Today’s game is Morrowind. I wanted to try mixing things up a little and had gotten this last december so i decided to dick around for a bit in it. I ended up being a little surprised by how much i enjoyed all the reading it needs. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s incredibly tedious and annoying sometimes, but it comes with satisfaction upon finding your way around with the journal and having to navigate in an almost realistic manner.
I ended up reusing my Daggerfall character Nazita for it, even though with the timeline it doesn’t really work timeline wise. I made her a Rogue, though i’m not a fan of daggers so i’ve been training the longsword skill so i can use those instead in combat.
Speaking of the combat, I can’t say i’m a fan. Maybe there’s something i’m missing but it’s definitely a lacking point of it. I just find myself jabbing at the enemies until either one of us drop dead.
Graphically though? I find it to be really pretty. I really like the water especially. I’m not sure what comes from OpenMW and what comes from base Morrowind, bur at a core level i think it’s pretty.
I ended up just walking all the way to Gnisis to join the Empire and got the quest where you have too get the land deed. I ended up just stopping there though after heading into the mine and then turning back. I thought i had to go there to handle the Land deed morally, but apparently not.
Overall i think if i have to pick an Elderscrolls game that’s got overwhelming depth to it while still controlling a little weirdly, i’d have to pick Daggerfall. I still think Morrowind has a lot going on for it that i love but i think i prefer how Daggerfall looks, plays, and sounds.
Omg, the water is so cool in Morrowind, at the time I bought a brand new GeForce 3 & it was the only card that had the shaders for the water!
Good times.
I’m also currently playing with OpenMW for the first time - it’s such an amazing project (also almost/basically finished).
The water really is pretty. It’s got the same quality that makes me love Ocarina of Time’s Water.
I can get home people love the combat, even if it’s not for me, all that depth and RPG like qualities makes it interesting
Yes!!
And oh no, I didn’t say I love the combat (maybe a bit at higher levels, but then again you can be kinda op at very low levels as well), it’s not a strength of the game, but that it’s still “interesting” to me might be the right word for it. Kinda like pumping skill into a slot machine (& it’s actually working).
I started the original Oblivion not long ago, been playing for some tens of hours. First time experiencing the Elder Scrolls, it’s an interesting game with quite some depth. I got turned into a vampire and am doing a vampire quest and it’s a bit tedious with not being able to stay in the sunlight but other than that it’s a good game.
Oblivion doesn’t feel too far from modern game mechanics, but what about morrowind?
Morrowind is practically exactly in the middle between Daggerfall and Oblivion, in terms of mechanics complexity. May elements are “dumbed down”, but many remain as complex (if changed). Oblivion “dumbs down” a couple of extra elements, but nothing as drastic as Skyrim.
Why walk when you can ride?
Fun memory of mine from playing Morrowind when it first came out…
#1 was having a printed map that came in the game box that got used A LOT. No directional aids in game, and a quest giver would give you directions to a place like going to a southerner’s cousin’s house before GPS (“go west out of town along the river road, you will pass 2 dwemer ruins on your right and there will be a small path breaking off to the right. Follow that until you see the strange statue and look for a cave entrance to your west.” Yea, I needed that printed map and I basically wore it out playing the game).
#2 early on in the main story, the quest giver tells you he needs to look into some information and asks you to come back and check in “after 2 moons have passed”. Well, having been forced to read the book “walk 2 moons” in school recently at that point and having my teacher explain that “a moon” was a month because of moon cycles… I was shocked this quest giver wants me to wait TWO BLOODY MONTHS to continue the main story quests… I get to looking and sure enough there is a whole ass calendar system in Morrowind, so I tried to write down what month it was and wait to see when 2 months had passed… I became the top dog for the mages guild, fighters guild, thieves guild, etc… Explored basically the entire continent. Come back to him and continue the quest but now I’m powered up to fight a god on basically day 4 of the main story. I find out after this that the guy wanted me to wait two nights. TWO NIGHTS. not TWO MONTHS. TWO FUCKING NIGHTS. As in he meant “see the moon twice” not see it go through it’s entire fucking cycle twice. I never even tried talking to him for 2 entire fucking in-game months.
I should go back and replay Morrowind…
I’ve been using an Online map to navigate. It’s how I got to Gnisis. It was a fun experience, even if I did miss fast travel.
when I was younger I could totally see myself thinking a moon meant a whole moon cycle.
No quick travel?
Are you saying your recall spell doesn’t get you back to the Balmora mage’s guild YOU N’WAH!
