Board 8 > Anagram plays through Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have more than one project going, and this will be a low priority one, so expect only sporadic updates.

I know literally nothing about this game except that leveling up isn't bad, like in Oblivion. Are there any must-have mods? I have the Steam version.

Updates to come as I begin the game.

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Started: July 6, 2005

i only came in to tell you to watch more pokemon

tee hee

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ph33r teh masta~!

You're already in the middle of May? Gotta teach me how to build that time machine.

Tag like the fist of the North Star.

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I never did finish the main quest of Morrowind. I think I missed a few guilds, too. Then there's the fact that you can only do one of the Great Houses.

Well, I found my Morrowind disc, but it's not likely that I'll be playing it anytime soon.

Woo! Can't wait until you get to the political mess of the guilds and choose which ones to back up.

I only recommend these mods as must haves:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Morrowind_Patch_Project
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Morrowind_Code_Patch

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

Morrowind is a better game world than Oblivion by far, but it has a horribly cludgy set of mechanics to it. The fact that Magicka doesn't regenerate unless you rest, you move really slowly, you have ten different major/minors and some of the attributes have very little to increase them, etc....yeah, the game is extremely cludgy at times. I tried going back to play it since I had never actually beaten it, and I just couldn't. I gave up the first time because I simply couldn't figure out where to go; the journal is a horrible mess and there's no other guidance system to nudge you in the right direction. As such, I dunno if there are any decent journal or quest-tracking mods, but I'd suggest looking for one.

From: azuarc | #006
Morrowind is a better game world than Oblivion by far, but it has a horribly cludgy set of mechanics to it. The fact that Magicka doesn't regenerate unless you rest, you move really slowly, you have ten different major/minors and some of the attributes have very little to increase them, etc....yeah, the game is extremely cludgy at times. I tried going back to play it since I had never actually beaten it, and I just couldn't. I gave up the first time because I simply couldn't figure out where to go; the journal is a horrible mess and there's no other guidance system to nudge you in the right direction. As such, I dunno if there are any decent journal or quest-tracking mods, but I'd suggest looking for one.

There's a guidance system in the game, it's called '' reading the directions the NPCs give you ''.

Worked pretty well for me.

Also there're ways to sort the journal with the expansion.

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The directions are almost always terrible. "Go north until you see some water, then go east until a fork, then look around for a tiny cave somewhere due south"

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From: DeathChicken | #008
The directions are almost always terrible. "Go north until you see some water, then go east until a fork, then look around for a tiny cave somewhere due south"

That doesn't sound so terrible.

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ph33r teh masta~!

Well I don't know about you but I never ever had trouble finding my way in this game.

And the directions you just posted are super easy to follow and straightforward!

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Only time I had problems with directions were from the Morag Tong guildmaster's stupid directions and description.

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

It sounds fine, until you start looking for the indicated fork and realize there are three of them. And then there's no indication as to just how far south the cave was, and you probably walked past it

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Alright, so a one-eyed dark elf tells me to wake up. Seems I'm in a ship. I'm a prisoner of the Imperials, and I'm going to be pardoned in exchange for going to Morrowind and joining the Imperial Legion. Awesome, sounds good so far.

They ask for my information, so I tell them that I'm a female Redguard warrior class, The Warrior sign, and that my name is Kempe because why not. Then I accidentally steal a candelabra and they make me put it back, telling me that if I do that again, I'll be in trouble. I doubt it, though. I'm a warrior race warrior signed warrior and my name is Middle English for "warrior," old guy asking me vague questions about morality to determine my most likely class archetype, I doubt you could do much about anything.

Continuing on, I find a healing ring in a barrel. I also steal a dagger and a few random items like cups and stuff (also a candelabra, because dammit, I'm going to go home with a candelabra if it's the last thing I do). Then I meet the guard captain or something, and the game flatly tells me not to try to persuade him unless I put points in persuade, and since I selected the warrior class, you can guess that I did not.

