Hey guys. I have fully completed Oblivion and Skyrim with hundreds of hours and many playthroughs, and I've read a massive amount of lore on TES. It's by far my favourite game series and I know practically everything about it... except Morrowind.

I tried Morrowind, but having played Oblivion for 5 years or so and a few months of Skyrim I just couldn't seem to get into it! It frustrates me because I always hear the TES faithful praising Morrowind, and I want to fall in love with it too, but I'm finding it really hard to get into. Any tips on how to go about playing it? Or maybe the best things to do on the game? Or even places to go that I would love? I just keep comparing things to Oblivion which I'm so familiar with and this takes the element of fun away from Morrowind. Cheers

What is it about the game that you're finding hard to get into? If you could be a little more specific, it would be easier to offer advice.

Are there things you particularly like about Oblivion which you find Morrowind doesn't measure up to?

I was sort of the same way. Played Oblivion first (lots of times), then tried MW for a little bit, then Skyrim, and then just recently got hugely into Morrowind.

You need to think of MW less as an action game and more as a classic, pencil-and-paper rpg, if that helps.

Morrowind has a slower start, in some ways, than the later TES games. You can't just come off the boat and charge off into the wilderness killing stuff. The game doesn't hand you everything you need to survive. In the beginning, you will be very weak (makes sense - you're a prisoner who's been on a boat for hours, maybe days), and little critters will be a challenge.

My advice is to take it slow. Decide on a character concept, and then play it out as you would if you were dumped in that scenario. Would you dive into the first cave you found, or would you instead talk to the locals, get a sense of the world, see if there are any jobs that need doing? The former is a good way to get killed in Morrowind; the latter is much safer.

Choose a guild or two to join. Guild quests will get you out in the world in a (mostly) rational way, and you also get the benefit of trainers and vendors.

It also helps, imo, to make a character who would actually want to read up on the lore that you find in the world. Reading the books and messages is a great way to get into the game. If you make a burly barbarian who doesn't have the time to read, you'll miss out on some great stuff.

The combat system may take some getting used to. Again, think of it like a classic rpg. You don't always 'hit' when you swing your sword at something. That may be frustrating, but it is also logical. But when you miss, don't think of it as a 'whiff' - think of it like your enemy blocked, or dodged out of the way, or your sword harmlessly skittered across their armor. It's not that you're so badly coordinated you can't hit a monster a foot in front of you - just that your 'hits' are unable to penetrate, or something.

Those first few levels are going to be slow and rough. But leveling actually seems to get faster as you get higher in level - sort of the reverse of Oblivion and Skyrim. The reasoning is simple: In early levels, you miss a lot with your attacks, or fail casting spells. As you get better, you fail less, and thus get more experience, and thus level up quicker. So don't despair - it will get easier.

Choose a way to kill stuff close up, a way to kill stuff far away, and a way or 2 to defend yourself. I just got done playing one of the premade classes, the Acrobat. I would have changed a few things if I made my own custom class - which is probably a good idea. But just make sure you have a weapon skill (or 2, if one is Marksman) and an armor and/or block skill as Majors - unless you're playing a mage, of course.

Talk to people. Talk is cheap. You never ask, you never learn.

Good advice, all.

Also bear in mind that, unlike Oblivion and Skyrim, not everything in Morrowind is levelled - hostiles especially.. There are plenty of tombs, caves, ruins etc. whose denizens will hand you a serious blapsing at low level. Save often.

also dont if you have them hold off on the expansion for awhile those are meant for high level charecter (25 +)

I think Jaberkaty's husband single-handedly rendered any subsequent responses completely useless there.

If you don't get into the game that way, the game simply isn't for you. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. We're not all the same, thank goodness.

Pay attention to dialogue and read the books. Morrowind is like an enormous interactive fantasy novel where you are the main character while Oblivion and Skyrim are very much games. Try not to constantly be comparing Morrowind to other games. Appreciate it for what it is, immerse yourself, and take the time to get lost in it and explore. When you do that, you'll understand why there's so much love for this game.

I forget which forum it's in, but there is also a guide to Morrowind for those people who are used to playing Oblivion. That might help also.

Was http://www.uesp.net/wiki/General:Differences_Between_Morrowind,_Oblivion,_and_Skyrim it?

