Yes, Another Morrowind Thread

[BicycleOfDeath]

What's Morrowind's plot? Even with the Bloodmoon and Tribunal XPs.

[Noceur]

What's Morrowind's plot? Even with the Bloodmoon and Tribunal XPs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You're a prisoner arriving to Morrowind by ship. I don't remember exactly, but for some reason or other you're being released and the guard captain dude over there tells you to deliver a package. (oh right, now I remember... it's a spoiler though)

 

Anyway, Morrowind - the land of the dark elves - is not the jolly holiday resort it used to be. There's a disease abroad, mutating good folks of all sizes and genders.

The mainplot in morrowind deals with this new brewing evil, but also upon the dark elves and their culture - suffocated as it is beneath the steel boot of the empire.

 

The disease part isn't actually seen that much in the game. It's just a small part of the whole chaos awakening thing.

 

There's also the tale of heroes being reborn :ph34r: to fight the evil!

 

I never played Bloodmoon and Tribunal, I fear.

[metadigital]

You start on a prison barge. You are pardoned for reasons not explained to you. After chatting to some guard types, during which you sign a registery, (character selection screen: choose race, etc) and are left to wander the streets.

 

The most interesting part of the plot, I thought, was the super-double-secret-probation secret guild that you join whilst joining another guild (or more) for cover.

[Reveilled]

I was never able to get into Morrowind, mainly because the plot was way too vague at the start. It never really gave me any motivation to the ton of FedEx quests at the start of the game.

[roguefrog]

The Blight is the EVIL disease, but theirs also Corpus which apparently is a lot worse.

 

Anyway a long time ago in Morrowind not so far away some power mongering dwarven dude made some totally sweet technogaget tools that can be used to create living god dudes (with the assistance of some long dead gods heart) Anyway the leader of the Darkelf dudes at the time was like "wtf hell no!" They end up fighting or something, Dwarvens did something with da tools and vanished into the ethereal. Tools corrupt Darkelf dudes best friend, they fight, Darkelf dude die. Blah Blah! Ancient history. Top remaining elf dudes used the tools to become Tribunal. This pisses off some old bitch god so they make you old Darkelf dude reincarnate. Now kill the foozles!

 

BTW the corrupted best friend dude is the main antagonist. He created the blight, invades peoples dreams, and lives in a volcano. He basically continues what old dwarven dude started.

[metadigital]

I persevered for a while, bloody-mindedly trudged through the mushroom mini-quests that took about 8 hours of my life, kept going and going.

 

Then I got really fed up at the pace.

 

So I decided to go cross country. I went to all the bits of the map that looked interesting. They weren't. (There was an Archon or something up North-Northwest, type area.)

 

All the dungeons looked the same, and had those stupid iron things that weighed more than I could carry. (Well, there was a good one up on the mid-East coast that was a bit better.)

 

So then (about another 40 hours later) I decided to see what all the fuss was about in the middle of the island (dum dum daaaaaaaa!). First I used a leviate spell and flew over the wall closest to the start point. When I got bored with that I went to the main gate.

 

By this stage I just wanted something to happen, so I cheated and gave myself all the glass armour.

 

Then I went in and picked a fight. And died. And uninstalled the game.

[Noceur]

I think the problem most people have with the game (or so it seems to me) is that you have to work to actually GET to (or even understand) the main plot (In depth, I mean... get the whole picture so to speak). I'm not saying that this is a good thing, mind you.

It's not like in most other games where they throw you a carrot to keep you interested, you have to actually read books in the game and stuff to fully understand the main plot.

 

In say, KOTOR (BG1/2 is a better example), you are thrown into the main quest/plot either immediatly or at least pretty damn soon. There is no throwing at all in Morrowind.

 

You get a letter to deliver, and that's it.

After that you pretty much have to actively decide to dedicate yourself to the mainplot all through the game. If you do that, the game isn't all that long or big at all.

 

What I'm saying is that there is no pace at all, save for the pace you set, in this game.

 

I personally didn't have much problem with having to look through books and stuff (or running around doing stuff not even remotely connected to any quests), in fact I liked that the focus wasn't on the actual main plot. I understand why people don't like it though. Hopefully Oblivion will be much better suited to those people, while still letting the sandbox people play

 

There are several ways to cut down the longest journeys, btw. Join the mage guild for one. Then you can teleport to several cities (through the mage guild houses). There are also stilt walkers and boats. There are also some spells to learn to get into a city fast.

 

This post is rather irrelevant to the topic however, I realize now...

[kalimeeri]

I finished almost all the blinkin' quests in the first game, right up to the end, ready to start Tribunal ... and my hard drive crashed. Oy. I did reinstall it and both expansions, started over, but my heart isn't in it. Don't even remember where I am at this point, because K2 intervened.

