The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

''Morrowind redirects here. For the in-game province, see Morrowind (province).

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (aka Morrowind) is a computer role-playing game by Bethesda Softworks, and the third in The Elder Scrolls series of games. Morrowind was released in 2002 for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox.

Similar to previous installments of the series, the player begins as a just released criminal, a nobody with virtually no resources. The story takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the province of Morrowind. Deep within the heart of Red Mountain at the center of the island, a menace seeks to gain power and break Morrowind free from imperial reign. The player may choose to fight this menace or ignore it and pursue glory elsewhere.

As of January 2006, it has sold over four million copies. ^*, and has won 60 awards .

Gameplay

The game environment of Morrowind is huge and richly detailed, with real-time weather effects and a landscape in which all areas are accessible.

Gameplay is very open-ended, allowing the player to roam, steal, quest and explore. This includes, but is not limited to:

Players that join a great house will eventually be able to build their own stronghold with guards.
Making or buying custom spells, potions, and weapons with unique effects.
Harming or killing major characters, even friendly characters (although it is possible to break the main plot of the game by doing so).
Breaking into and stealing from houses. Also, the ability to live in a house if the owner is not there, if the player kills the owner of that home, or if the player engages in a quest to construct a stronghold.
Finding random characters who assign mini-quests.
Completely ignoring the 'main story' of the game and playing free form.
On the PC version, the game comes with a construction set that you can use anytime during the game to add more "flavor" to the gameplay.

This gameplay style (sometimes called sandbox style gameplay) is seen by some as liberating, but by others as confusing. Shrewd players can find ways to unbalance the game and produce either weapons or abilities that can make the game's tasks extremely easy to complete, making the game fall out of balance.

The storyline progresses exclusively through the decisions of the character; it is non-linear and can be discontinued at will. This type of open-ended role-playing gameplay is a feature of all The Elder Scrolls series. The people in the game world can have different stories and the player can easily end up in complicated situations and plot twists. The once visited computer characters will usually tell the same stories over and over again, unless the players situation changes or the player decides to do something that will affect somehow that particular character or travel to another place. The player can visit other cities in Morrowind and talk with people about things you talk with people in other cities and the stories might get twisted around depending who you talk to. (The individual, or race, have different point of views like in the "real" world.)

Along with graphical improvements, one of the most obvious differences between Morrowind and the older games is that Morrowind takes place only in the Vvardenfell district of Morrowind (a province in the land of Tamriel), whereas Arena in particular had given the player the opportunity to visit any province, at the expense of much detail. However, the mainland town of Mournhold is accessible as a separate area by teleportation, but only if the Tribunal expansion is installed, and the separate island of Solstheim became available in Bloodmoon.

Bethesda Softworks, the developer of Morrowind, offers gamers the ability to recreate the world with a variety of mod making tools, such as The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which allows the modder to edit different races, signs , abilities, and skills. Characters can be made as strong or as fast as the user wants, and allows the player to experience the game in a way that would not normally be possible within the game's mechanics.

Gameplay for Beginners

There are basically two ways to play Morrowind, as a fascinating exploration within a virtual world or as a focused effort to increase levels and abilities as fast as possible. For those who want to pursue the second option, you can browse through the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) provided below and you can read directions about how to get rich quick, advance in levels and abilities quickly, and how to dispatch the various monsters quickly and efficiently.

When starting Morrowind for the first time or whenever starting a new character, the player of the game must first build a character. There are a number of races in the Morrowind virtual world as well as several choices as to the character's primary avocation and skill set. Character attributes such as strength and intelligence affect the ability to use various skills. As the player uses the various skills, he will have the opportunity to increase character attributes (strength for instance) during the leveling up procedure when the character has sufficient experience to advance to the next level.

The player should also realize that a character can have multiple skills and abilities. For instance, while a character may be an archer type of character, the character can also learn spells and be able to throw spells. The character may be an archer who ends up spending more time in hand to hand combat rather than using a bow.

Different races have different innate powers or abilities. Different races will also have different bonuses for character attributes and some races are less liked than other races by the general population.

