Oblivion to come out and see what improves/changes. :)

Edit: Whew. Bad quoting tags by me. Fixed.

Edit again: If you like to collect books in the game, the Book Rotate mod is a must as well. Instead of just having piles of books on the floor or stuck away in chests, BookRotate will let you rotate books so you can place them on shelves the way books are meant to be stored. The latest version even allows you to use the podiums/lecturns that tilt the books.

[Treesh]

My question, I guess, is pretty vague.  Is there any specific type of character that is more newbie-friendly than others?  This time I started with a Redguard Warrior, but I don't want to handicap myself.  I'm not saying that I need this specific character to be able to complete the game, but I'd surely like to be able to get a good look at most of it before moving on to a new character.  I'd like something that's easy yet fun to play.
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I got so caught up in the discussion of mods I completely forgot to answer this. Most people find that playing some kind of melee character is the easiest. There are some complaints that mages end up having to melee anyway so why not just go with melee up front? With melee, you don't have to worry about racial resists (one of the early Dunmer is a spellcaster; if you don't pick up a non-fire based spell before you meet him it can take longer to kill him since he resists fire), you don't have to worry about mana levels, you don't have to worry about arrows/bolts. Melee can be quite fun for the starting player. And there are different kinds of melee too. I had a meleeing thief-like character (I always play custom classes) that I had a blast with. I also had an almost straight warrior who was fun, but it drove me nuts to not be able to get into every locked chest or door. ;) I've also enjoyed my ranged characters and my mages so I'm not completely infatuated with melee and that's why I'm suggesting it. For those new or relatively new to the game, melee seems to be not quite so overwhelming or complicated as ranged or magic. As you get used to game mechanics and how things work and what to expect, then you can figure out better what style or blend of styles works best for you.

Edit: Forgot to mention that some people don't like/can't get used to the whole move your character in order to change what type of melee attack you're using (thrust, slap, chop), but that you can get around by simply going under the options and enabling "use best attack".

[Dako-ta]

Hi, DeeBye,

I spent over a month playing MW last September-Oct., and liked it a lot (though it runs a little slow at times on my computer, which just barely exceeds minimum specs in most regards). I've come to regard the FPS-optimizer as a necessity (though using it's not without some other drawbacks)

[quote=DeeBye,Feb 5 2005, 04:16 AM]
"...I always seem to get turned off by the overly-long and complicated beginning. By the time I'm free to roam around, I'm already bored and find another game."

I understand what you mean, though it doesn't bother me as much. However, I've seen at least two mods that let you bypass or speed up that intro part. I've used one of them a couple of times, but unfortunately, though it does nicely relieve the tedium, it also prevents you from using a couple of slightly cheesy exploits available in the excise (?) office, which I've come to like to do to jump-start the financial status of my characters. :blush:

"... I'm trying to stay away from the main storyline quest until I get familiar enough with this game. I've just been wandering around and looking at stuff."

Yeah, I sort of did the same thing with my first character, though I think I carried it too far. I think he was clvl 11-12 or so when I took a break from the game, and had only done the first few steps of the main quest. Some early parts of the main quest that would have been challenging or yielded useful booty early on were rather boring by the time I tackled them. You might start doing the first few steps, then take more detours, then do a few more main-quest steps, etc.


"... I've made it as far as Pelagiad, and even went to the Fields of Kummu to complete a quest I found along the way. The random dungeons along the way are a lot of fun to clear out."

Dungeons -- you found dungeons?? :whistling: I had heard that a lot of people complained that the dungeons in Daggerfall were too big, and that the dungeons in MW would be smaller, but I think they went too far. The bandit caves, etc., are fine for what they are, but I miss the real big dungeons... <sniff, sniff>. So far I've only found one area I would call a "real" dungeon - the dwemer ruins NNE (?) of Seyda Neen. However, I've really only explored the SW 1/4 of the map, so maybe there's some other "real" dungeons elsewhere. I hope so, anyway...

By the way, there's an interactive map available (that runs outside of the game) that can be useful to find locations, etc. I'm not sure what it's listed as on websites, but the program is "TES_map.exe"... I find it handy to have around.


"My question, I guess, is pretty vague. Is there any specific type of character that is more newbie-friendly than others? This time I started with a Redguard Warrior, but I don't want to handicap myself."

A warrior type might have been a good idea; I gravitate more to magic-users, myself (although, in Daggerfall, my characters had high magic ability, but due to the combat system, even they did a lot of their slaying with melee weapons, and MW seems to be the same way). I found it a struggle at times as a low-level magic user, since magic-regenerating potions were expensive and hard to come by at that stage. Fairly early on (clvl 3-4 or so?), I started following that volcanic gully that leads from NE of Seyda Neen towards the center of the island, and had to rest a LOT, because I kept running out of mana. I also started using magic rings, wands, etc., a lot more than I had planned, just to stay alive. Eventually, I installed a mod that very slowly regenerates mana. That is the only play-affecting mod I have installed so far. However, now that I am more familiar with the Alchemy system, I think I could somewhat overcome that problem of excessive resting at low char levels.