[Noceur]

I finished almost all the blinkin' quests in the first game, right up to the end, ready to start Tribunal ... and my hard drive crashed.  Oy.  I did reinstall it and both expansions, started over, but my heart isn't in it.  Don't even remember where I am at this point, because K2 intervened.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You have to finish Morrowind to start playing the expansions?

[kalimeeri]

I finished almost all the blinkin' quests in the first game, right up to the end, ready to start Tribunal ... and my hard drive crashed.  Oy.  I did reinstall it and both expansions, started over, but my heart isn't in it.  Don't even remember where I am at this point, because K2 intervened.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You have to finish Morrowind to start playing the expansions?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No. The expansions insert themselves from the start, but I'm just stubborn that way.

[metadigital]

After that you pretty much have to actively decide to dedicate yourself to the mainplot all through the game. If you do that, the game isn't all that long or big at all.

 

What I'm saying is that there is no pace at all, save for the pace you set, in this game.

...

There are several ways to cut down the longest journeys, btw. Join the mage guild for one. Then you can teleport to several cities (through the mage guild houses). There are also stilt walkers and boats. There are also some spells to learn to get into a city fast.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. I don't have a problem with "go and explore and set your own goals." The quests were boring. Go and get some flowers? It was all fed-ex stuff.

 

2. I was a member of the Mages guild. You can only teleport to half the places (main cities). I went exploring all the lowlands and islands, etc, looking for anything interesting. And the Mage quests were really long Fed-Ex missions. (You have to get to higher levels before the main quest will continue, anyway IIRC, so you can't short-circuit it.)

 

I think Deus Ex:IW did the quests in a much beter way: one faction wants the gun the scientist is developing, the other wants the scientist dead. Much better.

[Noceur]

1. I don't have a problem with "go and explore and set your own goals." The quests were boring. Go and get some flowers? It was all fed-ex stuff.

 

2. I was a member of the Mages guild. You can only teleport to half the places (main cities). I went exploring all the lowlands and islands, etc, looking for anything interesting. And the Mage quests were really long Fed-Ex missions. (You have to get to higher levels before the main quest will continue, anyway IIRC, so you can't short-circuit it.)

 

I think Deus Ex:IW did the quests in a much beter way: one faction wants the gun the scientist is developing, the other wants the scientist dead. Much better.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

This is rather irrelevant to the thread (which is about the plot of Morrowind and its expansions), however. And Deus Ex:IW certainly isn't sandboxy , neither does it have a large amount of quests/missions.

 

Gaining lvls for the main-quest in Morrowind certainly doesn't take a long time.

Do you even get XP for finishing quests in Morrowind? I only did quests to gain favour and money. You cannot argue against an opinion, if you found all the quests boring then you did. I did not. The more obvious fed-ex quests however, I did not find entertaining except for in the beginning when they took you to new towns and such.

[metadigital]

This is rather irrelevant to the thread (which is about the plot of Morrowind and its expansions), however. And Deus Ex:IW certainly isn't sandboxy , neither does it have a large amount of quests/missions.

 

Gaining lvls for the main-quest in Morrowind certainly doesn't take a long time.

Do you even get XP for finishing quests in Morrowind? I only did quests to gain favour and money. You cannot argue against an opinion, if you found all the quests boring then you did. I did not. The more obvious fed-ex quests however, I did not find entertaining except for in the beginning when they took you to new towns and such.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure, just airing my opinion, too.

 

I can't remember the specifics now, I just remember thinking that -- using my method of play -- it was going to take me the rest of my life to finish the game. And there are an inordinate amount of Fed-Ex missions. It struck me as a better multi-player environment.

[Noceur]

This is rather irrelevant to the thread (which is about the plot of Morrowind and its expansions), however. And Deus Ex:IW certainly isn't sandboxy , neither does it have a large amount of quests/missions.

 

Gaining lvls for the main-quest in Morrowind certainly doesn't take a long time.

Do you even get XP for finishing quests in Morrowind? I only did quests to gain favour and money. You cannot argue against an opinion, if you found all the quests boring then you did. I did not. The more obvious fed-ex quests however, I did not find entertaining except for in the beginning when they took you to new towns and such.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure, just airing my opinion, too.

 

I can't remember the specifics now, I just remember thinking that -- using my method of play -- it was going to take me the rest of my life to finish the game. And there are an inordinate amount of Fed-Ex missions. It struck me as a better multi-player environment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hmm, I think the reason I didn't get so fed-exed is because I was also a member of the fighters guild. You know, I was at the last main quest or so within a week or two (not active play-time), and I thought I ran around pretty much everywhere. There probably aren't that many main-plot quests.

 

I dunno... I also bought every Flight of the wind (or whatever the spell's called) scroll I could find.

 

Anyway, the main plot for Morrowind certainly isn't bad. The dwemer stuff is coo'.

