So I've never played Morrowind and I've been having that urge to play an older RPG for some time now. Skyrim is amazing but I want something a little deeper. After hearing all the stories to the depth of Morrowind I decided to watch a LP. I knew in my mind that nostalgia plays a huge role in our perceptions, but I decided to pick it up anyway. The textures of the game don't really bother me (I've played a lot of Minecraft... also suffers from lack of depth) but the polygons, and stiff animations/static plants killed my immersion.

This is where mods come in. After loading up Morrowind Overhaul, Living Cities of vvardenfell, and Immersion I finally was ready to play... only for my game to ask for a file that wasn't there. After attempting to fix the problem I eventually eliminated Immersion as that was the problem and was finally ready to play (hopefully I'll have a somewhat bug free playthrough with the mods installed). I have to say the shaders with the Natures overhaul are exactly what I needed. Shaders were my favorite addition to Minecraft.

Skip to here if you don't want the Background.

Anyways my main point is to compare modern day RPGs to an older RPG. A lot of complaints I hear about the game being "dumbed down". I didn't play much (I spent 2 hours trying to get the game working and frustrated me) but I made a character and walked around a bit. So far this is what I see.

1: I already see the huge D&D inspiration in the game (doesn't surprise me because I know how much D&D inspired RPGs) from the dice rolls (makes me miss Final Fantasy Tactics) to the many different attributes and skills. However my problem is I'm not totally clear on what every attribute ultimately does. This can be fixed with some research but will force me to really go back and plan out my character more carefully. I'm not sure if attributes are directly inspired from D&D and if that is what I'm missing.

2: I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm not a RPG novice, I've played many of the Final Fantasy's (not hardcoe, very linear), played WoW when it launched, Fallout 3, etc, but I'm kind of lost on what to do. Most of it is that I've spent a lot of time in Skyrim and I have the beginning route mapped our perfectly for all my new characters. That is lost to me in Morrowind, as even when starting Skyrim it was similar to Oblivion in that I understood the basics (such as factions, magic, combat, etc). Morrowind is alien to me in atmosphere and gameplay so it'll be interesting to see where this goes.

That being said I'm going into it with a open mind. The older style doesn't turn me off in any way, in fact it's nostalgic despite never playing Morrowind. There are some things I hate those. I hate the look of the world. This isn't Morrowind I just have some weird innate dislike for certain era, or climate. An example would be I hate Dagobah in star wars and other similarly styled worlds. I also hate the 80's which is why I can't play Vice City. It also feels a lot like a lot like free mmorpgs I used to play to get my WoW fix. This is more due to the animation, graphics, and UI... which is more an insult to those mmorpgs.

Some things I love is the reading. It may just be my perception but it feels like the dialogue holds more weight when it's just text, or feels more substantial as if there was more there. I enjoy the many different factors that make up your character, even if there are 10 total different facial combinations.

I may end up updating this when I play some more tonight. But I'm looking forward to just comparing the new vs old and also playing a different styled RPG than Skyrim. I'll go back forth between the two to hopefully cleanse my palate when both get frustrating.

If you are looking for direction, just follow what the NPC are telling you.

Deliver your package to Balmora (dont know how to get ot Balmora? Go to the tradehouse and ask the bartender girl). Once your package is delivered take the adivce you are given and join a guild (fighters, mages, theives, legion etc whatever you are good at) and then the game should start flowing and you'll learn more about what it takes.


You might after serveal hours re-roll your character with more useful skills, that tends to happen as you'll pick some duds the first time....Mystisism for the teleportation spells is very useful for any character style.

In response:

1. Each skill tells you which attribute governs it. When your attributes increase, in most cases, so does the potency of your skills. Think of it like this: your skill level determines your successfulness, and your attributes determine the gravity of that success. For example:

Long Blade is governed by the Strength attribute. Your skill level determines the chance that your attempt to hit your target will be successful and deal damage (and after damage reduction is accounted for, each successful hit deals every last bit of damage displayed on your weapon placard), and your Strength determines how much Health you will take off from that hit.

The best bet is to take your character's starting attributes (you get shown them at the end of Char-Gen before you tell the game you are sure, so you can change things up then) and tailor your major and minor skills to them. So a relatively strong and tough character might specialize in blunt weapons and heavy armor, whereas a quick and speedy character would do better with a bow and no armor at all (I still miss Unarmored).