"Also, mods. The only mods I am using right now are Better Bodies and Better Heads. I don't want to run anything that has any effect on gameplay, but can you suggest anything as far as graphics and sounds go?"

Although I haven't used it yet, I installed an Inscription mod, that let's you create your own scrolls; it sounded interesting (this might be of more relevance for mage-types than warriors). Also, there are several mods that do some things (turn off global scripts, turn off some local graphic effects, etc), which lessen the demands on your system, if you are experiencing any slowdowns. I think the one that looked of most interest to me was called Morrowind_cities, IIRC, but it needed the first expansion pack installed to use, which I didn't have back then (I've since picked it up).

I want to get back to MW one of these days, but I've gotten caught up between NWN and working my way through a pile of old games (heh, had to grin when I saw Nystul's thread on the DSFC about older games - though the old ones I'm checking out are much older than the ones he cited!).

I hope you continue to enjoy MW. Overall, I think I like MW better than NWN (maybe just because of a little more freedom in MW; fewer rules about things; moreover the graphics tend to be more colorful; NWN seems drab by comparison*).However, I am enjoying NWN, too. Maybe I just haven't checked out the right types of MW mods, but there seem to be a lot more stand-alone-adventure type of user-developed mods for NWN than for MW, and I've found a few already that were fun to play.

Regards,

Dako-ta

*This sort of reminds me of the difference between Nox and Darkstone - although Darkstone was a more sophisticated game that probably appealed to more Diablo fans (and I liked it), I think I actually enjoyed playing Nox more, in part because the environment colors were brighter and more vibrant.

[edit only added the comment on Nox vs Darkstone]

from Odium (aka Gorky 17), © 1999, one of the games I'm currently playing:

Trantigne - "I don't understand; nothing I've studied can explain this."

Orvitz - "Listen, science boy. Explain less, shoot more!"

[WarLocke]

All I have to say right now is, save often and in a bunch of different slots/names. Morrowind is a great game, but it's very easy to stumble across a location before you're 'supposed' to and break some script or other - usually one having to do with the 'main plot' and making the game 'unbeatable'. :o

Also, if there's one mod I have to recommend, there's one floating around somewhere (and I can't remember the name of it anymore, dangit) that adjusts the levelling system. I can't stand the default one, but this mod changes it so that you level every time you increase two skills, and you gain one stat point per level. So instead of having to juggle skillups so that you get the maximum stats per level, you just play.

I should reinstall Morrowind. I liked my Dunmer sorceress. But running around in tights and a cape is so damned fun...

[pakman]

I have not yet finished Morrowind. However, the character that I always seem to end up playing is a theif. I like going around and taking things from people, its makes me quite rich. I didn't start on the main story line until very late in the game when I had alreay become the head of two guilds and done all their quests.

Thieving is especially fun when you use an invisibility spell to sneak up on someone and stab them in the back with a paralyzing dagger and do critical damage :).

[[wcip]Angel]

Before I say *anything*, get the boots of blinding speed from the woman north-west from Caldera. Then get the cuirass of saviours hide from the 100% locked chest at the top level in tel fyr (you need to levitate to the top floor.) The boots of blinding speed gives you +200 to speed, which allows you to travel very fast. However, you are completely blinded whenever you use them, so you need the cuirass that gives you 70% magicka reduction, reducing the blindness to 30%)

Whenever I play the game, this is the very first thing I do after I leave Seyda Neen. The game is unplayable without the Boots of BS.


Now, onto the rest of my post:

Ah, good ol'e Vvardenfell!

Morrowind is one of the few games I always return to. It is one of the biggest games I've played, and the replayability is one-of-a-kind. There are simply no other games out there that provide this level of replay-value. I'm currently playing GTA: San Andreas on my Playstation2, and that definitely gets close, however, with the lack of an unending mod-community, San Andreas has a limit. Morrowind, on the other hand, does not.

As to your questions:

1. Mods
The first 3-4 times I played through the game, I never used any mods. I was skeptical of anything that wasn't released by the game manufacturers. This last time around, I said "what the hell", and downloaded a few. I was very happy with the ones I chose:

* Castle Vianden (based on a real castle in the Netherlands)
Gives you a huge castle south-east of Sadrith Mora where you can display armors and weapons on manequins and in display cases. Very cool! (No quests though, but there's a ring that lets you teleport to sadrith mora/the castle/Vivec and some other places, which cuts back on travelling.

Also, there's a room full of pictures hanging on the walls showing the real Castle Vianden through the ages. It's very neat :)

* World of faces
This mod not only allows you a greated variety of faces to choose from for your own character, but alters many key character's faces in the world of Vvardenfell.

