Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Truly impressive mod projects make me want to defy physics. For example, try as I might, I cannot – even with the assistance of a truly formidable thesaurus – recreate the pure magic of an authentic standing ovation in post form. And yet, that’s what the legions of folks who’ve spent five years continuously tidying up each and every inch of Morrowind deserve. Meanwhile, Morrowind Overhaul 2.0 was quite the looker, but I want to frame Overhaul 3.0‘s trailer and hang in it on my wall – something that’s also probably outside the orc-and-elf-free realm of possibility. Even bare walls and pin-drop silence, however, won’t dampen my excitement for really pretty videogame snow. I mean, just look at that stuff. Well, go on now. Do it.

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More sites should interview mod-makers, I feel. If one of this week’s picks is anything to go by, they can have some interesting things to say. Modding might not usually be quite as huge a process as making a full-on indie game, but as a modder you face your own unique problems, ones we don’t always get to hear about. Maybe we should take note of that at RPS. Either way, read on for this week’s roundup.
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While we all settle in for the torturous wait for Skyrim, why not return to Bethesda’s finest hour, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind? I spent a good chunk of 2009 knee-deep in its bleak, strange, often crazed world for the Fool In Morrowind diary series – something I dearly wish I could have continued, but the need to make a real-life living rather got in the way. The news that there’s an updated compendium of graphically mondernising mods for this deep’n'dark RPG threatens to bring me back, however.
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Game endings, then. They’re crap, aren’t they? Even games that tell engaging and creative stories have a habit of foundering abruptly instead of providing a satisfying finale. Maybe it’s because statistically, developers know less people will see the ending than any other part of their game, and a finale is a lot of work. Maybe it’s because creating closure is an entirely different discipline to holding someone’s attention.

We could have sat theorising in the RPS chatroom all day, but instead we collaborated on something far more proactive and arrogant: rewriting the endings of five of our favourite games. Check out our maddened riffing on Borderlands, Half-life, The Longest Journey, Morrowind and System Shock 2 after the jump.
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Agent Loaf returns, after a brief hiatus so RPS could spend some quality time documenting its own history. Now, my plan with this series had been to avoid the core narrative for as long as possible (even though it’s something I never got around to the first time I played Morrowind.) Then a funny thing happened. It became compelling. Based on how unsatisfactory I’d found Oblivion and Fallout 3′s main plotlines to be, this was not something I’d been expecting. It also puts me in the unusual position of narrativising someone else’s narrative -a starkly different prospect to diarising my own haphazard experiences. If you’ve not ever played Morrowind and still intend to, be aware that here be spoilers…
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Find the story so far here.

It’s an unfortunate reality of Vvardenfell that very few traders can afford to pay anywhere near the worth of the kind of loot that seasoned adventurers bring to them. Stands to reason, really – after all, if they did have several hundred thousand gold to spare, they probably wouldn’t spend their days running grotty shops on a cursed island. It is, however, a source of great annoyance to me. Here I am, pockets laden with brutally effective Daedric weaponry from a hell dimension and lavish Indoril armour worth tens of thousands apiece, but I can only get a couple of thousand gold maximum for anything, if I’m lucky. The traders quickly grew to love me, much as I suspect they were all talking behind my back about how gullible I was. I suppose I’m helping to support local businesses, but frankly I’d never intended to be a philanthropic master thief.
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Let me tell you about my hat.

• It is the first thing in I’ve paid for in this land, bar some skill training and a few lockpicks.
• It cost me 1500 gold pieces, which is more than most shopkeepers even carry. Easily obtained and replaced by a man of my stealthy means, frankly.
• It’s around a foot and a half tall, made of what appears to be brass, and masks my features entirely with a cold, machine-like visage. Yes, it does appear as though I’m wearing a giant, metal vegetable on my face, but I like the look.

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Today in my ongoing series (going on to where, I still don’t know) of wanders through the wondrous land of Morrowind: postcards from the edge. The edge of irrelevancy. Apologies for the lack of an instalment yesterday, by the way: can’t guarantee these will always happen daily, but they’ll remain pretty regular.

Oh – you need to read this one from the bottom up.

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The Diamond Job

The armed guard wasn’t the problem. The child was. I’d successfully lockpicked my way through the upstairs door, sneaking into this alchemist’s store from their unwatched balcony. The guard, I knew, was downstairs, watching the front door. If I stuck to the shadows, I should be able to get past him to the storeroom, where the jewel awaited. Easy. Straight in, straight out, cash reward, and if I was lucky a spare diamond for myself.

But the child almost ruined it.
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Something a little different (and a lot more serious) today, as I attempt a spot of pop psychoanaylsis on my own roleplaying habits. This won’t be the end of my now-traditional comedy escapades, however.

I’ve stolen clothes from corpses. I’ve made an old woman run up a mountain. I’ve hidden drugs in the cellar of a religious organisation. I’ve beaten up adorable animals. So many adorable animals. But.. what am I? As I finally approached the outskirts of Balmora, second-largest city on this hostile island, questions about my purpose and my nature weighed heavy upon me. This much I knew: I was named Loaf, a Dunmer by birth, and an Agent by trade. Beyond that, I was simply a empty cipher at best, a irritating clown at worst. At least, I realised, this was probably why I’d been slowly but intently wending my Machiavellian way to Balmora these past few days – somewhere amidst its hubbub, grime and crime, I hoped to find an answer to that most ultimate of questions. Why am I here?
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I’m going to try and keep these diaries a little shorter. This does mean a) varying hilarity, depending on the situations I’ve genuinely encountered and b) my promised visit to the city is delayed by a day. If it’s any consolation, that entry will involve trying to steal diamonds in front of children.

A note to anyone thinking of building a fort: do not build a fort with easy hillside access. It kind of defeats the point.

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