Hello my dear compatriots of Bethesda forums, I'm here to start a playthrough of Morrowind. You see, a few days ago I was searching through my cousin's game collection and found this gem at the bottom of a stack of other games. I've heard tons of people on these forums (and other forums as well) mentioning how great it was, so I thought I'd put it to the test. I'm about to start installing, so tonight I should have my first gameplay post up.

Don't expect too much. I love the game, played it for over 2000 hours, but for all it's strength it also has a fair share of weaknesses. Especially for modern gamers these weaknesses can prove to be quite an obstacle to their enjoyment of the game.

So don't go in with too high expectations. What you can expect from the game is a fascinating and exotic world to explore, but the actual gameplay will probably often feel clunky in compare to more modern games.

I started with Oblivion too and I didn't think the transistion was too bad. I've played about 60 hours on xbox and 30 on PC. I'm about to start my first ever playthrough of the main quest. I hope you enjoy it, OP.

Morrowind may not feel as immersive as Oblivion at first.Oblivion's gameplay and mechanics kind of feel..I dunno..smoother.However, I think you'll get used to Morrowind soon enough to start to enjoy it's superior story (main quest).Compared to Oblivion, Morrowind's main quest is much more focused on exploring and uncovering mysteries, if I can call them that.Yeah, there's little to no voice acting, but that doesn't make the characters less memorable
Also, imo, Morrowind is buggier than Oblivion.Install the Unofficial MW patch.There are some nasty bugs in that game.

I also came from Oblivion to the island of Vvardenfell and I thought the game was good. However as mentioned, don′t expect too much and remember this is a game that′s nearly ten years old.

Enjoy!

I played Morrowind before Oblivion, so perhaps I'm biased, but I think the former is the better game. Obviously the graphics are outdated now, but there are plenty of mods that will make the game look a lot better. I'll agree that Oblivion is an overall "smoother" experience, but I think Morrowind is more interesting, more immersive, and feels as though it was designed with a bit more care. (Although, yes, it is buggy.) They're both fantastic games, but Morrowind shines.

Last year, after having already played Oblivion, I spotted the "This game is rather old, so here's everything for 20 bucks" boxed set at the store. Having enjoyed Oblivion very much, I bought it and took it home. Tried running a character but just couldn't get into it.

I have no problem with the graphics or paucity of voice-acting. I'm an old gamer who grew up with 8 bit stuff (and who still likes it). I think I gave up because the game was so different, and the difficulty seemed high. the first enemy I tried to fight killed me quickly. Nothing is spoon-fed to you and you have to work to figure out what it going on, what to do and how to do it. It appears to be a deep game, to be sure.

Having said all this, I'm going to try it again. I'm waiting for Diablo 3, Skyrim, maybe another Half Life game (a long shot, I know :cryvaultboy: ). I've played the heck out of the other Beth games. So it looks like MW is probably my best bet in the interim.

I randomly stumbled onto Oblivion, played it and loved it. This was a few years ago, and around 6 months ago I decided I'd purchase and attempt to play MW. I hate to say it, but I just couldn't get into it! I agree with atomic badger; the game seemed so different and way too difficult. I do like a challenge, but it just seemed like too much effort for a buggy game that didn't play that well (and yes I understand it's over 10 years old.)

I'm also going to be giving it another chance. I'm sure it's an amazing game, but my lack of patience seems to get in the way. Here's hoping I'll find a way around that. Any suggestions would be welcome

Morrowind can be rather tough at first and only really opens up once you've got a few levels under your belt. The main trick is in not giving up and surviving those earliest few levels.

I think the easiest combinations of race and class for a beginner are:
- Bosmer or Dunmer Assassin
- Bosmer or Dunmer Archer
- Breton Battlemage
- Nord or Redguard Crusader
- Imperial or Redguard Knight
- Redguard Scout
- Breton Spellsword

For all of these I would recommend the Lady birthsign. Maybe you could take Atronach instead for the Battlemage and Spellsword, but I find that for a beginner Lady would be more beneficial and in the long term you will be super strong either way.

For actual gameplay I recommend staying in the starter town (Seyda Neen) for a while and doing a local quest or two. Then when you think you're ready try clearing out the local smuggler cave as a test of your skill. When you leave Seyda Neen travel to Balmora with the Silt Strider (giant bug bus). It costs money but at least you won't get lost or killed on the way. Once in Balmora you can join a faction or two and do the easy introductory quests.

A few general gameplay tips:
- Talk to all NPCs about Latest Rumors, Little Advice, Little Secret, and Morrowind Lore and pay attention to what they say.
- The arrow on the minimap in the lower right corner shows which direction you are facing. Up = north, left = west and so on.
- Fatigue influences everything from combat to spellcasting to persuasion. Make sure you Fatigue bar is full before you get into a fight, it can make a huge difference.
- Make sure you're using a weapon in which you are skilled. Remember that Axes are not Blunt Weapons, they have their own skill. Blades are also divided into Short Blades (daggers & shortsword) and Long Blades (longswords & claymores).
- If you're on the PC you can assign your hotkeys by pressing F1 on your keyboard. And when you're selling or looting or managing your inventory you can automatically select all items in a batch by holding shift pressed while you click on it. Holding ctrl pressed will automatically select only 1 item.
- Save a lot and in different slots.
- If you have either of the expansions you can filter journal entries by quest. Just click on "options" (lower left) and then on "quests" (on the right page) and pick the relevant quest. You can also use "options" and then "topics" to see everything anyone has ever told you about a certain conversation topic.
- If you are any good with Conjuration consider using a Bound weapon spell. Bound weapons will kill most enemies with only a couple of hits and they even fortify their relevant weapon skill by 10 points.

Thanks for the tips, Dragatus.

Wow this was very helpful and had lots of good info. I just started playing Morrowind today and I was having some problems but this post was a lot of help. Thank you!

I remember that i also had a hard time getting into this game, but it gets far better when you have played about ten hours.

Do not forget to install the patch project & the code patch before starting a new game. They will make the game much more enjoyable.

Trance

I'm glad you found it useful.