2. Morrowind does have a way of sending the player off in the dark. You get a short tutorial, then the game loosely tells you to head off to Balmora and deliver a package to Caius Cosades before the leash is completely thrown away. This is one thing you might need to get used to:

Morrowind does not ever hold your hand. There are no quest markers showing your way to the objective, no compass markers, limited map markers, limited fast-travel, and a huge open world that you get dumped out into and told "good luck! Now get busy."

As Mage said, the game did give you some helpful starting instructions: go to Balmora, find Caius, and deliver that package. He will give you a lot of info to get you introduced (in fact once you meet him he will outright tell you that you are a newbie and you should familiarize yourself with the place before you actually start getting into the thick of things). You can find some good opportunities to make some extra gold if you stick around in Seyda Neen, though (and a pretty hilarious encounter if you look in the right place). There is also a Silt-Strider in town, which is one of the game's Fast Travel options. It's cheap, and it will take you straight to Balmora, so no need to sweat getting there.

The scenery is a bit outlandish in places, namely Ascadian Isles with its Wonderland Forest theme and the eastern and north coastlines (again, giant mushrooms, and just wait until you get to a Telvanni town), but the Bitter Coast, West Gash, and Ashlands are fairly believable.

Glad to see you are giving it a chance, though, and not just writing it off after the first few steps out the door (a lot of people tend to do that). I did the same, and I was ultimately amazed at how fun the game was to play.

If you're feeling lost, just go to Balmora. Deliver your package or hit up one of the guilds. You'll have something to do in no time. Also Attributes and skills defiantly weigh heavily on your combat abilities. I usually make it a point to get Agility up there asap, it helps with hits. And although I'm sure you already know, defiantly pick a weapon and focus on it. That will help a ton. As for the atmosphere thing, it sounds like you're mostly refering to the Bitter Coast area. I'm not too fond of it either, but the game world defiantly isn't just swamps. I'm pretty partial to Sheogorad and the Grazelands.

Welcome to Vvardenfell though, hopefully you'll find as many adventures I have over the years. Enjoy.

I myself just picked it up again after years of inactivity on that front. It's amazing what i still remember. I didn't remember exactly how to get places, but you can look at road signs for that. What i did remember is most of the Mages Guild Quests and where a lot of places in town were.

As for skill and attributes you can mouse over them and see what they do. And as for what to do, you really dont need to do anything. You can wander around and just explore. But be warned. This is not level scaled like Oblivion or Skyrim. You wander into the wrong cave and you will get shut down faster than you can believe. So be ready to run and remember to save a lot and quicksave a lot. If you do want to head out on the main quest, try looking at the directions the char-gen guy gave you along with the package. They may or may not tell you something, it's been much too long since ive actually used them. Im not sure if i ever did really use them, i think i just wandered around Balmora looking for him

It's clear there's more. Voice acting is expensive and it takes more time the more dialogue there is, so the new VA'd games basically can't have anywhere near as deep dialogue as the older games like Morrowind. This is frequently discussed in these forums but thought of pointing it out here anyway...

Also, pay especially close attention to what an author called Vivec writes. It's necessarily not important plot-wise, but if you get into his cryptic style of writing, you realize he's the deepest character ever written... anywhere? At least in a video game. (Although I still think Revan from KOTORs offers great resistance!)

The whole story behind Indoril Nerevar, the Sixth House, and the Tribunal is quite well done, to say the least. I remember wondering just what was going to happen to Morrowind when I finished the Main Quest; feeling like my actions meant something.

I won't spoil anything, but you will learn about everything I mentioned over time, OP.

So after reading a bit from the wiki and this thread I re-rolled my character. I re-rolled as an imperial since they seemed the best for bartering and being a diplomat. I'd like to play as a loving pacifist (or at least try to) as this is a playthrough I'm doing in Skyrim. However after testing the combat I realized that I couldn't even defeat a bandit (fits the character but I'd like to be able to fight if I have to) so I re-rolled grabbing The Lover sign and the combat is much better. I don't see why people complain about the combat, the dice roll type combat is very nostalgic.

I still haven't completed a quest or really done much outside of that. The one huge improvement I've seen that both Skyrim and Oblivion have is that sense of "WOW" once you first step foot into the world. The build up until you are finally free always worked well and the sense of scale just blew me away. I don't feel this with Morrowind. The beginning is very... anti climatic for lack of a better word. That said I'm going to really buckle down and re-roll for a third time now knowing what I know and set myself onto the world. I'm hoping imperial is a good choice for someone who wants to be friends with everybody

For a good few of us that wow factor was the moment we left the census and excise office and we realized...we can go anywhere.

Oh, I'd agree with that. The whole "WOW" moment thing started with Oblivion, guess they wanted to give less experienced players a better idea of the scale or something. But personally nothing ever bothered me about Morrowind's opening. And really, I still see Seyda Neen and the surrounding area as a tutorial, just one that you can leave whenever you want. Thinking on it now though, the closest thing to stepping out of Oblivion/Skyrim's dungeon in Morrowind is taking the Silt Strider to Balmora. I'll always remember the first time I did. It was fairly cloudy, raining. Just seeing that mixed with the pretty decent scale of the town made me go "Awesome, city time!". It's hardly a city in realistic terms, but it does a good job of holding that atmosphere. To be honest, I really love everything about Morrowind's atmosphere. There's not quite anything else like it.

Most of my characters have been Imperials, Dunmer, and Bretons. Imperial is as good a choice as any if you know how to play right. But if you do lean more towards the pacifist play, you are going to be behind in combat. Calm spells are something you might want to invest in. Plus they're useful in their own right, some of the best trainers in the game are hostile at first and you can only get that training from them if you have a means of calming them.

I never understood why some people have a rough time with the first task(the package for Caius) If people are having problems with finding Caius then they better hold on to their seats because there are other quests that are 3-5 times harder to find.

I think it's a perfect start and a bit more believable than meeting the emperor in a prison or having a dragon save me from a beheading in the nick of time.
Being set free as a stranger in a strange land with the ability to travel the world as you wish is more desirable for me.
I played for at least 100 hours before I went to deliver the 'package' and had to start the main quest(s).

i just got MW like 3 days ago and I am loving it!!! Am playing it more atm than Skyrim, which says a lot about TES' 'progression' over the years.

I've been flip flopping between Skyrim and Morrowind as of late. I've created around 5-6 different characters in Morrowind, most of which have failed. My first character was going to be a pacifist until I realized how difficult that would be due to my lack of knowledge on Morrowind. I've finally settled on a decent character that I'm enjoying, it's modeled after the Bard and I'm enjoying it because combat isn't a crapshoot like my other builds were.

From the couple hours I've played I've found the persuasion to be my favorite piece of the game. The ability to change shop, information, and quest dynamics through the tongue really adds a lot to the game. However I don't find the game rewarding at all. The leveling system reminds me of school and how you're rewarded by repeating mundane tasks until you satisfy the system. The combat doesn't reward you for what you do, it merely rewards whoever has the better dice role. The guilds are numerous but seem to lack any personality, they remind me all too much of MMO quests that are more like fatty sides than meaty meals.

I'm hoping the game just starts slow and builds up over time. But for now it's a Skyrim palette cleanser.

Whilst i would totally disagree and say that the WOW moments started when mods for Morrowind started bursting into the scene way back in 2002, Morrowind's mods , Video's and screenshots of modded Morrowind have been a regular source of many WOW moments for me over the years which all being well i hope to continue long into the future. i never warmed to Oblivion because the few things i did like were overwhelmed by the many things i disliked , so no WOW factor there , not my type of game, and shallow console games regardless of pretty graphics don't appeal to me so i haven't bought Skyrim.

The guilds are rather 2-dimensional in Morrowind. Despite the fact that some guilds "dislike" each other, they dont really come into conflict, and with a few exceptions, most of them are pretty minor. Its entirely possible to be a member of two "opposing" factions with little or no problems, but at the same time, no real way of mediating the dispute.