I guess I had an Oops moment I thought I had seen an article by Knots about what a player coming from Oblivion needed to know to make the transition to Morrowind easier. I didn't find it, but I did two searches, one here on the forums and another via Google that may help

the keyword search on the gamesas forums - morrowind oblivion players guide

the keyword search on Google - morrowind guide "new players" "from oblivion"

Sorry, really thought I had seen one.

One question -- I've played Morrowind for awhile and I never knew about the Marksman thing, how you should always have a weapon other than Marksman as a major skill. I tend to pick Marksman as a major frequently because it seems a bit difficult to cause any damage at all using a bow in the beginning, when combat is harder, if my Marksman skill is too low. I've always had at least one other weapon, but it isn't always a major. In my current playthrough (yeah, still playing) I'm pretty sure I have Marksman as a major, Short Blade as a minor, but no other weapons as either major or minor. Is that going to end up pissing me off later on? Why? I honestly never noticed anything unusual about the Marksman skill, other than how aggravatingly little damage my bow seems to do, but I don't pay a whole lot of attention to skills\leveling up or combat in general so it's more than possible, in fact probable, that I've managed to play this game for years and not notice something obvious.

Well, I've been playing for 8 years and that's new to me. The only reason, other than being a pure mage, I would not have marksman as a major would be if I wanted to power level (in vanilla leveling) by training it as a misc. skill.
Playing with an alternate leveling mod (Madd or GCD) or trying to RP with vanilla, I always have marksman as a major along with one melee skill which would be appropriate for my character.

I don't think the advice was to NOT use Marksman as a major; it was just that apparently you should also pick another weapon as major. Here's what he said:

"But just make sure you have a weapon skill (or 2, if one is Marksman) and an armor and/or block skill as Majors - unless you're playing a mage, of course."

So that's why I asked. Why should I pick a second weapon as a major if one of my majors is Marksman? Because I almost never do it that way; for most of my playthroughs I'll have Marksman major and a melee weapon skill minor. I'm curious as to the reasoning behind why that might not be the best choice. Like I said, I'm more of a roleplayer and I don't pay that much attention to my skills or level, and combat is my least favorite part of the game, so it's completely possible I've been playing for years and never noticed whatever it is about Marksman that makes it advisable to have a second weapon as a major.

Edit: The only thing I have noticed about Marksman is that at the start of the game when you're really pathetic at combat, it can be ridiculously hard to cause any damage with a bow. That's the reason I tend to pick Marksman as a major; so that I start off with a good number of ranks in it already and the start of the game isn't so gruelingly difficult using a bow.

Morrowind was my first tes game on xbox but I initially approached it as many seem to thinking of it as an action game so I didn't play for too long. Tried oblivion and loved it, skyrim is ok but then I decided to try morrowind again. Downloaded it to my PC and have been playing it more than skyrim even though I'm nowhere near done with it. Once you get past the fact that it's not an action game it's like finally figuring out a really tough math concept in that you just go "oh, NOW I get it!"

Ah, OK, that makes some sense. I think it depends on your whole build. If you're a Bosmer starting with 50 marksman skill, you can get away with it maybe although even then there are situations where you may get crowded and a bow would be hard to use. A major melee weapon makes the first few levels much easier. However, if not having another weapon works for you, particularly for RP reasons, keep doing what you're doing. There isn't any hidden reason you've missed; it's just advice on how to be as strong as possible starting out.

In my current playthrough, I have Marksman major and Short Blade minor (just checked to be sure). My general approach to combat is to take out my bow first and keep firing arrows into the enemy who is rushing towards me. This typically does absolutely nothing. When the enemy reaches me and I start taking damage, I get out my shortsword and use that until one of us is dead. If it's me, I start over from a pre-combat save and we do the whole thing over again. If it's the other guy, I promptly strip his twitching body of everything with the least bit of saleable value, dispose of the corpse and go about my merry way. I don't find myself restarting very often. It happens enough that I start wishing there were a difficulty slider I could switch onto "just tell me a story please" but not often enough that I feel frustrated.

That's what the first few levels are like, anyway. At some point (typically after level 3 but before level 10) the bow is actually useful enough to kill things before they manage to reach me. Not every time obviously but at least often enough that I still keep picking Marksman as a weapon again the next time.

