Gaming diaries: all the rage, eh? Buoyed by the splendidosity of the likes of Roburky’s Sims 3 chronicles and Tom Francis’ Galactic Civilizations II bible, I’m embarking on something I’ve had brewing for a while – a diary of my (mis)adventures in Morrowind. I’ve always maintained it’s a far better game than its sequel Oblivion (which was also pretty good), and now’s my chance to prove it. I’ll commence with the diaries proper in a few days, but ahead of that I thought I’d share the setup.
I’m running the Morrowind: Game of the Year edition, which includes the two expansions Tribunal and Bloodmoon. This means I should bump into a werewolf at some point, excitingly. On top of that, I’ve installed a bunch of mods, mostly for the sake of prettiness – I don’t want to change the eventual experience too much, but I have zero problems with messing with the lore.
They are:
Better Bodies – which, primarily, adds joints to the game’s otherwise rigid torsos, and some nicer textures for people whose clothes you’ve nicked. There’s a choice of whether to leave them totally nude or with some tasteful underwear. I’ve gone for the latter, because I’m afraid of sex.
Better Heads – Those blurry porridge-faces get a bit of sprucing up. Also applies to the player models, not that you get to see your own face outside of the tutorial (I don’t think?)
Morrowind Comes Alive – This is a good’un. It throws in a crapton of wandering NPCs into the world, so it’s not the underpopulated robo-land it is out of the box.
The Wilderness Mod – Similar to the above, but with angry animals. This means I’m probably going to get attacked by a tiger eventually.
Giants Ultimate – Introduces a load of mythic-esque foes to Morrowind, including dragons, golems and, er, mechanical wasps. More stuff to hit, basically.
Real Signposts – Crisp signpost textures get me hard.
And the Morrowind Visual Pack, an omni-mod of high resolution textures that smarten things up no end. I remember trying this (or something like it) a few years ago, and my poor PC fell over in panic. It’s entirely untroubled now, bless it.
So, before I get going on this in earnest, any others you lot reckon are a must-have?
Oh, and my character is a Water Nymph (a new race one of the mods seems to have thrown in) with, for some reason, the face of a flea. He is called Loaf, and is stabby and a bit thiefy. He can also walk on water.
Related Stories:
@Azradesh
“Also most rpgs have these things.”
Really? Name a few fantasy RPG’s that include bathrooms, I can’t think of any.
Oh hell. Please don’t make me want to buy more games. I have this on CD. Heck, I have it, my wife has it, and we have a spare copy floating around that came with a video card or something. My disk space is getting low! But STEAM? I would buy it again if it’s on Steam just to not have to find the CD again! Eesh.
Oh well.
Rigley mentioned problems installing a mod in Windows 7 RC, is that typical for Morrowind mods? I would love to join the fun!
Baldur’s Gate, Planespace: Torment…..and my mind has gone blank lol. I didn’t specify fantasy though, so add to that all the Fallout games. OH Arcanum….I think…it’s been a while since I played that one. Oh and Neverwinter Nights 1+2. Most of these games don’t have bathrooms in houses though as they have fantasy or post apocolyptic settings, which means you’re out of luck unless you’re rich. :) They all have children though.
As someone who has done it, you could spend days putting together all the “great” mods out there. Just play with what you’ve got!
That is, unless you’ve got a screaming new video card, then run distant land with MGE so I can drool over it. Can’t even add 2 cells with my 4850. :(
And Baldur’s Gate 2 of course.
Hm. I’m glad you’re doing this — Morrowind is one of the finest roleplaying experiences I’ve ever had — but I have mixed feelings about your using GIANTS. I mean, sure, it’s your obligation, but I think the continuity and depth of the game’s lore across both its in-game world and its literature was one of the coolest things about Morrowind.
But, then, being part of an Elder Scrolls lore community, I’m somewhat biased. Carry on!
erm, “your obligation” as in “your right”. Dunno why I wrote that. Stupid no-edit-button.
Oh Morrowind what good memories of wandering the land doing what i want to whomever i want, then being chased Benny Hill style by the local wildlife.