I exit into a town and get directions from a dark elf woman. I tried to figure out how to attack people randomly but gave up after a few moments (yes, I equipped the dagger) and quit the game for now. I don't actually remember what my main quest is, though, just that I'm supposed to meet with some guy to get directions to another guy.

So far, so good, I suppose.

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From: Anagram | #013
I don't actually remember what my main quest is, though, just that I'm supposed to meet with some guy to get directions to another guy.

You remember then!

That's pretty much how the main quest starts.

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Yeap.

Though didn't you get directions from that guard captain fella? Oh, wait, now I remember. He sends you to a guy living in the same city as the dude for better directions.

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

Also if you picked the pre-made warrior class well, I'm sad to say it's probably the worst in the whole game.

Not saying that melee is bad (it's godly) but the pre-made warrior class is extremely redundant in the skills it majors and minors in.

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Oh hm. I could restart? I'm not satisfied with the hair style I chose.

What should I look for skill-wise? Just standard "heavy armor, long blades, block, healing magic, persuasion?"

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You probably want Security, since there are an obnoxious amount of locked doors and chests that need to be opened

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Oh, yes. How much do you know about this game?

The biggest problem with fighting this early in the game is that the combat is based on a numbers system similar to a dice-based tabletop game. You're going to be swinging and missing a lot early on, unless you spend some time fighting mudcrabs and rats. Stay away from the cliffracers for now; they will swarm you, and you will be overwhelmed, at least until your attacks connect with some consistency..

IIRC, Medium armor is mostly bad. Stick with either Heavy or Light.

I'd get into how much I loathe the Elder Scroll leveling system... but honestly, it's not really that important in Morrowind.

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

SO BE IT

Thus begins the story of Tylava, whose actions are similar to Kempe's except that she also found a healing potion and a large kwame egg. Tylava, however, is a much different character.

Race: Imperial (I wanted to play a Nord but Imperial seemed to have better stats for what I wanted)
Class: Ultimate Warrior
Combat
Str/Willpower

Major Skills:
Restoration
Speechcraft
Long Blade
Heavy Armor
Security

Minor Skills:
Armorer
Block
Acrobatics
Athletics
Destruction

Also this time I figured out how to attack. I tried to murder a random elf and was killed by a guard, but don't worry. I saved first. I also abused my speechcraft to get the old guy's disposition down to zero, but several other characters' above 70.

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STOP RIGHT THERE CRI- Oh, wait, wrong installment.

YOU N'WAH!

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

By the way, I dislike my skills requiring so many different stats (strength, personality, agility, speed, willpower, and intelligence), but I couldn't think of a way to reduce them. Will my low intelligence be a problem for spellcasting?

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Ahh, yes, game mechanics.

See, both attributes and skills need each other. Your attribute's stats determines the maximum level of your skill (Let's say you have an Inteliigence of... 35. Your Security skill cannot go over 35 until you increase your Intelligence), while leveling up your skills determines how much your stat increases when you level up (Say, you increased your Alchemy, Alteration, Spear, and Acrobatics skills by 10 each, and only them. When you level up, you get a x5 multiplier for Intelligence, Willpower, Endurance, and Strength, but only x1 for the other stats.)

Of course, you can only increase 3 stats at each level up, and any multiplier you didn't use are gone forever. Oddly enough, the game keeps track of how high the Major and Minor skills were increased, so you don't lose potential levels. Also, stats and skills both cap out at 100 this way. You can increase them further through armor enchantments, potions, and spells.

But I wouldn't worry about it. Just have fun.

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

If I make an underpowered character, the game will still be winnable, though, right?

Like in Baldur's Gate II... you don't need to play a kensai/mage to win (the most ridiculously overpowered possible character in the game), but if you play something like a wizard slayer, you're basically screwed.

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Of course, Morrowind isn't that punishing (although there is an optional boss who isn't capped and scales with you, getting ludicrous amounts of health). Alchemy is basically your I WIN button, if worst comes to worst. I doubt you'll need it though.