The most important thing to remember about playing the game is that the game designers intended for player characters to interact with the non-player characters. This means that a player should talk to as many different characters as possible while walking about. Some of the non-player characters will have more information than others and some of the non-player characters will lie or provide information that bears only the faintest resemblance to reality.

Some of the non-player characters will have some kind of problem and they will ask the player character for assistance with the problem, a quest. A problem may be as simple as find a friend who is lost or a more complicated problem such as obtaining information from some other non-player character who in turn will want the player character to do something for them before providing the information. The number of threads of quests and relationships can become quite complicated. Some quests can result in the player character having to choose sides in a conflict resulting in one party disliking the player character. Sometimes this can lead to combat or other repercussions.

In order to increase a player character's proficiency with a skill, the skill must be used. In order to become better with using armor or a sword, the player character must be involved in combat. In order to become better with using magic spells, the player character must learn spells and practice throwing them. As skill level increases so does the player character's ability to hit opponents with a sword, block opponent hits, and throw spells without failing. Some skills, for example Athletics or Acrobatics, can be increased by running about or by jumping while walking about. Other skills such as Mercantile and Speechcraft can be increased as part of interacting with the non-player characters and making counter offers when bartering.

A second way to increase proficiency in a skill is to purchase training on the skill. In order to purchase training, the player will need to find a non-player character that provides training in the particular skill. Spells must either be purchased from a non-player character that knows the spell and is willing to sell it or be purchased as a created spell from a non-player character that is able to make spells.

There are several different groups, guilds, and organizations. The player character can join several guilds for instance the Fighter Guild and the Mages Guild. Non-player characters who are members of the same guild as a player character will typically ask for less for training and spells than would a non-player character who is not a member of the guild. The size of a town will determine if the town has a guild office or not. For instance, Balmora has both a Fighters Guild and a Mages Guild. The Thieves' Guild also has representatives there as well as other groups such as the Camonna Tong. The guild boss will provide to the player character duties or quests. Sometimes the assigned duty will involve an action that will gain the enmity of another guild. One example is some Balmora Fighters' Guild assignments that can cause friction with the Thieves' Guild.

The player should do a quick save periodically but especially before doing something that is potentially dangerous. There is nothing so frustrating as playing for several hours without having saved and then be killed. If the player character is killed, the player has to load from the last saved game. When the player character sleeps or rests, typically used to regain health points or magika points after combat, a quick save is automatically performed for the player.

The most entertaining way of playing Morrowind is to conduct oneself within the virtual world much as one would conduct oneself in the real world. In other words, be polite to non-player characters, do not initiate attacks on the non-player characters, and do not steal unless stealing is part of a quest. Talk with the non-player characters. There are quite a few books scattered about. Read them as they can be entertaining and sometimes reading a book will increase a skill.

If the player indulges himself in an unlawful act, such as murder or theft, the act will usually be detected and reported if there is a non-player character who sees the act. At that point, the guards will know, and the next time the player meets a guard, the player character will need to either pay a fine or do hard time in the lockup or the player character can resist arrest. Resisting arrest is usually futile and will generally result in the player character dying. Hard time is exactly that and the player character will lose skill levels during his incarceration. The fine amount depends on the gravity of the offense, so stealing a plate worth two gold pieces has a lower fine than stealing a magical sword worth two hundred gold pieces. Murder is in a class of its own and the fines can be quite hefty. In the end it is better to either not do unlawful acts or have sufficient money to pay the fine when caught. For players choosing to play as a law-breaking character, such as a thief or assassin, it becomes important to learn to commit such crimes without being caught, or locating NPCs capable of removing the "bounty" from you.

Both armor and arms (swords, axes, etc.) will become damaged during use and will degrade in effectiveness. The player character can either learn the armorer's trade and repair articles themselves or pay a non-player character to make the repair. The cost of simple repairs are quite small as long as equipment is kept in good condition by visiting a smith regularly. In the town of Balmora, there is an armorer who lives near the locations of the Fighters' Guild and the Mages' Guild which are next to the commercial district. Members of the Fighters' Guild and the Thieves' Guild have access to Guild members who can repair equipment as well.