Shame i lost everything in a hdd crash and could never get back into it..
@Vinraith
“Really? Name a few fantasy RPG’s that include bathrooms, I can’t think of any.”
Arx Fatalis did. If I remember right, the goblins actually used them.
Remember to mod OUT cliff racers. Fuckers.
today i bought morrowind off of steam and i tried to install the Graphics Extender mod but it does not seem to work at all, i read on the support page for the mod that you must run the morrowind.exe and not launch the game through its launcher, i did this but it brings up the game launcher anyways and the mod does not work. Another mod i have tried is the better bodies mod but when loading into the game it gives me several errors that texture files could not be loaded (or something to that effect) and when in game all the npc’s have really trippy colours all around them. So is Morrowind GOTY off of steam able to use mods at all? and has anyone got the Graphics extender to work properly
Shadow Warrior had toliets AND children and children using toliets! That shot you! I know it’s not a fantasy RPG But still it is FPS and includes swords, which morrowind is an fPS with swords :P
“OHHH, you skink laddy!” “You washa wangs back or wang washa your back!? AWAHAHAHA!” “OH , horny bunny rabbits!”
The cliff racer hate always amuses me. Any of a thousand mods (including the wilderness one Alec’s using) makes them placid and non-combative, such that they’re just scenery. I kind of missed flying critters in Oblivion, it was one more way in which the world felt flatter than Morrowind’s.
I first played Morrowind on X-Box, those cliff racers were a plauge!
I miss thrown weapons from morrowind in oblivion as well, though I liked the combat and arrows much better.
Re: kids in sandbox games
Not a sandbox game, but I played something called “Mines of Titan” years ago. You slowly built up a party of adventurers in a futuristic turn-based RPG. Anyway, one of the locations you could go to was really peaceful and it was full of old people and children. This made it a fantastic training ground for new members of your group. I’d spend hours beating Grandma and little Jimmy with a baseball bat, shooting them with simple laser guns, or throwing molotov cocktails act them. I felt sad when I could no longer get an acceptable XP return from this. These actions never had a terrible effect on the characters.
So, apparently Bethesda doesn’t want gamers doing that.
Hey, I haven’t played Oblivion/Morrowind since playing Mount and Blade. I’m thinking that I’d hate the combat if I went back to it now. I hope someone could make a Oblivion sized RPG with super awesome horseback swashbucklery.
Ack! put that picture away, I have too much to do right now, and you’re making me want to go back and play that thing. Probably my favorite gaming experience ever, outside of the Half-Life universe. I was so disappointed by Oblivion’s lack of variety. The WORLD in Morrowind is so rich and varied, from the harsh desert, to the wet swamps, to the funky mushroom houses. Mmm, I miss it…
Fucking cliff racers.
Morrowind was definently one of my favorite games, the hours I poured into it…Oblivion was a bit disapointing compared to it. I’ve got a Morrowind GOTY disk sitting right next to me, I tried to get into it again after my Steam games stopped working. Spent abut 4 hours downloading mods, went into the game and about 10 minutes in I got stuck and autosaved by accident…
You know why I love this game? Candles. After beating the game I went around the world collecting all the candles I could find. I ended up with a house so full of candles that I looked like some kind of Brittney Spears cult worshiper.
@Vinraith:
The text MMO GemStone III had a bathhouse with a rather important toilet in it. Though I understand an event happened sometime in the last couple of years or so that destroyed that particular building.
My memory of Oblivion involves a lot of theft, and then a lot of flying around, invisible, bombing the crap out of cities.
Thanks Alex :)
I put so many hours into Morrowind but I ended up not even finishing the game. Part of me wants to go back and play it again, but I have barely enough time as is before I blow it playing the same parts allover again
Plus, all the mods for Morrowind and Oblivion are such a pain in the ass. That’s the big hurdle for me. Because the mods are too good NOT to use, but they are such a pain to install and setup that you don’t want to use them. It’s a bit of a catch-22
I would beware of the “Morrowind Comes Alive” mod if you’re planning on being a sneaky thief. It adds so many NPCs all over the place that it makes it hard to steal anything. Even if you’re not planning on relieving the populace of Vvardenfell of their valuables, you can’t run through any of the NPCs. This becomes very annoying after getting jammed between an NPC and the doorjamb for the nth time.