Hitting with a bow is a matter of both player aim and character skill. With both you and the character highly proficient, you can snipe almost to the limits of sight. What's not obvious is that the bow has far more impact on the amount of damage than the arrow, so getting a better bow can double or triple what you do to the opponent with that cheezy chitin shortbow you can pick up at Arrile's, where a more expensive arrow may add 1-4 points of damage. Your strength gives a small bonus as well, and hitting while successfully sneaking can net you a huge sniper bonus.

The low hit rate with poor skills makes it frustrating and expensive to litter the countryside with arrows which you can't recover (there's a small recovery rate from the opponent's body, if you hit), so taking it as a Major makes a lot of sense. Either that, or use magical attacks at range.

With a skilled semi-high-level archer, I could slaughter most Daedra with 2-3 plain iron arrows from ambush, and Scamps fell in one hit. The most hilarious one was where I had a low-level character drop a charging Kaghouti, but had already nocked another arrow. Rather than go through the routine of unequipping the arrows, firing the empty bow, and then re-equipping the arrows, I simply unleashed the arrow over the mountain behind me. About 3-4 minutes later, a VERY angry and hurting Scrib came after me......

My first Morrowind MQ playthrough, I ended up with the Acrobat premade class. The only weapon skill in the major skills for that class is Marksman. They have Spear as a minor.

I noticed early on that I was downright pathetic with my spear. Made sense; I was an Imperial (gets no bonuses to Spear) and chose a class with a Stealth specialization (and Spear is a combat skill).

But eventually it didn't really matter. Of course, Marksman was always ahead of Spear, but eventually I could reliably kill most things with a spear.

I think, though, that one good reason to take a non-Marksman weapon skill as a major is because of the early stages, when ammo may be hard to come by. At early levels, you tend to miss a lot, and missed arrows are unrecoverable, so you go through a lot of arrows (or knives, or bolts). In that case, it's good to have a fairly reliable backup.

But not totally necessary. I was (am) a total Morrowind new player, and I did just fine. Just needed to work at it, that's all.

I'm reminded of the line, "I shot an arrow into the air, where it landed I know not where".

I've often wondered what might happen when my arrow misses the target

FWIW, my current char took marksman, blunt and short blade as major/minor skills for RP reasons. So far, he's been focusing on marksman. As Kovacius said, it's very impressive to hit a target while sneaking.

For me the answer to your question was "launch the game". Seriously though, just remember that this is a solid, old fashioned, story-driven RPG (with strong emphasis on RP), not an action game. All you really need to do is talk to people (talk is cheap) and actually pay attention to what they're saying. Right from the start the good folks of Seyda Neen give you a couple of simple quests, and some rumors about interesting locations nearby. Also, try to actually walk to each new place at least once, instead of relying on various transportation services from the start. This way you will learn the land, find quests and places to clear out and loot, and you'll level up faster, because the land will try to kill you in many interesting ways. And finally - in this game just because you can go somewhere, it doesn't mean you should. Even at higher levels you will find yourself in very real danger and will have to leg it to survive. Don't try to fight to the death, sometimes running away like a little fluffy bunny is the only sensible option, and no, it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Avoiding fights is as much a part of Morrowind as looking for them (and it lets you practice your Sneaking and/or Illusion spells).

Aha. Okay, now I do understand why it's easier to take another weapon as a major. See, I typically have a melee weapon as a minor and that's always been good enough. I don't need the extra skill ranks from making my other weapon a major. Maybe I'm just really good at the combat I hate so much! Uh, no.

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it's because I'm used to old school 80s games where "hours of gameplay!" meant "you're going to die repeatedly before finally making it through each short level, have fun." Strangely, I always did. Have fun, I mean. It doesn't bother me too much if I die a few times in Morrowind because at least you can freakin' save right before the part where you know you're about to get thrashed, which is not true for most of the games I grew up loving.

Another good advice if ur on PC and just starting.

I highlyyyyyyy recommend using the overhaul mod from kingpix. Sometimes im vain and the primitive graphics can be a tirn off but with the overhaul the game looks like it came out a year or two ago instead of 10.