Also there’s a bugbus to Gnisis.
I misread game as grave. I was worried there for a second.
The shot reminded me of Elder Scrolls Online at first, and I had that very real PTSD.
When I was going through the worst part of my life, losing everything, burying my family and pets, closing down my business and having my home foreclosed due to family medical issues, I played Elder Scrolls for a couple years for no other reason than to spend time with someone I cared about. I hated the game, it was exciting for the first couple hours until I realized how far it deviated from the actual franchise and how limited the gameplay really was, how everything was just a funnel towards premium content and skins.
I drank like a fish and laid in trash watching my life fall apart as I sat in Elder Scrolls listening to people chatter and watching them duel, because I didn’t want to be alone because I didn’t trust myself to be alone.
I did start over and everything is a lot better now, but holy shit, that game ruined Morrowind, Skyrim and the entire game world for me.
I’m glad you’re doing better! I notice it’s a reoccurring theme for people to go through stuff like that with MMOs.
My best friend went through the same thing with ESO and FFXIV because he felt alone and wanted to connect with people. He had spent roughly 400$ on FFXIV subscriptions alone until he got better, so I know how rough it can be.
But yeah, I have mixed feelings on ESO, and FFXIV while we’re on the subject. I had fun, but damn with how much money they try to siphon from the player it makes me not want to touch them and kind of cheapens the experience for me
Someone said it best describing Destiny 2, that it’s a perpetual feeling of building towards something that’s always just around the corner, but when you get around that corner, it’s just more grinding and pushing premium content, just around the corner. It’s gonna huge bro, I promise. Big stuff coming. Just ahead, just buy one more season bro.
I notice it’s a reoccurring theme for people to go through stuff like that with MMOs.
I think we all have our check-out bottom we will fall to when life hurts too much, some people will just rot in bed and some will watch old movies and some will camp in the woods. We have breaking points in life, and sometimes an online game where people seem to be having normal lives just feels like being someone still connected to the world. When I was little and my parents would go on week-long drug benders and spend the whole time screaming at each other, I would check out into comics and books, so it’s probably where I learned how to do it inadvertently.
The combat makes more sense if you custom class and put your preferred weapon skill into Major. And keep stamina high. A Redguard with Longblade and the appropriate weapon can kill a mudcrab in two seconds at level 1. You ideally want to start with your main combat skill over 40, if not 50-60. The best part: you don’t need to min-max since the level scaling is minimal. Just pick your favorite armor type/weapon in Major and the rest can be whatever you want.
The game does NOT make that all clear, unfortunately. It took me a few tries to wrap my head around it before falling in love with the game.
I might try that after starting over then (or see if there’s a console command to let me redo the class selection so i don’t have to start over)
Welcome to Morrowind, outlander.
Combat in Morrowind: *whoop* *whoop* *whoop* *whoop* AH!!! *whoop* *whoop* *whoop*
Fucking love this game. 10/10
Speaking of the combat, I can’t say i’m a fan. Maybe there’s something i’m missing but it’s definitely a lacking point of it. I just find myself jabbing at the enemies until either one of us drop dead.
One thing that’s perhaps not obvious from today’s viewpoint, is that stamina affects your hit chance quite a bit.
It is also a good idea to be rather skilled in your weapon of choice.
And of course, the real pro tip is to install a mod which changes the hit feedback. 😅
I just didn’t like hit chance being a thing in a first person melee game. At all. If my sword connects with the enemy then it should be a hit. When the game decides to roll a miss it makes the game feel broken. It’s like clicking an icon on your computer and it not opening up. Then you click again and it opens. If it’s just randomly not opening it feels broken and unreliable!
Stamina is the green bar, right? I had actually read about that after doing a surface level reading into the combat, I’m just not really sure how to incorporate that into the combat if it makes sense, as I believe it drops with attacks.
I’ll try getting my weapon skills up to help though, and maybe the mod too lmao.
You could always make stamina recovery potions for combat with basic food items and greatly increase your effectiveness.
Maybe there’s something i’m missing
Yeah, you’re missing a lot. That’s the big problem with the combat system =P
BTW, you might enjoy this.
Definitely enjoyed that relic. I stopped and checked the date and had to do a quick check because I was thinking “Oh. Six years ago? That was like what, 2012? 2013?”. Nope. 2020. I feel ancient
Good news is that Young Scrolls is still going strong. Better than ever, even. The Dark Brotherhood album from a few months ago is just incredible.
Fucking love Young Scrolls!