I do appreciate what the modder is/was trying to accomplish. I did like the (added by the mod) random thugs that would attack me, only to be slaughtered by the guards while I watched. That’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to being an emperor at the arena (thumbs down for the thug). However, the amusement caused by random acts of violence doesn’t justify turning every interior cell into an exercise of frustration.
So for bathrooms in fantasy RPG’s so far we have Arx Fatalis and two obscure games I’ve never heard of. Neither the Baldur’s Gate games nor the Neverwinter games had bathrooms that I can recall, nor has any other fantasy RPG I can recall having played. It’s just not a normal design priority in these settings, for whatever reason.
I can for the life of me NOT understand why Bethesda went so utterly generic with Oblivion. Had it had half the uniqeness of Morrowinds world, I’d been willing to forgive some of its other glaring faults.
I remember playing Morrowind on release and being absolutely stunned at how far gaming had come. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t heralded by an instant classic by all concerned. I still believe it should have been. Wonderously more adventurous, enthralling and arresting than Oblivion.
“Fucking cliff racers.”
TEAM
I really enjoyed the Ascadian Rose Cottage house mod, but I can’t find a working link anywhere.
I saw that guy named Ian up there and thought ‘that’s odd, why is Psychopomp posting under a different account?’, but then I saw him say that he’s barely played Morrowind. Oh, never mind.
obligatory FUCKING CLIFF RACERS
Alec, I’m really glad to see this. I bought Morrowind and the expansions off of ebay a year ago but have never gotten around to playing. It’s great to see the mods listed and all since that’s how I’d want to play it too. I’m anxious to read your upcoming adventures.
I actually enjoy playing Oblivion more than I enjoy Morrowind, but I enjoy them for different reasons.
Or something like that. >_>
Morrowind, when properly patched, is a truly amazing game. I would also suggest the Morrowind Graphics Extender; the sense of awe it adds is essential, as ‘awe’ is superior to ‘fog.’
Also, please use some discretion, and remember that if you unexpectedly die in real life, and some relative loads your saved game to see what you had been up to near the end, it is best not to leave Vvardenfell littered with naked, murdered NPCs. Especially with Better Bodies installed.
I just bought the deluxe bundle pack from Steam and I was planning on giving Oblivion a whirl first. I’ve played it before but I really wanted to give those Dark Brotherhood quests another go (the party quest is one of the best I’ve ever played). This article is tempting me to now go with Morrowind first… I guess I’ll get around to it once I’ve had my fill of the Sims 3, which I just got today.
I’ve always thought Morrowind was crap, but maybe RPS will make it laughy.
@Brulleks Have you got a link to the mega mod pack your using? Sounds interesting
My 2 favourite bits in Morrowind:
1) Mountainering around one of the villages I mange to climb-jump a bit higher than expected, then fell off the mountain, somehow surviving and landed on the open balcony at the top of a big house. I wandered around inside and found lots of nifty treasure to steal, and a scroll of Mana-Rape, and eventually an irate Telvanni master wizard. Fisticuffs were had and soon I was looting his corpse. It was much gametime later when the Telvanni who I’d later joined sent me ona mission to get the votes of their hermit-like masters before I could be made their champion. Felt like a bit of a fool when I turned up at the house and worked out I killed the guy 15 levels earlier. A perfectly broken mission. I mean, I could hardle go back and tell them I’d killed their guy…
2) Boots of Mighty Jumping. Ring of Water Walking. Sea. Slight Error of Judgement. SPLAT. Dead Adventurer.
I definitely agree that Morrowind is a far better game than Oblivion.
I loved how ‘real’ Morrowind felt, how it was a world in which I just happened to live, instead of a world purposely built for me.
I got a quest to get some bonedust, which, I was told, can be collected from crypts. So I entered the nearest crypt, expecting to find the bonedust as usual at the bottom level, in the middle of the map, guarded by the ‘boss’ of that crypt. But no! Right next to the entrance there was some bonedust. As there may be, in ‘real life’.