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

Oh, I didn't take that. I thought alchemy and enchantment would be unnecessary.

Screw it, I'll just go through with my current character.

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You don't actually need any levels in alchemy to break the game using it, but again, you don't need it.

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My Little Phineas and Ferb: Summer is Magic!
Aww, I lost to SuperNiceDog, Winner of the Rivalry Rumble Guru Contest

From: Natwaf_akidna | #024
Your attribute's stats determines the maximum level of your skill (Let's say you have an Inteliigence of... 35. Your Security skill cannot go over 35 until you increase your Intelligence)

This part is false and only applies to trainer level ups.

Leveling up the normal way isn't capped by your attribute.

Intelligence isn't a problem for spellcasting, except that you won't have a huge mana pool. Every magic school uses Willpower to calculate its success rate.

Also yeah there are many stats but they only affect a few things each :

Strength : Physical Damage (Including ranged weapons), Maximum Weight you can carry, Starting Health, Fatigue.
Intelligence : Maximum Mana, Enchant success rate, Alchemy success rate and potions potency
Willpower : Chance to resist offensive spell effects, chance to cast spells successfully, Fatigue.
Agility : Chance to hit and dodge, Fatigue.
Personality : Starting NPC disposition, Chance to successfully use the Speechcraft and Mercantile skills.
Endurance : Starting Health, Amount of Health gained on Level Up, Fatigue.
Luck : Success rate of everything, but much less than the other stats.

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Really? Must have misremembered then. Sorry.

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CHAPTER TWO: THE STEALENING

Because she is a hero, Tylava put into effect Operation: Steal Everything. I broke into every house I could manage when no one was looking, and got extremely lucky when I stumbled across the guard headquarters with no one in sight, allowing me to practice my lockpicking and break in. Inside, the guards asked no questions as to why a former convict was running around their headquarters with no escort, and were thus kind enough to offer me a free broadsword, shield, and all pieces of heavy armor except a helmet, right gauntlent, and leggings. I then stole everything else (I had to make two trips because I got encumbered), sold everything I didn't use to an elf (who refused to trade with me as long as I had narcotics on me, tsk tsk guards, so I put the narcotics on the elf's desk just to make a point and then commenced with the buying and selling), and went back to the guardhouse. A woman offered to improve my speechcraft skill, acrobatics skill, and sneak skill. I may take her up on the speechcraft.

I bought the missing pieces of equipment for myself from the elf. I am considering buying a two-handed sword, but since they're expensive, I decided for now to just use my broadsword and shield. I also bought a fireball spell, but I couldn't figure out how to equip it, so no dice.

A male elf asked me if I'd seen his ring of healing. Since I'm obviously a hero, I gave it back to him. If he'd had a house, though, I'd have stolen his goddamn plates if given the opportunity.



Note to Self: Figure out how to run faster, oh my God, this is painfully slow.

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Started: July 6, 2005

Minor spoiler in regards to running faster
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There is a person carrying Boots of Blinding Speed...I want to say north of Pelagiad, I forget. These do what they sound like. Make you walk a hell of a lot faster, at the cost of totally blinding you (but this can be worked around)

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Running speed is also EXTREMELY affected by the amount of stuff you carry, like you can run 2 to 3 times faster naked compared to full capacity.

Imperials aren't so fast to being with too so it doesn't help, but you'll get ways to boost your speed early enough (potions, scrolls, spells, etc).

And to equip spells you click on it in your menu, then you press the '' R '' key to ready it and left-click to cast.

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Ayuyu posted...
Running speed is also EXTREMELY affected by the amount of stuff you carry, like you can run 2 to 3 times faster naked compared to full capacity.

Imperials aren't so fast to being with too so it doesn't help, but you'll get ways to boost your speed early enough (potions, scrolls, spells, etc).

And to equip spells you click on it in your menu, then you press the '' R '' key to ready it and left-click to cast.

I need to consistently spend money to move at a decent pace? Fah.

Anyway, I can't find a place in the menu to equip spells.