[Drakron]

The quest story of Morrowind is the story of the Tribunal.

 

It basic goes like this, the dwarves found the Heart of Luskan (the ... god -even if that is not correct- that was responsible for the creation of the mortal realm) and started to experiment on it, eventually they build a golem (the one you see in Daggerfall) that was to house the heart to create a new god.

 

Well Neravar tried to stop then and in the end the dwarves used the heart and vanished ... then it goes complicated.

 

Nevarar dies (by who its not know) and Dargoth Ur is killed by the Tribunal that use the Heart to became gods ... problem is they have to keep using the heart to maintain their powers.

 

Now Dargoth Ur is not exactly dead and returns, he cuts off the Tribunal from reaching the Heart and starts to build his own golem to house the heart.

 

The main quest is to became the Nevarine (Neravar reborn) and stop Dargoth Ur.

 

Now the expansion packs.

 

Tribunal is simply dealing with the other 2 members of the Tribunal and Bloodmoon is dealing with a Daedra prince.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I didn't play the expansion packs. Did we ever find out what really happened to the Dwemer? I thought that was a really nice element in the backstory.

[roguefrog]

Tall dwarves vanished. Nobody knows where they went. Not even the sole surviver in the corpus dungeon.

[The Great Phantom]

I'm going to give spoilers, so...

 

You start off on a prisoner barge being sent to Morrowind. While there, you're realesed (sp?), and given a mysterious coded letter to take to one of the Emperor's spies (the Emperor's a good guy, so don't worry). Later on, after helping the Spymaster, you find out that the Emperor himself sent you to fulfill the prophecy of the Nerevarine (why he'd want to send somebody that was supposedly supposed to overthrow the Empire's hold on the Dark Elf Island is anybody's guess). So, you have to go find the Cult of the Nerevarine, and go on a series of quests to see if you really are the Nerevarine. I don't remember all of them, so I'll skip ahead.

 

If you're 'good', then eventually Vivec (one of the Dark Elf god-kings) asks to see you personally. You go, and he talks about his past, and you in a previous life. He confesses to betraying you, with the 2 other god-king/queen s, and gives you 2 versions of the tale of Nerevar's death. One of them involves Dagoth killing Nerevar (or something like that), the other (true-er) one involves all of Nerevar's (your) friends betraying you to become gods. They both are extremely biased, but I chose to believe Vivec's version (that he says, not one of the 2 written ones), because it has a combo of the 2 versions. Plus, Vivec seemed really sorry for what he'd done (sorta like that whole Immortal, can't die even when I want to thing). So, he gives you a glove, and sends you to find the 2 other pieces to a set of devices made to cut power from Lorkhan's (the Aedra/diety that tricked the other Aedra into creating the world, thereby making them mortal and weaker than the Daedra, who are still Immortal) Heart. You go about and get the tools, killing Dagoth's brethren (thereby weakening him in the process), and you finally fight Dagoth Ur. He tries to trick you into joining his side (in the crappy Morrowind-style Dialog: only problem with the game, really, imho), but to no avail. You kill him once, but since he's so close to the Heart (the source of his and the 3 God/Kings power), he's waiting for you in the Heart Chamber. You destroy the Heart, and kill Dagoth (or levitate and watch as the mortal Dagoth jumps into the lava far below ), and the whole place caves in.

 

On your way out, Azura (The Daedra/Goddess of Twilight and Mysteries, and also Nerevar's, thereby your, patron goddess) appears and a neat little FMV plays, and the main storyline is complete.

 

I'm almost out of time for now, but I'm going to try and throw in the Tribunal story:

 

You're attacked by assassins in your sleep, and you go out to figure out who's trying to kill you. Eventually, you find your way to Mournhold, the city of Almalexia (another Dark Elf goddess, and Nerevar's former lover). You go about, seeking the Dark Brotherhood's (payed assassins) hideout. You find a decree from the King himself saying that a handsome fee goes to whoever kills you, and you go to confront the King. He apologizes, and says that he had heard that you were a rival for the throne, and offers you a 'job'. You can either accept and do a few side quests, or decline and go work for Almalexia's priests (who hated me because I wore their armor, so I did the King thing). Either way, you eventually have to help Almalexia (as a spy, if you did the King thing).

 

She has you galavant about (through her head priests), and you have to do the Midieval thing and kill a few heretics (or let them flee to safety, faking thier deaths), and eventually you have to prove her might (for her...), and journey into a city-under-the-city (where a few robot-things came up previously, attacking the courtyard. You had to help the guards, and report back to King or Goddess, and it goes on from there). You need to journey deep into it, and find a weather-controlling magic machine. You cause ash storms, and the people worship Almalexia, hoping to releave themselves of this plague. She's happy, and sends you to put your Sword back together (it was rumored it could kill a god, and it belonged to Nerevar at his death). You do this, and re-enchant it via some fire stuff from a Daedric Temple, and go back to her. She spills the beans, then and there (almost re-declaring her love for Nerevar aka you), and tells you that Sotha Sil (the Sorcerer Dark Elf god, and the last of the 3) has gone insane, and must be killed. She sends you to his city, and you fight your way through to Sotha's chamber.