That, and the whole business with the dwarfs. I always felt that I only discovered a very small part of their tale, but that if I searched long enough, everything would be explained.
Unfortunately, I did not search long enough, but I liked that I was not spoon-fed their history.
I think Morrowind had a more interesting world, but it was also completely dead, and fairly uncomfortable to walk around in. The basic gameplay of Oblivion is mechanically better, and that made the experience easier for me to swallow.
But i got my share out of Morrowind. I bought it, played it for hours and hours and came away satisfied. But you can’t PAY me to go back to it. Same goes for Oblivion for that matter.
Ahh, I remember my short run with Morrowind. I stepped of the boat (or whatever) and explored the town, went to path looking at all the pretty big mushrooms, suddenly a worm came jumping at me and as I had no weapons I ran, and ran and ran. After being chased by it for 10 minutes I stopped and tried to smack it, but failed and was killed. That was all.
@ Vinraith
Yes the Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights games do. Not every house true, but there isn’t a single toilet or bath in the whole of Morrowind or Oblivion. These game have so much detail, but they left this out.
I also point you to fps games, it seems to be pretty standard to have toilets in these games.
Bloody love Morrowind, damn thing almost made me fail my degree course :D If I was to list all the things about it I like, this would be a huuuuuge post, so i’ll just settle for the whole of the Bloodmoon expansion, the weirdness of Sotha Sil’s home city, and Sadrith Mora for the most interesting building design i’ve seen in a long time. Also, the great variety of skills and weapons (spears, anyone? Love Dragoon style characters). One of my earliest PC gaming memories was gathering herbs by candlelight at night for a Mages Guild quest, stopping to rest and watching the sun rise. Only when it got light did I realise I was standing on the shore of Lake Amaya, and the view was unbelievably good…
Looking forward to your diary Alec, should be fun!
Removing cliff racers is as simple as loading up Morrowind in it’s own editor, and deleting the lot of them.
Morrowind is worth buying entirely for two things:
1) It has some near Ultima-quality dungeon crawling, making up for the truly lackluster writing.
2) The Underground. Which is probably one of the best mods created for a game, full stop. Such a shame the “sequel” came out unfinished and un-completeable. I always wanted to explore the treehouse locales…
ooh, didn’t realise it was on steam. Sold! I’ve played all of about 10mins of Morrowind (demo perhaps, cant remember), but it ate my PC alive. Not anymore.
“Morrowind Comes Alive” looks like a bad idea, since there are quest that are started just metting a npc in a random area. If you put NPC everywhere, you will skip these missions.
–
I just booted the game again, with the infinite landscape.. on my “godlike” character. WOA.. the game on today computers *fly*. I remenber playng it for like 6 years, and getting angry at the loong load time of the zones, but now feel like a seamless game, almost zero loadtimes. and the rafters… for some reason I don’t remenber having problems with then, other than at low level, but because I have forget how to play, even how to shot, are a anoyance now, for my godlike character. My character was equiped with amazing stuff, and with amazing spells, like one to jump 255 for 2 seconds, the one I use for fast travel. I can jump vivac in one hop :-)
The architecture graphics are awesome, to this day (with the defaults) but the characters are kinda lowpoly for toda standards, but he… Is morrowind!, everything has flavour!.
I am tempted to create a new installation, and start the game from scratch, with lots of mods.. but I am not that guy, I would probably rush trough the game, and not play like I played it eons ago.
@Azradesh
I believe your memory is faulty. I’m playing NWN2 as we speak and haven’t seen a toilet that I can recall. In fact, as I’ve said, I can’t recall ever seeing a toilet in a fantasy-setting game (RPG OR FPS) that I’ve played (and I’ve played the NWN and BG games a LOT). I’ll concede Arx Fatalis and the others mentioned earlier in the thread as I’ve not played them.
Damn you RPS, DAMN YOU for adding yet another game to the ever growing list of must buy/replay. My only memories of Morrowind was “big” and joining guilds just to steal everything in their guild halls.