The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind — Game Of The Year Edition Review (PC version)
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Another common message from the XBOX version. What it should read as is: “We screwed up again! Press A to wait 5 minutes while you reload from
a save that you made half an hour ago.” Trust me, the DVDs aren’t that screwy. On the PC version, the game will just quit.
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Sotha Sil (The Clockwork City)
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Norenen-dur: Citadel Of Myn Dhrur
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Almalexia’s Temple in Mournhold
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Raven Rock nearing completion
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Yep, you can actually lock a Holly Bush!
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Inside Castle Karstaag
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Some of my favourite places include the little hidden nooks and crannies in Vivec, the attractive architecture on the interior of the Mournhold buildings and the Manor District of Ald’ruhn, Under-Skar. Just magnificent! There in the Venim manor, you’ll find an excellent section of the bedrooms to unofficially
set up your own place. There are 4 rooms, all without anybody around. Perfect for sleeping, and loot storage I say!Most of the manors here, for some strange reason, personally made me think of a young kid / being a young kid, and playing with toys there. I don’t know why. It doesn’t have a childish look, but I just seemed to imagine it. Perhaps there’s a cosiness, despite the huge rooms and long hallways.
In terms of towns, and the area of “public” areas, I feel as though there’s a lot more in Morrowind, than what was in Oblivion. Vivec, Balmora and
Ald’ruhn especially. Dungeon areas though are generally a lot smaller than the sprawling underground parts of Cyrodiil. Bamz-Amschend under Mournhold, Norenen-dur and the maze like Old Mournhold seem to be quite large however. I would have liked to’ve seen more to the above ground area though. Mournhold seems very small for the capital of Morrowind. Although the Gates Of Symmachus seem to suggest that there could be more
beyond the walls.
One of the parts of Bloodmoon that I enjoyed the most was the Raven Rock expansion. From nothing to a small town, you get to choose whos side you want to take and there even seems to be quite a lot more speech related to what you’re doing.
Morrowind offers you a lot of factions to join as well. The Mages Guild, Temple, Morag Tong, East Empire Company, House Hlaalu / House Telvanni
/ House Redoran, Imperial Cult, Imperial Legion and with the Thieves’ Guild and Fighters Guild, there’s decisions to made as to who you’re loyal to.
Enchanting seems a lot more flexible in Morrowind than it is in Oblivion also. You can actually make up stuff such as a shirt that constantly heals you, and you’re able to enchant things yourself without the need
to find someone to do it for you. So long as you have a charged soul gem, a spell and item that you want to enchant, you can do it anywhere. Of course, you need to have a good ability in doing it for it to be successful and powerful. Magical items in Morrowind also automatically recharge over time.
Another thing, unlike in Oblivion, is that your Intelligence actually does affect your alchemy skill. So you can create a Fortify Intelligence potion and then create a better potion of the same thing. These can be done over and over (to a degree) so that you can make ultra powerful potions. You can use ash yams, bloat, horker tusks or netch leather. Ash yams and netch leather are probably the easiest to get ingredients.The game installation is pretty straightforward. The DVD lets you add in
Tribunal and Bloodmoon individually, but you should do them in that order. The latest patches were already set up, so there was no need for me to download anything else.
In terms of stability, the PC version seems slightly more stable than the XBOX version, however, I’ve still had 2 instances of corrupt saves and it just loves to die suddenly for no apparent reason. So backups
of saves are a must! I also found it a good idea to quit every 45 minutes or so and reload, because on rare ocassions, you can be playing with
a corruption that doesn’t show up until you next reload, and a string of corrupt saves is not a good thing. I lost over an hour’s worth of stuff one night. Reloading again is quicker than on the XBOX too, because
you can skip the intro videos.
Another minor difference is BluDev’s Ring Of Viewing. The XBOX version only lets you watch 6 of the Bloodmoon videos, whereas on the PC you
can see 9.
Getting good screenshots is fairly easy as well, because there’s so much neat stuff! You can rack up several hundred pictures in no time. I think you have to enable it though in the Morrowind.ini file.