* Giants ultimate files
I think this was a monster-mod which added 200 new monsters to the world including giants, female giants, giant skeletons and many other challenging foes.

Morrowind gets *real* easy *real* fast unless you slide the difficulty slider all the way to the right, or choose a magic-based character class. The last mod makes the game harder without having to make these compromises.

Here are some pictures:
This is me in my outfit. Notice the cloak I got from the body of one my summoned creatures (don't remember the name). In the background you should see orc- and redguard armor on two of my manequins, as well as some of the paintings of Castle Vianden


This is me by the fireplace:


A close up of my face. In the background you see Her Hand's- (tribunal) and Glass-armor. (Yes I killed the 5 hands of Almaxia. I might have some pictures of it, see below :P)



Yepp, here it is. It's very dark, but you should be able to make out a couple of Almaxia's dead hands on the floor. It took a long time killing them. Anyone who's tried knows why :)


A nymph: (from the monsters-plugin) Dislaimer: Full nudity ahead!
http://www.home.no/lzp/mw6.jpg

Vianden at night:


An earlier (and seemingly more evil) version of my character:


Some more pictures of my stash: :)
http://www.angel.fenre.org/Morrowind/

edit: I removed the [img]-brackets around the nymph, and also added a little disclaimer; for obvious reasons.. :whistling:

[Drasca]

I should reinstall Morrowind.&nbsp; I liked my Dunmer sorceress.&nbsp; But running around in tights and a cape is so damned fun...
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I can do that with my Breton witch ;)

Whrrrrt whrrrww. mmm. I love my clothing mods. Cloaks, capes, skirts, tights, stockings... oh my!

[Drasca]

Angel,Feb 5 2005, 04:41 PM]Before I say *anything*...

Whenever I play the game, this is the very first thing I do after I leave Seyda Neen. The game is unplayable without the Boots of BS.

EEP! Deebye has not played this game before! That's one heck of a spoiler. The only saving grace is that he probably doesn't know where Caldera is yet. Showing him the secret* armors of the game so early is not fair to Deebye, Angel--especially when he requested mods that don't unbalance the game. Let him have his own discoveries.

*secret to a first-time player.

This game is quite easily playable even without multiple teleport mark + extra travel NPC mods.

Spells/Scrolls/Amulets of Divine and Almsivi intervention (purchasable everywhere, particularly in temples like Balmora's temple) make town travel a breeze. Halfway to the next town? Use Almsivi or Divine to go to Dunmer or Imperial towns respectively.

There's also a mark and recall spell. It used to be called teleport and did both functions in Daggerfall, but your teleport spell is split into two for functionality sake in Morrowind. Use mark to "remember" a location for later teleporting to. Use recall to teleport to that marked location. So, you may go back and forth from a dungeon by using Mark at the dungeon, divine or almsivi intervention to head to town, and recall to go back to said dungeon.

This is an advanced use of the spell techniques available. Using this plus silt striders + boats, should get one near everywhere.

And btw: There are very few locations that could screw up one's game.

The only location based version is to defeat the default end-boss Dagoth Ur (He tells you to buzz off if you're not ready, anyways) AFTER killing a Vivec God--and if you're able to lockpick 100, and defeat Vivec in combat. . . you should be able to pump your own strength through alchemy enough to physically destroy the heart of lorkhan without special tools--or simply gain the tools and suffer the scripted health problems long enough to win the original game.

If you do kill an important NPC by accident, you're usually told.

Saving often is a good idea in general. MW tends to crash.

Tip for improving MW performance: Morrowind uses a lot of threads. Turn off every other program and unuseful service (which should happen regardless), then go to task manager and set Morrowind's service priority to LOW. (Optional: Go to Control panels-->System-->Advanced tab-->Performance-->Processor scheduling. Set cache to 'optimize for backround services') What happens is that Morrowind's threads collide with each other each demanding CPU time. When set to low priority, they somehow balance each other out and since no other services are drawing huge CPU time, Morrowind is free to use the CPU time for its own threads.

Strange, but true. MW takes more CPU time for its threads in backround services than for the game rendering itself.

[DeeBye]

Tip for improving MW performance: Morrowind uses a lot of threads.
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Morrowind runs very well for me out of the box.
AMD Athlon XP 1700+
512 MB DDR RAM
ECS K7VMM+
Radeon 9200 128 MB video

I can run it at 1024x768 at about 80% far view with reasonable FPS. I can't tell you exactly how many FPS, but it's quite smooth.

[[wcip]Angel]

There's a Morrowind.ini-file somewhere. Edit it using notepad, find something in the lines of "showfps=0" and set it to "showfps=1" or something, and you should get the fps unintrusively placed in the corner of your screen. If you wish to take screenshots, you edit the same file. Run a search on "screenshot" and edit the value from 0 to 1. Pressing the "printscreen"-button whilst ingame will create a screenshot in your MW-directory.