Why walk when you can ride?
Hottest pick-up line imaginable tbh
Morrowind is probably one of my favorites, but it definitely has not aged well. Going the mage route with custom spells can absolutely make you overpowered though. A single Damage Strength spell can cripple most enemies, as they become over encumbered by their few items in inventory.
The magic was what made me initially interested. I hear people talking about how utterly broken it is with very little restraints and it made me want to try it
Climb aboard. We’ll make a special trip, just for you.
Same low pric… (the end of that line always seems cut off to me).
It is
I’ve been meaning to check out Morrowind, most people have been frothing about it since forever and… tbh, only Elder Scrolls game I have really played has been Skyrim, only dabbled with Oblivion and Morrowind.
And… oh, OpenMW is in my linux distro’s repository too, that’s one barrier removed already! I take MW is quite a bit more approachable than Daggerfall, but probably quite a bit less than eg. Skyrim?
Morrowind has far more to do than Skyrim and Oblivion combined. That makes sense when you realize that they dumbed down the games with each successive release.
When I started MW the first time and came back to it later, the biggest turn off was the attacks not connecting. But as long as you can accept that every attack has a dice roll happening in the background it’s fine. Also recommend using a map on a second monitor, since you got a physical version when you bought the game originally.
so, I take there’s no in-game map then? oof, but I can deal with map on second monitor.
attacks not connecting might bug me a bit, but I suspect there’s some mod for that if it ends up breaking my brain.
Thanks, these were good to know stuff!
There is an ingame map, but it works like a scratch off. Everything is obfuscated until you either talk about the location with someone or go there. The terrain changes from default brown to textured as you move through it. If you follow the roads you’ll basically draw them onto the map but there’s a lot of missions where they’re like, “follow the road to fort placething, then take the 4th left, look for a hill and you’ll find the door in the other direction.”
Frankly I always found it easier to look at a map, guess where the location is, and levitate or hoptoad in a straight line to that area.
There is an in-game map, but there’s no “magic quest destination arrow”.
It the map has locations named and there’s a compass, I’ll manage. The quest pointer in later bethesda games is “a bit” too much handholding, imo. But that said I’ve seen some mw memes about some cube and how hard it is to find… No idea what that’s about but probably going to find out :P
The in-game map has information on only the places you’ve visited. There’s a minimap that can work kind of like a compass. That cube quest was super frustrating the first time I did it. If you spend more than an hour on it I recommend just looking it up on the wiki. It’s one of the first main quest missions.
The attacking stuff is most noticeable at the start, but as you level up your skills you’re gonna connect almost every attack.
It is, but just take it slow. I’d suggest the Tamriel Rebuilt mod(s), but I also want you to experience the game as vanilla as possible.
oh for sure (near vanilla) experience for first time. Gameplay changing mods etc are for playthroughs after the first one.
I take the Tamrield Rebuilt mods are mostly quality-of-life -stuff?
Very little QoL, but an absolutely fucking massive map expansion and all the quests that comes with it. They just released the latest bit they finished last spring. It greatly expands all the major questlines and guilds and adds a couple more, introduces new ways of fast travel like water striders, new enemies and creatures, so many new towns with NPCs and their own dialog. It’s a lot. But I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Elder Scrolls regardless.
It’s a project that’s been in production since a few weeks before Morrowind even released (but that’s more just a fun fact). It’s been worked on off-and-on over time, but really picked up speed a few years ago when Morrowind started becoming popular again.
ah, in that case I’m gonna venture forth without it. Expansions are cool, but I kinda want to get my feet wet with the base game first. QoL mods which make the experience have “less friction” I’m entirely fine with
Having been playing it off and on since release, you can honestly get away with just playing the base game in OpenMW and using Console command to fortify your weapon skills. With those at 100, you don’t wiff 9/10 swings but combat is still mechanically unpredictable enough to feel like you’re not over powered. Back on original Xbox you could even do it by constantly reequipping a bound weapon. If you’re a hoarder like me you don’t even need a house mod to display all your stuff, you can get one for free by picking the tower sign and breaking into a quest house. Even comes with a dead guy to use as a crate.
Or you could do “soul trap on self” combined with a “fortify skill” effect.
My head canon is that soultraping yourself like this binds the spell to your soul forever. That’s an actual part of the spell but most people don’t do it because you could end up like the dozens of characters I had to abandon because a permanent effect is actually a problem in a number of ways.
Waterwalking forever seems great until you need to swim to that section of cave for the quest.