I'll admit, when I first started playing the game, I found it slow going, difficult, and hard to get immersed in it. But then I rememberd I had the same experience with Baldur's Gate, which turned into one of my all time favorite games. Needless to say, I'm a Morrowind fan now.

yo, i love you already
anywho hopfully your still in seyda neen,
if so theirs several quests, if you go straight on the main road out of town(not in the direction of the silt riders) after about/..5 minutes. theirs a suprise
also if you go into the traders building, second floor, theirs an imperial their who will give you a quest to follow someone in town(when done you get a good piece of gold and a ring)
also if you go to the shacks of the town, go into the river and swim to the land across, you will find a dungon, hopefully you got the magic dagger, but theirs some wraiths and skeletons their for some nice skill, and a nice scroll for some money, and outside town, (south i think?) surronded by mud crabs is a dead body, you find it, you get a quest plus 250-500 gold(i forget which) so yeah those are some good things to do for leveling up

Oh yeah. becareful, my first playthrough in the game >.> i sold the package....>.<
hyeah theirs no failsafe in this game, you can kill any member of the game, important or not, or sell any quest item,
so yeah
i remember one main quest i did, before i did it, i went ona murdering blood bath and kill everyone in every house, then went to get my quest and he goes
"I was going to have you talk to blah blah, but apparently YOU kill him, you need to go to his house and look for something important to this quest, have more control next time"
lol

That's true of all the ES games. There was talk during development of Morrowind (I interviewed the design team at that time) about actually creating turf wars at different levels between House Telvanni and the Mages' Guild, for example, and arranging it so you could only be in in one of two opposing factions and houses, never both. None of that got into the final game, however, and neither of the previous two games nor Morrowind's successors are any different in this matter.


Don't worry about the plot. That's the thing: Morrowind has a plot, but it's also a pretty freeform. Roleplay up a character, and decide what that character's immediate needs would be upon escaping from slavery or death, with few skills, little money, and no contacts. Train up--but what? Concentrate on what areas they're interested in? Scout out things carefully. Ask questions nearby. Read books,if you find them. Don't set out to be the conquering hero as in so many games, because your character isn't there yet, and there's far too much to discover about this exciting new land.

I too have just bought this game, and was coasting along (difficulty on 0 ) apparently starting from 0 got nothing to loose.
But while out looking for mushrooms in the area south of Balmora, I got into a fight in a tomb & ended up with 0 strength & 4 endurance. (encumbered)
Was this the result of a disease?
I tried a potion of cure common disease & one of cure blight disease, but no good.
I have the potion that boosts strenght but saps intelligence that would allow me to move in the short term (but leaves my mage defenceless)
What caused the loss of strength & how do I get it back?
I need to start again with different stats, but would like to avoid this situation in the future.

Might not be a bad idea to start your own thread so folks can assist you without derailing this one.

I want the teleport spells back.

Levitate is nice and all, with t-port I remember making huge piles and everything that wasnt nailed down in dweamer runes and picking up all seven tons of it, porting back to my house in Seyed Need and then walking it one armful at a time to the store.

I also remember the scamp. Never found the mudcrab.

Advise I would give, think carefully about what skills you take as your class skills. Not just things you use but think how fast you want to level. Some skills are very useful, like acrobatics but dont really help your combat/defense. While the world does scale less then later games it does do same scaling, dont make the world get harder faster then your ready to deal with.

the beginning isnt really exciting but i like that. its more realistic imo. Your jsut got out of prison, you get tossed ass first out on the street with just a little something to get you started in the right direction. It's much more open. You can do whatever you want from that point. You can say screw it might as well see who this Caius guy is or you could just as equally say screw it im gonna go romp around the swamp for a bit or you can do whatever else you like. Skyrim was also pretty good with this. I personally like that more than You. I know you. You're the one from my dreams.

All this could use some work, but you gotta remember the game's around a decade old. But then you also have to remember the modders have been working on the game for around a decade. So if you don't like a part of it, check around for some mods.

My time in Morrowind is up and down really. I'm getting good at gimping the system (I jump every where to increase my acrobatics) and I've pissed off a lot of merchants by trying to admire them into liking me. At times the game can looks very pretty (although most of this is due to the mods I have installed) and the combat has become better now that I understand that I can basically rest anywhere to gain health. I'm not finding it as immersive as Skyrim, mostly because I'm having fun somewhat RPing in Skyrim, but it's a fun diversion and interesting game none the less. I'm excited to progress in the main story more than anything because it seems like it will be rich with Lore which Skyrim doesn't really have.

For me part of the 'magic' of the game was the fact that there was no hand holding. Yes you will get clues on where something is but you will have to find it on your own. And while trying to find it, you may discover new places and odd things.

many people dislike the combat system. I tend to look at it like this: I may only have a basic understanding of how to wield a sword. Through lots of repitition and practice, I improve. That's kinda of how it is here. Give someone a gun for the first time and see how well they hit targets 50 ft away. Probably not too well. After training and practice, they will improve.