[jahcs]

Morrowind is one of the few games I always return to. It is one of the biggest games I've played, and the replayability is one-of-a-kind. There are simply no other games out there that provide this level of replay-value. I'm currently playing GTA: San Andreas on my Playstation2, and that definitely gets close, however, with the lack of an unending mod-community, San Andreas has a limit. Morrowind, on the other hand, does not.
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I agree. The scope and playability of this game are outstanding. Which is a problem for me. There is so much neat stuff that I want to play with my friends. This game has better content and playability than any MMORPG I've played yet. It avoids much of the leveling treadmill that most other multiplayer games suffer from. Leveling is still neat, but the experience of the gameand exploration is why I kept turning it on and playing it until the wee hours.

[DeeBye]

There's a Morrowind.ini-file somewhere. Edit it using notepad, find something in the lines of "showfps=0" and set it to "showfps=1" or something, and you should get the fps unintrusively placed in the corner of your screen. If you wish to take screenshots, you edit the same file. Run a search on "screenshot" and edit the value from 0 to 1. Pressing the "printscreen"-button whilst ingame will create a screenshot in your MW-directory.
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Thanks. I was able to do the screenshot thing (see the screenshot I already posted? :P ), but I didn't know about the FPS one.

[DeeBye]

Okay, here's a dumb question. How do I find out the level of enemies? What about HP? As far as I can tell, Morrowind gives you zero feedback about enemies' attributes before you fight them. For now, I'd like to just wander around the easier areas and not get surprised by an enemy far above my meager ability.

[[wcip]Angel]

Most outdoor-creatures on the western part of the island (rats, worms, annoying flying beasts, green dogs) are easily dispatched. However, I'd stay away from caves that contain 6th House-guys. They can be trouble. I'm unaware of any table that shows the level of animals and fiends in a certain area.

I think you need to reach lvl 15 before you see golden saints and winged twilights out and about; and I think they only roam the east side of the island. Also, stay on the outside of the Ghostfence. Go to Balmora, join some guilds, do a couple of quests. Don't travel by foot until you're sure you can handle yourself. Use the boats, silt striders, mage guild-teleporters, mark/recall/almsini/divine intervention spells for all they're worth.

Also, if you have Tribunal installed, save before you sleep in the wild :)

edit: Final piece of advice: the expansion packs were made because people felt the original game wasn't challenging enough. I advise you to stay away from the expansion packs until you've finished the original Morrowind; which should be sometime mid-june :P

[Drasca]

Okay, here's a dumb question.  How do I find out the level of enemies?  What about HP?  As far as I can tell, Morrowind gives you zero feedback about enemies' attributes before you fight them.  For now, I'd like to just wander around the easier areas and not get surprised by an enemy far above my meager ability.
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Not a dumb question at all.

Levels of enemies encountered in wildlife and most dungeons is scaled to your level. So in effect, weaker enemies will appear while you're low level in the wilderness, and stronger ones will replace them once you level. So don't worry too much about that. You won't really encounter anything that you aren't prepared for (or can escape from), unless you go out of your way to do so.

You will never see a hp figure in numbers. If you attack, you'll see a % health bar in yellow in the lower left.

So in effect, not a problem. Of course, stay away from the expansion wilderness areas (sewers of Mournhold and forests of Solstheim) like Angel said. Feel free to explore the towns though.

As you've probably discovered, there is also a difficulty slider that will adjust damage given and taken. Play as you will.

So, I take the opposite stance of Angel. Feel free to go exploring. It'll only help your running skill. Ahem. Athleticism. I agree with him on exploring balmora first, though. The "main quest" extremely relaxed. There is no time limit to do things in. So feel free to accept main quest from the half naked old guy blade and he'll tell you to go dilly dally around before coming back to do the main quest :)

Hey angel, if you're reading this, have you considered a reduced shimmering or no glow mod for your magic items? The saran wrap feel of enchanted items will be reduced to a nice shimmer, or removed completely.

[[wcip]Angel]

I didn't realise such a thing existed. I never minded the radioactive-like shine to my custom-fitted robes and helmets :) If I ever return to Morrowind one final time before Oblivion takes me whole, I'll look into it :)

edit: I should have clarified something.

I didn't mean "don't explore", as I feel exploring Vvardenfell is one of the most entertaining ways to get around. It is by walking that you explore this world for all its worth. What I meant to say was, if you need to travel between villages, ports and towns, there are other - more safe - ways than walking.

edit#2: [bragging]It should be noted, that last time I played, I started looting Daedric shrines and killing Daedroths at level 1[/bragging] :P

edit#3: .. with a magic user :whistling: