Why I'll always say Morrowind is the best TES game

[johnhughthom]

I remember enjoying The Illuminated Order.

[CountArach]

I've been thinking about loading up Morrowind on my laptop for those overnighters with work, can anyone suggest some good mods for it?

Better Bodies is essential. Morrowind Comes Alive is brilliant - it really adds in a lot of extra people. Not sure about gameplay ones though.

[Sheogorath]

I've been thinking about loading up Morrowind on my laptop for those overnighters with work, can anyone suggest some good mods for it?

Vampire Embrace is a good one. It gives being a vampire a lot more depth. The Werewolf Evolution mod is highly unstable, but fun as well. The Floating House or whatever its called is good as well.

You know...I really didn't get that many gameplay mods for Morrowind...I thought it was mostly fine as is .-.

[Guru]

Ah, Morrowind. Sometimes I actually miss it and it's world. *sigh* To taste ash yam, to hunt some wild guars.. To hear the music, to see the people. Probably the best game I've ever played.

As for mods, I used to have 50-100 of them running at one point.. I suggest you go to Planet Elder Scrolls and check the top mods there.

[ElectricEel]

I've been thinking about loading up Morrowind on my laptop for those overnighters with work, can anyone suggest some good mods for it?

You'll probably want the unofficial patch; Morrowind doesn't have any gamebreaking issues from what I recall, but it fixes a lot of minor bugs and inconsistencies and there's no reason to not use it.

Galsiah's character development mod is good, from what I recall. It changes the character development system so your character develops more organically, so you don't need to worry about leveling or stat optimization.

Atmospheric Sound Effects adds various enviromental sounds to the game, enhancing immersion.

That's a few off the top of my head; there's tons of other great mods out there which I've used, but I unfortunately can't point you to them since it's been such a long time since I played Morrowind.

[Raz]

There was a graphical expansion mod that I had on my Morrowind at one point, it added a pseudo-HDR Lighting feature and enhanced all textures and did various other things but I really cannot remember details of it, it made a nice addition.

I'd love to still have my Morrowind on my PC, had all he expansions and everything but it mysteriously vanished as most things do on my computer. The CD's too, I know I didn't sell them, rather they're lost in the tombs of my loft, probably scratched and chipped beyond repair.

Haha, I remember when me and my mate would use the command lines to edit our acrobatics skill to an insane level and we'd be jumping from rooftop to rooftop, occasionally dropping down in an alleyway to slaughter some innocent dark elf and dispose of his or her body.... the feature of which just happened to be removed in Oblivion. Heh, good times.

[Furunculus]

good review Sheogorath, i agree with it.

i played morrowind for months, but got bored with oblivion after only weeks.

on the other hand my mother played oblivion (plus expansions) religiously for what must have been nearly a year!

[Mailman653]

I saw Steam has ES III GOTY Ed. for $20, I was thinking about getting it but I'm unsure. I have ES IV for the 360 and I liked it a lot although I know ES III is a lot different from ES IV in many ways.

[Centurion1]

Love morrowind unconditionally. I miss playing it so much.

However, i hated the Cliff racers, they sincerely made playing the game un enjoyable. The quests and dungeons were so much more varied. I loved being able to walk around, but i also hated the time it took. So i would just teleport using a command line. I think it was a good idea for oblivion but they took it to far, to the point where by mid-game you never walked anywhere. It should have been like pick three locations and teleport there.

Now this is the best ES character.
Step one: Choose a Dark elf
Step 2: Model said dark elf to look like the guy on the boat in the beginning (Still my favorite character). Thats another oblivion flaw, it touts this face modelling thing but, i couldnt give my character anything cool, like tats or earrings (look stupid in real life personally but in game they rock), i also wasn't allowed to shave his head and i always feel my characters look dumb and unrealistic with things like mohawks or flowing manes I mean you were supposed to be a slave??? *end rant*
Step three: Become a marksman, with range, short blade, and thief skills.
Step Four: Get the blinding boots of speed
Step five: This is a slight exploit but you can do it "legally", take a potion of resist magic and in the brief time it still works put on the boots
Step 6: Never take off boots.
Step 7: level
Step 8: go to corpus place and get the curaiss of saviors hide. voila you have a magic resistant marksman who is too fast to be caught.

Oh and don't forget to make a short blade with an enchanment of like superdamage for instant kills in case you get attacked up close.

If you like breaking the game, make yourself invisible with Chameleon.

Oh and i loved how you could build your own house it always felt like an accomplishment. Oh and this seems small but i loved how the candles and stuff actually provided light.

Gosh, i think i am going to go install it again.......... graphics or not, i played it after oblivion came out and i never thought the graphics were THAT bad.

[Mailman653]

Yeah I was looking at some mods for ESIII, not as many as ESIV seems to have, but I did find some that changed the textures, even one on this thread replaces the NPC's with really cool textures. I'm still debating but so far it sounds interesting.

I tried ESII from another thread but I couldn't get into it, I didn't like the combat with the mouse and it was so massive I felt a little lost.

[rvg]

Speaking of Morrowind and other TES games, somebody at Bethesda must have an obsession with oversized androids.

Daggerfall (Numidium), Morrowind (Akulakhan), Oblivion (Mehruhes himself) and even Fallout 3 (LIberty Prime) all prominently feature giant humanoids.

[Raz]

Yeah I was looking at some mods for ESIII, not as many as ESIV seems to have, but I did find some that changed the textures, even one on this thread replaces the NPC's with really cool textures. I'm still debating but so far it sounds interesting.

I tried ESII from another thread but I couldn't get into it, I didn't like the combat with the mouse and it was so massive I felt a little lost.

Don't let Daggerfall throw you off, heck I've been playing TESI - Arena for the past few days.

Morrowind is a truly exceptional game. I really can't stress how enjoyable it was for me to play. My only regret was removing it from my hard-drive.

[Guru]

Speaking of Morrowind and other TES games, somebody at Bethesda must have an obsession with oversized androids.

Daggerfall (Numidium), Morrowind (Akulakhan), Oblivion (Mehruhes himself) and even Fallout 3 (LIberty Prime) all prominently feature giant humanoids.

Perhaps chronic gigantomania? The monumentarilous disorder? The jumbopathic syndrome? GRF? Gigantesque resistance failure?

[Nelson]

I enjoyed Morrowind immensely having played through it several times.

But wasn’t the combat magic really screwed up? I always thought so. Spells never seemed to scale with your character like melee power did.

[johnhughthom]

You had to buy more powerful spells, or create them yourself.

[Sheogorath]

Speaking of Morrowind and other TES games, somebody at Bethesda must have an obsession with oversized androids.

Daggerfall (Numidium), Morrowind (Akulakhan), Oblivion (Mehruhes himself) and even Fallout 3 (LIberty Prime) all prominently feature giant humanoids.

I have to admit, Liberty Prime is the most awesome of all of them, though.

"OBSTRUCTION DETECTED. COMPOSITION: TITANIUM ALLOY SUPPLEMENTED BY PHOTONIC RESONANCE BARRIER. PROBABILITY OF MISSION HINDRANCE... ZERO PERCENT!!"

[lars573]

So with my 360 on the red rings I've been playing Morrowing again. Oblivion is better, because of the VAST improvements. And I'm not talking about technical stuff like graphics, or physics, or the recorded voices. I'm talking fast travelling, stability, streamlined character skills, easier persuation. Yes these improvements come at a price. For example a return to traditional Elder Scrolls level scalling. And a smaller world. Or that there are fewer factions in Cyrodill than in Morrowind. But these are the only real knocks I have against Oblivion and I can live with them. Comparing the two I like the Oblivion better.

[rajpoot]

They're saying TES 5 will be out by 2010 or 2011 tops. It'll be based in Skyrim, and contrary to popular belief, will not be an MMO (thank the Lord!!!)
Rumours are that like they'd been working on Oblivion even while they were releasing Morrowind Xpacks, they've been working on TES 5 while they were making Fallout 3.
I for one think Skyrim's perfect. I've always been partial to Nords.....can't wait.

[Guru]

Thank god if it wont be a MMO. And Skyrim does sound great...

[Sheogorath]

I dunno about Skyrim, seems kind of...meh. It's not very well developed in the lore, which I suppose is an advantage, given that what we have thus far seems to indicate that it's basically a stereotypical version of Siberia full of crazed vikings.

I'd much rather have a game set in the Summerset Isles.

[Krusader]

Summerset Isles is probably more xenophobic than Morrowind (oh how I miss those grumpy Dunmer), so dunno how well that would work.

Skyrim. Well dont know really, would be mostly mountains, forests and fjords would it not? Almost like watching out the window for me then . But I think a 2011 date is more likely for next TES. If its next year then Bethesda must soonish release some more info on it if we go by previous TES games (wasn't Oblivion announced a year before release if not more? Same with Fallout 3 me thinks).

[lars573]

I dunno about Skyrim, seems kind of...meh. It's not very well developed in the lore, which I suppose is an advantage, given that what we have thus far seems to indicate that it's basically a stereotypical version of Siberia full of crazed vikings.

I'd much rather have a game set in the Summerset Isles.

Actually there is a lot of backstory for every province. You just have to take the time to track down the right books. The first men who settled on Tamriel were Nords after all.

[rajpoot]

The first men who settled on Tamriel were Nords after all.

Exactly.
The first people to settle, and run out the Altmer were Nedes/Nords, who after mingling with the elven races gave birth to the Imperials. Also they're supposed to have been close to dragons of some sort (keeping figers crossed that we see dragons in TES 5......Ma'iq the Liar says they're there, just very high up....or invisible ) in Altmora or whatever that place is beyond the Sea of Ghosts.
Furthermore, Nords actually do have a decent lore history......I mean they're supposed to be involved with subjugation of High Rock and Morrowind at one time or the other (I think) and, far as I understood even Tiber Septim, was half Nord....?

But while we're wishing, what I'd like even more, if they gave us some more stuff on the Akaviri guys.....
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Akavir

Edit :
The landscape, if set in Skyrim, I'll wager would be more like that island in Bloodmoon, or maybe the area near Bruma, than anything else...

[lars573]

The Bretons are a Men/Mer mix. That's why they have such high magika. Imperials are the decendants of the enslaved Nedic's of the Ayleids. Who would have never have lowered themselfs to breed with men. That said I think that Ayleids were a new addition to the ES cannon for Oblivion. From what Morrowind books I read the name Ayleid was never used to describe elves of Cyrodiil. But elves having settled all corners of Tamriel was described.

[Krauser]

I liked Oblivion more but it still has problems. Morrowind was just too tedious for me. I really got into the exploration but eventually I would forget what I was doing and just get bored. The only real problems I had with Oblivion was the scaling monsters. It was really annoying being punished for making a character that seemed fun. The game shouldn't let you make a subpar character. If anything they should have boosted your character at levelup, if it seemed it was starting to get behind. This could be done by tracking game stats like how many times you reloaded a save or a more technical approach of comparing your character's and the enemies' stats. I think the ideal game is inbetween Morrowind and Oblivion.

[Vladimir]

So Morrowind is not for the ADHD crowd?

[lars573]

It's not that really. In Morrowind you've got to sink 100+hours into one character to "finish." Finish is relative in ES games, but there comes a point where you can't really too much more with one due to a characters associated main skills. And Morrowind makes you choose factions (you join one you can't join another). In Oblivion your only sinking in 50+ hours. And there are two reasons for this. 1. Cyrodiil is larger by square KM-age than Vvardenvell, but there is less in it. 2. Fast travelling, of those 100+ hours in Morrowind 50 are just hoffing it to and from quest objectives and finding them. Because the main quest is about the only one that marks your map most of the time. In Oblivion every quest gives you a map marker and you can fast travel to the nearest area if you haven't discovered it by chance before hand. Cutting your travel time by two thirds. In fact the only things Oblivion doesn't guide you right too is all but a few of the daedric shrines. While Morrowind does have fast travelling it's more public transit than what Oblivion uses. Oblivion you click on a map marker and it pops you there and X number of hours have passed. Morrowind you hop on the stilt strider (giant insect that used as a bus/transport truck service) for over land links to main cities and most larger towns. Or use boats that link coastal towns and cities. Or use the mages guild guides that zip you between the 5 mages guild halls.

[Vladimir]

The thing I hated most about Morrowind is not that I forgot what I was doing during those long, pointless journeys but that it was so FRUSTRATING . The directions and map were poor and while I found some interesting places while looking for others, I would have appreciated a lot more clarity. ADHD isn't my problem; patience is.

[lars573]

I bought a guide for that reason. And discovered that I'm half decent at map reading.

[Sheogorath]

I bought a guide for that reason. And discovered that I'm half decent at map reading.

Navigating Morrowind via that map sheet they sent along with the game is half the fun