Board 8 > playing Morrowind for (mostly) the first time

(+) Yeah! (+)

hello! welcome to my Morrowind playthrough topic. No spoilers, please!

I've played a crapton of Oblivion (mainly a wood elf archer) and quite a bit of Skyrim (mainly argonian...also archer). I've never gotten past the first few hours of Morrowind, though. Time to fix that shit.

I'm definitely not going to play an archer. Wanna change it up. Probably just going to go something along the lines of a standard warrior type.

I'm playing the version that came with the Anthology, so I have Tribunal and Bloodmoon, too. Not going to jump into those just yet, but feel free to advise me on when/how to best go about it.

You can recommend mods, although I'll just tell you, I probably won't use any. I'm all about that original IP, dawg.

Was just looking over the settings. The only ones that seem extremely pertinent to gameplay are difficulty (duh. leaving at default) and "Always Use Best Attack" which I'm thinking it's probably advisable to enable that? But I'm gonna roll with the defaults for now and if it becomes just simply unbearable I may go back and change it.

About to get started. Ohhh yeah! I just remembered they do the questions thing as a way to generate a class. So fun! I think it's probably an awful way to go about it, but hell why not. That's more my style. You know what screw the original plan of making a melee type. Let's just answer the questions and see what I get. Gonna roll with a Dark Elf, because Morrowind.
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bng_mmmk posted...

You can recommend mods, although I'll just tell you, I probably won't use any. I'm all about that original IP, dawg.

If you're playing on PC, this is an awful idea.
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I was going to suggest the Remove Cliff Racers mod, but everyone should experience the hell that is default Morrowind Cliff Racers
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

bng_mmmk posted...

You can recommend mods, although I'll just tell you, I probably won't use any. I'm all about that original IP, dawg.

If you're playing on PC, this is an awful idea.

I mean, I played most of the way through Arena. I think I can handle it!
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I wanted to play Morrowind but there's no decent controller support on the PC version
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bng_mmmk posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

bng_mmmk posted...

You can recommend mods, although I'll just tell you, I probably won't use any. I'm all about that original IP, dawg.

If you're playing on PC, this is an awful idea.

I mean, I played most of the way through Arena. I think I can handle it!

I don't just mean quality of life.

There are thousands of absolutely incredible, lore-friendly mods out there.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I don't just mean quality of life.

There are thousands of absolutely incredible, lore-friendly mods out there.

Ah, of course. Hm. Well, still. Maybe!
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Your personality and past reflect a:

Spellsword


I'll take it.
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Yeah, I can't understand valuing specifically a modless version of a Bethesda open-world game.
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The thing to know about Morrowind is that compared to Oblivion or Skyrim it is very primitive in a lot of ways. Fast travel only goes from and to certain points and you can't fast travel from your map, you have to find an NPC to drive you to where you want to go. There are no quest indicators - instead, NPCs will give you directions and you'll write them in your journal, then you'll go off in the general direction they told you, get lost, find something neat to explore, die, curse, reload, and eventually end up with a full inventory and the quest you were on still incomplete. It's magical in all the best ways and all the worst ways.

Also I hope you like cliff racers.
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woodman posted...

Yeah, I can't understand valuing specifically a modless version of a Bethesda open-world game.

That's fine. :)
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I also started Morrowind like last week after a lifetime of never getting more than a couple hours deep.

now I'm like 25 hours deep, but I might be done because I just got into FFXIV
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if you're on PC there are some bugfix patches you should get. Morrowind Code Patch and Morrowind Patch Project. And if you have the expansions activated you should get Delayed Dark Brotherhood Attacks and the Solstheim Rumor Fix. Otherwise expansion-related content appears way too quickly and imbalances the game
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Not_an_Owl posted...

The thing to know about Morrowind is that compared to Oblivion or Skyrim it is very primitive in a lot of ways. Fast travel only goes from and to certain points and you can't fast travel from your map, you have to find an NPC to drive you to where you want to go. There are no quest indicators - instead, NPCs will give you directions and you'll write them in your journal, then you'll go off in the general direction they told you, get lost, find something neat to explore, die, curse, reload, and eventually end up with a full inventory and the quest you were on still incomplete. It's magical in all the best ways and all the worst ways.