 

You walk in to see Sotha Sil hanging on one of his contraptions, mangled (in full detail, but no blood... ). You, most likely, get angry at Almalexia and turn to storm out. On your way, though, she appears. It turns out, she was the insane one, and she wants to become the ONE GOD of the Dark Elves, and you're the only challenge in her way (even Vivec is puny compared to her, apparently...). You fight, she dies, the Ash Storms go away (again...), and all are happy. If you tell anybody that she and Sotha Sil are dead, then they hate you (HERETIC! ). On your way out of Almalexia's temple, Azura meets you again. She proclaims the danger of having a god(dess) with Mortal flaws, and praises you.

[Plano Skywalker]

Morrowind is not trigger-based at all. There may be a few triggers but nothing

is thrown at you like a previous poster said. It is a game in which you are totally

in the driver's seat. You can easily log 80 hours in this game and not even touch

the main quest.

 

I personally believe that this kind of game would be much better if it had more

SIM/RTS elements (i.e. you can buy property, businesses, hire mercenaries to do some of your mundane tasks for you, etc).

 

There actually is a way to end up with a stronghold in MW and that involves joining one of the 3 Dark Elf feudal households and doing alot of Fed Ex quests (and some assassination quests) for them.

 

Also, the NPC dialog is horrible and that should not be the case for an open-ended game. Still, for all its faults, it has some redeeming points. I think the best part of the game is the whole idea of joining factions and advancing in their ranks and the fact that this has little or nothing to do with the main story.

[Plano Skywalker]

another problem with Morrowind is that time essentially does not matter. One of the things that Fable was supposed to do was to have an open-ended RPG but with a limited amount of time...basically, the best of both worlds.

 

I haven't played Fable but from what I've read on this board, the game sucked.

[Noceur]

another problem with Morrowind is that time essentially does not matter.  One of the things that Fable was supposed to do was to have an open-ended RPG but with a limited amount of time...basically, the best of both worlds.

 

I haven't played Fable but from what I've read on this board, the game sucked.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, while the time issue certainly takes away any sense of urgency, I kinda liked it since it gives me the freedom to finish the game at my own pace.

[Brickyard]

In general Morrowind comments, I rather like the game.

 

Not at all for the same reasons that I like BG, BG2, NWN:HotU and KOTOR, though it had some aspects of BG2 (in terms of mods) that the rest really don't have.

 

I think the problem may be that the industry labels it an RPG, which Morrowind clearly is not. It's an adventure game. It's an exploration game. And it has some quests.

 

While I loved some aspects of K2, in terms of conversing with the Henchmen and some NPCs, and adore BG2, as I think it's simply the best game ever made, and feel the same about some parts of the NWN's, K1, BG, etc, Morrowind is the one game where I've actually been the most engrossed in, ever. But that is one very specific aspect of the game, the exploration and landscape.

 

Do I wish the Morrowind world was populated by NPCs like the ones Bioware is famous for sometimes creating? Surely I do. I would love quests like the Manaan trial, influence of henchmen (well, henchmen in general), etc. But I would also have loved a KOTOR that was as big and explorable as Morrowind. Something that had a ton of things to do that weren't directly tied to the main quest, and a world that wasn't so damn limited in where you can go.

 

I still think the scenery in Morrowind is still way ahead of KOTOR/K2, in terms of graphics. It looks so amazing to stand on a cliff overlooking the sea, and see the sunrise (or set). Nothing like that in the RPGs that I play, unfortunately.

 

I also really like the way you build your skills. You can be any combination you want, just do it. Sure, some things are so much easier to level in than others, but the concept that you learn by doing is a great one.

 

But like I said, I don't consider Morrowind to be an RPG, but and adventure/exploration game. And it's a really good one.

[Volourn]

Morrowind is a RPG. And, i say that even as I dislike the game immensely. It's silly to say otherwise as it allows you to make choices thate ffect your character and the world. That's what a RPG is to me. The quality of those chocies may be lacking; but they do exist..

[Plin]

From Phantom's post, it seems to me that Morrowind actually had a really good story. Now if Bethesda can fix the bad combat and dialogue, then Oblivion is sounding more and more juicy .

[The Great Phantom]

I would have added in more of the backstory, but I was taking an exam at the time... :ph34r:

 

I'll try to get around to the Bloodmoon Story (2 sides to it, which makes it fun) a little later on.