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Well that's until you get a decent value of speed and athletics!

(And you'll probably find enchanted items in random loot that boost speed, that's free!)

Well when you right click there should be 4 windows that appear.

-The Map
-The Stats
-The Inventory
-The Spells

You just click on the spell you want to equip in the list.

You can move the windows around, in case the window was hiding under another one.

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Or just do the sane thing and go find those Boots <_<

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Naaah, searching for the location of artifacts to go after them is killing the game for yourself.

The game is all about exploration and discovery.

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For the most part, but I wouldn't consider correcting the character's awful walking speed anything but fixing a major game annoyance

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I've never been bothered by it to be honest.

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Ayuyu posted...
I've never been bothered by it to be honest.

Have you ever played Baldur's Gate and BG2? BG2 is the rare sequel that fixes every bad thing about the first game and adds a ton of new stuff... but honestly, its greatest correction was roughly doubling your default speed because goddamn.

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If it's that critical : http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8163

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Ayuyu posted...
Also something to not is that Female Imperials are in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to starting speed (30, average is 40, top is 50, add 10 if speed is a favored attribute, and 25 if you pick the steed birthsign. So Maximum starting speed is 85)

Well, I don't want to restart again just because of something like this, but hopefully, I'll soon find ways to improve my speed.

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Also something to note is that Female Imperials are in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to starting speed (30, average is 40, top is 50, add 10 if speed is a favored attribute, and 25 if you pick the steed birthsign. So Maximum starting speed is 85)

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CHAPTER THREE: IN WHICH THE ELF RUNS OUT OF MONEY

Some townsfolk told me to go kill some smugglers, so I agreed since the other sidequest, "shake down friendly elf for protection racket purposes," seemed a little evil. Unfortunately, while the smugglers were kind enough to furnish me with their goods for very little money (precisely, the amount it cost to buy a sword and kill them all), I was unable to lug everything they had back to the elf merchant. This turned out to not be a big problem, however, because the elf merchant ran out of money to buy things (I did manage to sell him a robe, though, which he promptly put on, which I found amusing). I then paid a human to train my longsword skill twice (after buttering him up to 96/100 with Admire), but a second human refused to "train the public" even after I got her 96/100, what a *****.

Anyway, I stored everything I couldn't sell in a crate; when I find another merchant, I've got 300 gold or so worth of goods in there. I also bought a two-handed sword because it weighs less than a broadsword and a shield combined.

People told me to take the silt strider to the next city, so I of course decided to walk to Petrograd or whatever, instead of Varric or something. On the way I found a tomb, killed a ghost with my heretoforth unused fireball spell, and was killed by a lesser bonestrider. I stopped at this point.

Is there like a spell that increases running speed that I can cast at will?

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Yeah there is, in Vivec or something if I recall, in the Temple District.

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Oh also in the smuggler cave you just cleared there's a ring that has a +5 speed '' cast on use '' effect.

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Ayuyu posted...
Oh also in the smuggler cave you just cleared there's a ring that has a +5 speed '' cast on use '' effect.

THERE WAS NOT

WHAT

I DID NOT SEE THIS RING

And now I'm too far to go back easily ****.

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Haha it's super easy to miss, it's like a '' hidden '' tunnel, there's a door to it behind rocks near the place you kill the dark elf with the shuriken.

The ring itself is super dark and on the ground near mushrooms, you need hawkeye to see it if you don't actually know it'S there.

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CHAPTER FOUR: DOING BORING STUFF

I eventually completed the dungeon, earning some loot. I made it to Petrograd, but unfortunately, the two merchants there couldn't afford even half of what I could sell, so I'm stuck with a ton of heavy magic items I need to unload. I hope the next city has more merchants with more money.

Considering buying a silver two-handed sword. It does more damage and has less durability.

I have enough experience to level up, but I haven't bothered to sleep yet.

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I think Pelagiad has a merchant with more money, but he's kind of out of the way. In the upstairs of one of the houses

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