Also I hope you like cliff racers.

I'm sure I'll enjoy it for that sort of stuff. I'm the weirdo who does files on Oblivion where I never use fast travel just to get more immersed in the game. >.>
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Yeah, without spoiling much the Dark Brotherhood stuff unpatched will very early on hand you a nice set of armor (far nicer than you should have normally) and go "Here, we insist. Mightily. We will keep insisting until you take it."
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I do appreciate the fact there isn't a huge tutorial section. Just basic stuff. How to pick things up. How to equip items. How to move and attack. How to talk to people. OK, good luck!

Remembered the ring in the barrel from the first time I played and my friend pointed it out. I know there's a guy I can give it to for a quest, but I don't remember if it's better to just keep it.

OK so let's take inventory on my spells in hopes of not forgetting what my abilities are and being pwned in a dumb fashion by something which was totally avoidable:

Power - Ancestor Guardian, sanctuary 50pts for 60s. In Arena sanctuary would make enemies not attack you. Same deal here? How reliable is '50pts'?

Fire Bite - 15-30pts damage on touch. Not bad.

Hearth Heal - heal...anywhere from slightly less than half to nearly double my max health. geez. With a 14% chance to fail outright. >_> this game sure does like to make you roll the dice.

Shield - 5pts. Doesn't seem too useful but maybe I'm wrong.

Water Walking - 60s. Pretty nifty.

Engraved Ring of Healing - heal 1-5pts out of my current max health of 45. So...basically useless in combat but potentially slightly helpful for recovering after combat without having to use magicka.
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Haven't installed the expansions yet so I think I'm good in terms of the insistent quest stuff.
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Sanctuary makes you randomly dodge physical attacks that would otherwise hit you. 50 points is a 50% dodge rate.

And yeah, Morrowind in general has a ton of spell effects that seem kind of out there or esoteric, including many that were removed from future games. Magic makes the game a lot more fun because it gives you so many options beyond "walk up and hit things with sword".
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The expansions do overhaul the Journal in a really useful way so if you find it difficult to use, consider installing those and then adding those mods.
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Major Skills:

Block
Restoration
Long Blade
Destruction
Alteration

Minor Skills:

Blunt Weapon
Enchant
Alchmey
Medium Armor
Axe


alright so the pre-determined class doesn't seem totally busted, although I don't know for sure how skills play out in Morrowind relative to Oblivion which had kinda insanely dumb default classes.

General outlook here seems to be find a nice shield and long blade and some medium armor. And try to git gud at setting things on fire and healing.
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You should at least install the Morrowind Code Patch.

It fixes several ingrained bugs in the game, like the alchemy name glitch.

It also has optional features that you can toggle on or off if you like. Many of them are quality of life.

Also, while not optimized, you can survive in Morrowind with *any* of the premade classes. It's really no big deal.

Also, don't underestimate Hand to Hand. Sure, it's got an abysmal system where you can't actually HURT anyone until you've knocked them out by damaging their fatigue, but fatigue actually controls so much in this game (accuracy and spell success included) that a good hand to hand specialist can dominate a battle easily, even against multiple foes.

(Incidentally, I've always thought that calling it "fatigue" is stupid. Fatigue is what you have when you have a LACK of stamina.)
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And once you get over that initial hand to hand hump of getting their fatigue down to zero you can just constantly knock them down, the battle is basically over at that point.
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The first shop has a variety of light armor and heavy armor (helmet, cuirass, left/right gauntlets, left/right pauldrons, greaves - in fact two options for heavy in most of those slots) but for medium armor there's just a helmet and a cuirass. =(

Just bought an iron longsword and the medium armor helmet for now.

I ran around and talked to everyone in Seyda Neen. People pretty much want to talk to me about Daedric shrines and how dangerous it is to travel.