In this game and Oblivion, I always found the Daedra interesting. While there aren’t quests in Morrowind for EVERY Daedric Prince, the shrines sure are more impressive than the ones in Oblivion. You’ll get to serve the likes of Sheogorath, Molag Bal, Malacath, Mehrunes Dagon, Azura, Boethiah and Mephala. Although she’s tied in with the Morag Tong stuff.
In Bloodmoon, you’ll get to come face to face with Hircine also. As for travelling to Oblivion, Morrowind doesn’t really put this in your reach.
Although when you go for the Daedric Crescent Blade, you travel to an unknown Daedric shrine. As to where it’s located, well that appears to be unspecific.Transport in Morrowind is a lot more apparent than in Oblivion. In fact in Oblivion there was only about 1 boat that took you back & forth between 2 places. But with Morrowind, getting around and saving time is a breeze. While the boat services and Silt Striders are common, the instantaneous travel methods are the ones to look out for. The Mages’ Guild will get you to Balmora, Caldera, Sadrith Mora, Ald’ruhn and Vivec for a small fee in
absolutely no time at all. Mark & Recall spells are a great way of getting back to exactly where you want from anywhere else, which if used correctly can help you shift huge amounts of loot and also get you out of trouble. Speaking of which, while Almsivi and Divine Intervention spells are aimed at being a form of self rescue, they can be powerful transport methods
too. Especially in Solstheim. A Divine Intervention spell can take you from the north coast to the south in a flash, and Almsivi intervention will get you straight back to Gnisis. After you complete Tribunal, a
certain ring is also a nifty way of getting around as well. I currently have my Mark position inside Castle Karstaag, because it doesn’t seem to be accessible again after a certain point in the Bloodmoon quest.
But this allows me a quick way of getting to Solstheim from anywhere.
The other form of transport around Vvardenfell is one that’s unmentioned, but which you’ll need to work out for yourself. (Except if you get a
certain official plug in for the game.) These are the Propylon Chambers that form a kind of ring around Red Mountain. Each one is at an old Dunmer stronghold and allows you to travel clockwise or anti-clockwise. Generally the strongholds aren’t close to any major towns, apart from Rotheran, Berandas and Hlormaren. To work them though, you’ll
need to find the indexes which are scattered about the island. They are all pretty small and have a value of 500 Septims. Once you have them all, you can travel to any other Propylon Chamber via the ones in between along the route in which ever direction you prefer. This all takes place instantaneously in a thunderous boom. If you only have some, you can only travel to the
destination of the index(es) you have.
Admiring
people is a good way to obtain extra information and better prices on those who sell and buy things. If you’re a tight-wad like me, you can get more money for cheap items worth only 1 drake by selling them
individually. Selling them as a group you’ll be offered less.
If you’re sent to kill somebody, taunting them will usually get them to initiate a fight with you. Remember that if someone attacks you 1st,
you have the right to kill them.
For those of you wondering when the Tribunal expansion kicks in, it’s when you’re coming up to about level 5. For me, I was on level 4. The Dark Brotherhood will attack you eventually and you can then speak to
the guards about it. Transport will then be available from Ebonheart.
If you wish to kill King Helseth at the end of the main quest, (and you’ll find out why you might want to do this,) the best way is to use one of the Ebony Arrows Of Slaying from behind Thirsk in Solstheim. It’s quick, effective and I didn’t even get any bounty. Usually everyone in the room besides Karrod will attack you though, but hey, you can score some pretty sweet loot! People will then talk about his assassination. Be sure to grab his ring too. It will make you a little bit more invincible.
Beast races, like the Argonians and Khajiiti can’t wear boots or full
helms, so that’s something to keep in mind when you start your character for the 1st time. When I played the XBOX version, I played as an Argonian. On the PC I decided to be an Imperial. Each race has varying positive
or negative features.