The player character has a journal which is automatically updated with information from time to time. For instance, if one accepts a quest from a non-player character, the conversation is recorded in the journal and can be reviewed at a later time. The journal is much like a diary and also contains hypertext links for words within journal entries for more information about those words. The journal is useful for refreshing one's memory after not playing for a while, though it has been criticized for not being better organized.

The journal is also helpful in that a journal entry may contain some additional information about an event. For instance, a journal entry may mention that a person who is claiming a particular status, such as a pauper or a slave, appears to be better dressed or in better physical condition than one would expect of a pauper or a slave. After an event such as meeting a person or agreeing to carry out a quest, the player should check the journal entry about the event to see what additional information the journal may supply.

Literature

The Elder Scrolls series, especially since Morrowind, is famous in part because of its unique setting. Since Daggerfall, The Elder Scrolls universe and cosmology have been developed both by a dedicated team of writers and contributions from all the developers. The Series' setting is not traditional for fantasy, as it is designed with believability and authenticity in mind, and aims for real world complexity and subtlety. There is nothing clear and definite in the world's state or history unlike most fantasy worlds, but rather there are many points of view, expressed in texts produced by various parties and interests, as in the real world. Morrowind has no fight between good and evil, but rather its own philosophy of change and stability, of political and cultural transformation and evolution within the world and some ideas put forward being very interesting on their own. The game has over 300 books (not counting scrolls), which together contain over 1500 standard pages of text, more than any other game. Nearly all books are part of Morrowind, and Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions only add about 50 texts including scrolls. This doesn't include about 5000 pages of dialogue, many of which also contain information about the game world.

Together, in-game books and dialogues allow attentive players to feel a much more lively and detailed world than just what is seen on the screen. The mysteries of The Elder Scrolls universe have attracted many players, who have taken to jokingly calling themselves loremasters, to study its nature.

Allusions to other games in the Series

Many texts make references to events from past games in the series, particularly Battlespire. One such optional meeting at Ghostgate entails speaking to an old man in the uniform of an Imperial soldier. By following the correct dialogue path, the old man states that he is a veteran of the Imperial Legion, giving a coin that increases luck when equipped. Talking to specific characters in the game reveals that the veteran, who states his name as Wulf, is an avatar of the first emperor, Tiber Septim.

Mods

Morrowind is well known for its ability to be changed by plugins (called Modifications or mods) using the Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which comes with the PC version of the game. These plugins are usually easy to install and can change almost everything in the game. Modding is the main reason that many fans consider the PC version better than the Xbox version. Plugins can include new creatures, weapons, armor, quests, people, Easter eggs, stores, cities, and even introduce new plotlines. Some plugins have added entirely new aspects to the game such as some stores closing and locking up at night, abolitionist and slave-trading factions warring over the area's slave trade, and ridable, breedable horses. Others create immensely powerful "god items" and place them in convenient locations. Still other mods change the graphical aspects of the game, such as lighting, 3D models, colors, and textures. Some of the fans have attempted to create immense mods which change the entire game. Due to the amateur nature of their production, however, not every mod is of excellent quality. Many graphic improvement mods bring sharper textures and more complex models, but they often decrease game performance on older hardware. Missing models are also a common problem encountered by players who use an ill-designed mod or install one incorrectly. Mods with their own scripts also increase the risk of game-freeze or crash. However, due to the initial game design, nearly all problems can be avoided if the player has at least minimal mods editing skill. There are also some official mods made by Bethesda, such as "Siege at Firemoth". They can be found at the official site.

Expansions

There have been two expansions:

Tribunal (November 2002)
- This puts the character in the self-contained, walled capital city of Mournhold, and drastically increased the number and complexity of dungeons and caves (one of the criticisms of the original game was its paucity of such). The new city was not connected to the original Morrowind land mass, and the player started the game simply by being transferred to the new city from Morrowind. The storyline continued the story of the Tribunal deities.
Bloodmoon (June 3, 2003)
- This was a much more complete expansion than Tribunal with a large island (Solstheim) that had a sub-arctic climate and was integrated into the original Morrowind land area (i.e. one could move seamlessly from Morrowind to Solstheim by boat or another method, even swimming). In this expansion the player sees the isle threatened by the curse of werewolves and has to help the native Nords stop it, or join the hairy beasts and live like one of them. As normal in Elder Scrolls games, there are many side quests, like the founding of an Imperial mining colony.