Tried persuasion a few times as an exploratory endeavor. Two people really didn't like what I tried. Another person responded well to Admire twice (+10 each) then really didn't like it the third time (-15). It was the scout chick in the top of the tradehouse who's like "I don't offer training to the public." Thought I might be able to get her to offer training if she liked me more...not that I could afford it.

Read "The Wraith's Wedding Dowry" which was amusing enough and gained an unarmored skill.
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When you head out of Seyda Neen go diagonally left from the exit path.

Listen for a scream.

Trust me.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

When you head out of Seyda Neen go diagonally left from the exit path.

Listen for a scream.

Trust me.

Trust him.
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lol!

Well shit, son. Wish I hadn't purchased an iron longsword now, because I just looted one that's enchanted from the dude who fell out of the sky. Although I'm cool with it because that just fixed my financial situation. I'd spent too much to afford the silt strider, so I was picking mushrooms. >.>

That's hilarious, though. I'd never gone left before! Now I've got an enchanted sword, a helm, and a cuirass. I feel a lot more capable.

Also, kill count: 1. A mud crab was slain this day.
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Oh god. lmao. I pissed off the silt strider lady to the point she won't even accept my bribes.

hahaha. That's awesome. Welp, guess I'm hoofin' it.
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Oh I chose the Warrior for my sign by the way. I figured keep it simple and just take a passive that I never have to think about again.

Also, does Magicka not restore on its own? I thought that was an atronach thing but I still haven't gotten any back from when I cast a spell like 10 minutes ago.
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bng_mmmk posted...

Also, does Magicka not restore on its own? I thought that was an atronach thing but I still haven't gotten any back from when I cast a spell like 10 minutes ago.

It does not. You have to rest to recover magic. As with most Morrowind issues, there's a mod to fix this.
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Trying to sweet talk people is one of those things that's hilariously broken in the wrong direction. Damn near impossible to actually do unless you're already skilled at it
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Did you happen to use one of those scrolls you found yet?
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Not_an_Owl posted...

It does not. You have to rest to recover magic.

Then rest I shall!

I know, I know, I'm just a little eccentric, I guess. When I play Mega Man games I only use the basic weapon just because. I suppose I can be a bit masochistic when it comes to gaming. *shrug*

Anyway, I ventured up the road and picked flowers and mushrooms along the way. Killed one little worm thing. Kwarma or something. Saw an ancestral tomb and 'noped' right out of that.

Stopped in at Pelagiad. Dumped my ingredients at the tavern and bought a couple potions. Rested to get my health and magic back.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Did you happen to use one of those scrolls you found yet?

I know they seemed super fun, but I just sold them so I could afford armor. -_-
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I made it to Balmora and tracked down Caius Cosades.

...the dude is shirtless and is ripped af.

He sounds surprised that I'm here to take orders from him, so I told him no, I'm not ready to follow his orders. Just to see what would happen. Clicked on the topic about him, and he says he's just an old man with a skooma problem.

Why should I listen to this dude?

>_>

To progress the main quest, I presume. Would be kinda neat if you could go about it without joining the Blades, but it seems unlikely. I know you can beat the game without doing the main quest stuff but I figure I'm not at a point yet where it's really branching out. So fine I'll take his orders. I think in the file I played the most of Morrowind in the past I might have completed his first quest. Not entirely sure. I'm fairly sure I was in some dwarven ruins at some point.
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Done for the night. Talked with all the Blades trainers in Balmora and they hooked me up with some stuff. Steel helm and cuirass (merchant fodder), an alembic, and some moon sugar.

It's kind of fascinating to me how much effort the game puts into discouraging you from fighting early on. I like it a lot. They actually make you feel like wandering around aimlessly and stumbling into ancient ruins and abandoned mines is fucking dangerous.

Like everybody's saying stuff like, if you want to survive, buy as much armor as you can and still run from trouble. And I was reassured to not just assume that I'll be able to handle a job/quest just because someone gives me an assignment. I know from past playthroughs that all seems to be actually true, too. I played for over 3 hours and only fought like 3 things, and I'm having a great time so far. Taking it at a slow pace.
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Did you encounter the Death Fish of Seyda Neen? I remember the first time I played the game I tried to go swimming just because there was water and why not. Oof, that did not go well
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DeathChicken posted...

