Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The story so far is here. I’ll admit I’m still honing the tone of this ultro-series, but I suspect anyone turned off by the rambly first part should dig this one more.

I didn’t have to wait long to find some new trousers. There’s a pretty simple rule if you’re looking for trouble (and the cash rewards that usually result from it) in a place like Vvardenfell: find a cave. Nice people don’t live in caves, or behind sinister doorways built into the mountainside, or stalactite-chic, or whatever you want to call it. Bandits, skeletons and trolls do, however, and those are all guys I can stab in the face with impunity.
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Time for adventures! As you’ve probably gathered, I’m embarking on a series of diaries documenting my aimless exploits in Morrowind, the third Elder Scrolls game and predecessor to the, ah, divisive Oblivion. Armed only with a bunch of mods* and an entirely cavalier attitude towards lore and saving the world, I finally set off to Vvardenfell. In this first instalment – fighting ducks, plummeting wizards and accidental trouser-loss.
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Alright – let’s make this precious. Upon my first introduction to my impending Morrowind diary series, the resulting slew of comments threw up two important mistakes on my part. Number one, the Giants mod is a really, really bad idea. Number two, I’d totally overlooked the vitally important (in the beauty stakes, at least) Morrowind Graphics Extender. After a hard day of farting about with ESM files, I’ve finally got what – I hope – is the ideal Morrowind build for my planned journey of cheerful incompetence. Beneath the cut, a more or less complete list of the frightening number of mods I’m now running, and a fairly stunning before and after comparison. Without a doubt, the goodly men’n'well-let’s-be-honest-it’s-pretty-much-all-men [oops, apparently there's a ton of female Morrowind modders, and now it appears some people hate me. Sigh.] of the Morrowind modding community have done jawdropping things to this olden RPG.
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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.
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A mention of this Morrowind mod in another thread reminded me about Tamriel Rebuilt. It’s a bold, some would say crazy (others would say impossible) project to extend the noble forerunner to Oblivion into something even bigger than its current mighty girth.

Mad Bethesda-bitching is traditionally reserved for how they did unspeakable things to Fallout and how Oblivion was mindless prolefeed or similar such snobbery, so someone feeling that The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind perhaps cut a corner or two makes a refreshing change.
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