In 2003, Bethesda released a Game of the Year edition for both PC and Xbox, which included the original game with both expansions. This is notable because, beforehand, neither expansion was available for the Xbox. Reviewers noted differences between the PC and Xbox versions.

Although many fans had asked for it, Bethesda Softworks does not plan to release a multiplayer version for Morrowind, claiming that putting their focus on a single player campaign allows them to create a better single player experience.

However, Bethesda Softworks' parent company, Zenimax, has been stating in its profile since at least early 2006, "ZeniMax Productions is our division for the development of a world class massively multiplayer on-line role playing game.". The link to ZeniMax productions from that page leads to www.theelderscrolls.com. It therefore seems likely that ZeniMax and Bethesda are exploring the possibility of a massively multiplayer game set in the Elder Scrolls universe.

PC vs. Xbox

There has been some debate among fans over whether the Xbox or PC version is better. Arguments in favor of the Xbox version include the lack of the ability to get any desired item spell effect or weapon in the game. Analog control, lower hardware costs, as well as the ability of playing a game on a TV are also cited. However, many argue that the benefits of the PC version outnumber those of the Xbox version, chief among them that the PC version allows players to change the game's content easily by installing plugins or using the in-game command console — plugins will not run on an unmodified Xbox. Other benefits include keyboard-and-mouse control, better framerates for those with a powerful PC, and the extra features of journal sorting and map annotation. Some have suggested that the PC version is also a more stable program due to user-created plugins that correct bugs in the game, downloadable patches, and the possibility of using the in-game console to work around remaining bugs.

The release of "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition" allows Xbox players to purchase a more up-to-date, less buggy version. The journal, however, is still difficult to navigate on the Xbox version due to the lack of hotkeys.

External links

Official

Info sites

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages Wiki A comprehensive wiki devoted to The Elder Scrolls games.
The Imperial Library Comprehensive fansite containing all in game literature and lots of information about the games' universe.

Modders sites

Planet Elder Scrolls (formerly Morrowind Summit), one of the most popular Morrowind modding and news sites and the common repository for mods.
Morrowind Mods and Tutorials - at the Mod DB
Site of TheLys, stores a large filtered collection of mods with direct access to files.
Rethan Manor/Elder Scrolls Central Keeps a listing of mods (with links) and hosts the work of several modders, as well as discussion forums.
Unforgotten Realms Large site with a Morrowind section for downloads and Morrowind forum.
Telesphoros' List o'Mods A very extensive list of Morrowind mods.
The Elder Vaults A site with mods, links, forums, and information about all of the Elder Scrolls games. (Some sections require free registration)
Khalazza productions Developers of visuals improving mods, which replace characters faces, world textures and other elements with much more detailed ones.
Psycho Dog Studios, authors of the popular Better Bodies, Better Heads and Better Clothes mods.
The Unofficial Morrowind Patch - Fixes hundreds of bugs in Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon.
Wiwiland Elder Scrolls website in French, hosts a French analog of TIL.
Fullrest Russian site with morrowind plugins and community.

Other

Tamriel Rebuilt - An enormous effort to recreate the world of Tamriel (the Elder Scrolls universe)
TEScreens.be A place where people can submit, view, rate, and comment on screenshots from The Elder Scrolls.
The Adventurer's Guide to Morrowind Fan site with plugins, hints and tips on the game (No longer updated)
Speed demo archive Detailed info on the Morrowind speed record.
The Literary Achievement of Morrowind An article discussing Morrowind's literary merit and The Elder Scrolls setting.
Hannah's Whereizit Site Great whereizit site, detailing where some of the more difficult things to find are.

2002 computer and video games | The Elder Scrolls series | Computer and video role-playing games | Windows games | Xbox games

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