Did you encounter the Death Fish of Seyda Neen? I remember the first time I played the game I tried to go swimming just because there was water and why not. Oof, that did not go well

Lol. Nope no death fish. I've hardly suffered a scratch thus far.
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bng_mmmk posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Did you happen to use one of those scrolls you found yet?

I know they seemed super fun, but I just sold them so I could afford armor. -_-

...:(
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DeathChicken posted...

Trying to sweet talk people is one of those things that's hilariously broken in the wrong direction. Damn near impossible to actually do unless you're already skilled at it

There's a mod that makes it better, but it's not necessary.

Also, just something worth noting - while bribing gives you speechcraft experience, the success rate for bribing rests on your mercantile skill. It's one of the myriad of oddities involved with Morrowind.
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bng_mmmk posted...

It's kind of fascinating to me how much effort the game puts into discouraging you from fighting early on. I like it a lot. They actually make you feel like wandering around aimlessly and stumbling into ancient ruins and abandoned mines is fucking dangerous.

Like everybody's saying stuff like, if you want to survive, buy as much armor as you can and still run from trouble. And I was reassured to not just assume that I'll be able to handle a job/quest just because someone gives me an assignment. I know from past playthroughs that all seems to be actually true, too. I played for over 3 hours and only fought like 3 things, and I'm having a great time so far. Taking it at a slow pace.

Part of this is because unlike Oblivion and Skyrim, a large amount of enemies and loot is pre-placed by the devs (rather than being picked from leveled lists and being generated when you enter the area). Some stuff is levelled, but most of the game is full of stuff that will either completely destroy you if you're not ready for it or will allow you to completely destroy everything in your way if you find it early enough.

Also yeah, by far the best part of Morrowind is the atmosphere and world building. Take your time, read everything, and just soak it in.
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I'm enjoying this topic so far.

I never got past the first few hours of this game so it will be cool to see what is beyond.

Also this topic makes me want to get it for PC so I can mod out some of the things that annoy me and get farther.
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Tag. I love Morrowing. Also definitely get mods that improve the graphics. The murky brown textures will probably wear on you otherwise.

Enchanting in in this game is still one of Bethesda's greatest treasures.
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playing this was one of my favorite gaming experiences

didn't "get it" the first time, then picked it up again a year or so later when i had nothing to do. kept my own separate notebook to track things. didn't even start the main quest until i had played a few dozen hours

for a while there i think i had the layout of vvardenfell better memorized than the town i lived in
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the way things don't scale make it a completely different experience than oblivion and skyrim, for reasons i won't get into!
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banananor posted...

the way things don't scale make it a completely different experience than oblivion and skyrim, for reasons i won't get into!

Absolutely, for both good and bad.
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The first time I played Morrowind I remember murdering most of the populace of the starting town and pawning off all their belongings to the general store in order to buy a cool new sword

not really the legendary hero the world needed
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One of the best games ever made. Enjoy. Try to get lost in the game and not worry about finding everything immediately. The fun of Morrowind is playing it without walkthroughs/guides/etc.
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The first time I played Morrowind I accidentally got into a fight with a major character, defeating them by the skin of my teeth and rendering the game uncompleteable, I then went completely rogue and lived in cave. Never had so much fun with an RPG before, and all because of a simple miss click.
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Metal_DK posted...

Try to get lost in the game and not worry about finding everything immediately.

This is pretty much my play style anyway, even in the newer games. In Skyrim I'd completed like 60 miscellaneous quests before I covered much of any ground in the main quest or any factions. I just wandered around doing whatever for the longest time.

I'll probably stick to the main quest only slightly more than I normally would, for the sake of keeping this from being a log of a 200+ hour expedition which would be a little overkill.
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What's the best way to make it look prettier these days? I've seen people say not to bother with the Overhaul because there's better stuff out (and it's apparently incompatible with OpenMW), but there doesn't seem to be any other simple way of improving the world graphics as a whole, just huge lists of thousands of mods, most of which only improve a single spoon or something.
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