Selling stuff is important if you actually want to make some decent money. The best items to sell are armour and weapons mostly, because they have
the greatest value. Finding places to sell them is easy enough, but to get good value, you need to know where to go! The 2 best places where you’ll get the full value for your items are Creeper in Caldera and the
Mudcrab Merchant down by Mzahnch. Another good way to make money is trapping souls. You’ll need to obtain a Soul Trap spell, and an empty soul gem capable of holding the soul of the creature you’re going to kill. These
will sell for quite a fair whack of dough, especially the likes of Daedric creatures. Ascended Sleepers’ souls are good for making enchanted items with a constant effect dealie. That way you can have apparel that fortifies certain attributes you want cranked up. You can also have restoration
properties too. But it’s up to you what you want to do with the enchantment.
If you like collecting stuff, then you’re going to need some handy places to put it. Luckily, when someone snuffs it, or if you find a vacant unused room, you can take it over for yourself. Most containers won’t respawn their contents, but if you’re unsure, you can always put something cheap and recognisable in them to see 1st. Depending on how you play may affect what houses you’ll be able to acquire, but here are a few joints that I found for a place to sleep and bung down your hard earnt (, or stolen)
loot:
What Place:
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Where It Is:
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Venim Manor Bedrooms
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Ald’ruhn
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Caius Cosades’ House (Obviously when he clears off you can use it.)
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Balmora
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The Blodskal’s House | Skaal Village |
Factor’s Estate | Raven Rock |
Telvanni Canalworks slave area | Vivec |
Dren’s Villa | Dren Plantation |
Velas Manor | Godsreach |
Shenk’s Shovel (Right up the back on the top floor) | Caldera |
St. Delyn Waist North 1 & 2 | Vivec |
Uryn Maren’s House | Raven Rock |
Your room in Thirsk | Thirsk |
If you’re looking for some impressive plug-in abodes, check out the Morrowind Mods By Spok. I found Yorick’s Tower very impressive. :-) While we’re talking of plug-ins, be sure to consider Wild Rare Ingredients. This fixes up some ingredient related stuff, plus if you like, the Stalhrim & Adamantium
Respawn Mod.Graphics: Initially when I first played the game, they were very impressive. Now though, they’re not quite as good looking, but you will still find some nice looking areas. You can see that a lot of work has gone into the texturing, even if it isn’t all that high quality in all situations. Look at the armour people wear, the variations of potion bottles and the architecture
of the towns. Some of the special effects look a bit dodgy, especially after the improvements in Oblivion, and the water reflection’s nowhere near as good, but the array of plants you can visit for ingredients is
still pretty sensational. So I’d proabably say about 85%.
Animation: Distant NPCs tend to jerk along more so than ones who are close, and without the physics that Oblivion added to the game, it sometimes looks a bit dodgy when something dies. The frame rate suffers in high detail areas, even on my PC which is well above the minimum system requirements. But it is better than on the XBOX if you have the hardware to run it. 75%
Sound: Excellent music by Jeremy Soule and other nifty ambient effects. Footstep sounds are pretty much all the same, whatever surface
you’re on however. The main theme song will most probably get in your head. 93%
Playability: Once you have the controls set up how you like, this is just fantastic. At 1st all the menu stuff can be a bit overwhelming, but you’ll get used to where things are, and what things are about. Best to play in the 1st person perspective too. 95%
Lastability: When you’re not doing main quests or side quests, you’ll often find yourself doing your own quests of sorting out loot, getting new houses / bases and making money! There are truckloads of interesting places to explore — some which have people or things that will start a quest you might not have known about too. Burrrilliant! 97%
Overall: The game might be quite buggy, and if the game play just
stunk, then I probably wouldn’t recommend it. But it doesn’t. The huge amount of land you can explore, the numerous quests and exciting main story lines make this a must have purchase. Assuming you can still find
it of course. (Although I think you can pay to download it now from the Internet.) There are quite a few game play features that are better in Morrowind than Oblivion, so if you’ve played the later installment of
The Elder Scrolls series and missed this one, then you should consider giving this a whirl as well. If you download MGE, you can crank the visuals up a bit closer to Oblivion standards, but apparently there are a few
weather issues with it. 94%