I know this is a sacrilege for a sandbox game, but I'm a bit short on time nowadays. I've owned Morrowind for years, but never finished it, but am a long time player of Oblivion. I've recently completed Skyrim,and I'd like to actually *finish* Morrowind at last. I've installed the Morrowind 2011 overhaul mod pack, and I've added a teleport ring, tireless running, and an expanded mark-recall mod to help ease the travel time sink. I'm not really interested in exploring every dungeon and finding every sceneic mountatintop. I just want to burn through the Main Quest and a few certain Faction lines (Fighter & Mages Guild, House Hlaalu, Imperial Legion), and I'm looking for advice, tricks, and cheats to do this as expediently as possible without losing the flavor of the story. Yes, I said cheats. I'll console edit like a boss if I have to.

I think youve already done as much cheating as needs be

Meh, I don't consider those mods cheating. TES 4 & 5 both abandoned "Running drains Fatigue" and the other is just a magic item that lets me port to the major cities, and i can have up to 12 Mark/Recall slots, as opposed to just one, for all the remote places. Call it Quality of Life Enhancement.

Just use the quest descriptions on the UESP and a lot of coc console commands, I suppose.

My two cents: don't play it at all if you're in a hurry. What are you hurrying for anyway?

Well, if you're really trying to minimize your RL time to complete the game, then IIRC, about a year ago, someone posted how they played the Morrowind portion of the game and completed it in about one and a half hours. Also IIRC, there's info somewhere on the UESP about the alternative way to complete the game, but I don't remember the exact details. Otherwise, I guess I'd do like YogiBaar suggested.

Yeah, I don't want to use a cheap exploit to just beat the boss. I want to actually *play* the game. I just don't want to get bogged down in 8 year old game design choices and a lot of skill grinding to min/max my attribute gain. I don't find that fun gameplay either. I suppose I could just edit a character to level 20-25, with matching skill levels. I was just hoping there was a more efficient way to do it. I'm not a l33t gamer, nor am i purist. i'm a story [censored]. Gameplay is second to narrative for me.

It sounds like there'll be little middle ground (between wanting narrative and avoiding getting bogged down), because the path to 'beating' the game is pretty linear but the narrative gems are IMO found more often in talking with NPCs who are not often directly involved in the main quest. If you decide to add mods for narrative, then I recommend the LGNPC series. It adds a lot of dialog but can be time consuming (in a good way) as you follow up on the tasks or enjoy philosophizing and speculating based on their dialog; at least, I find it fun

Perhaps camping out in some of the booksellers and library scattered around Vvardenfal to read their materials might help satisfy some of your interest in narrative.

good luck

Actually the mod package i picked up uses that, I believe. Aside from the 3 ease-of-use mods i mentioned in the OP, i'm only running with graphical overhauls and performance tweaks, and a few custom house mods to give me little boltholes to store my gear before I complete the Great House questchain.

You spent 8 hours yesterday telling us how you don’t want to grind out a character. If I had spent the same amount of time grinding out a character with no cheats or consoling, then here is what I would have. Eight hours is about 14 day’s game time because my character sleeps. About one hour real time each to max my minor skills of Alchemy, Speech craft, Enchant, Mysticism and Armorer (taking me to level 43).
Just overstock one ingredient merchant and make 5000 potions to max alchemy.
Take the cash from the potions and bribe most of the inhabitants to max speech craft (everyone then treats you like a rock star).
Enchant about 30 common rings to Restore Health 7 points on self and drain them every day until you max enchant.
Cast one cheap mysticism spell over and over to max this skill.
Finally, max armorer by damaging your gear with common items enchanted to disintegrate armor and then repairing them.
I would have a ton of Daedric weapons (summon Golden Saints so that they are standing in a pool of lava and snatch their gear when they die along with soul trapping them) and about a quarter million in coin (you can easily make 100,000 a day, but like you, I have more important things to do).
As a Redguard with majors of Long blade, Heavy Armor, Block, Athletics and Marksman, the rest is easy.

I’ve noticed that people with no time to really play the game never really take the time to figure out how to play the game.

I find it bullocks to say of having no time to play a game, but then still wanted to play a game. You can make time. A day doesn't entireley exist from only working and sleeping. Besides, there is no need to beat the game in a certain amount of time. There is no one who say to you that you have to finish it in a week for example nor does the game itself have a timer. You can just play a couple of hours and see when you will finish the game. No need to rush things. And so what if it takes a half year or longer.
I thought that games are there for the fun, to relax. Someone will read a book in their leisure time and others game then. Just relax and enjoy the game.

I would've understood the rush had it been one of those "I wanna finish Morrowind before Skyrim is published, help!". Now that Skyrim's already out, and there is going to be a loooong time before next TES, I think you should take your time and be in no hurry at all. Aren't video games made for relaxing, anyway? That is, not-hurrying. I say this especially because you say you like storytelling. Morrowind is full of it, even other than the main quest. Play it for years, and you still probably miss some stories at the very least.

Well, if you're in that much of a hurry:

Really, the only question here is how much time you want to spend. You can find a video of the game being beaten in less than 8 minutes on youtube, but is the game really even worth playing then? In addition, you've already beaten Skyrim which means you had time for that. Unless all you want to do is spend 8 minutes in order to have finished the game, it might serve you better to merely break up your playing sessions more and accept that it may take you some time to complete it.

It sounds like he doesn't really like Morrowind all that much, but loves the series and wants to see how the main quest unfolds, but he wants to do it quickly before his interest fades. If you don't want to help him do that, why spend the time saying making judgments on whether you think he should do that or not? He didn't ask IF he should do it, he asked HOW to do it.

I recommend NOT using LGNP, as there are no good walkthroughs and if you get stuck, that's the end. In fact, I uninstalled the whole thing because... well, it didn't work very well, and I often had to use console commands to proceed. It wouldn't be good for someone with limited time or interest. If it had worked for me and not conflicted with other mods, or if it didn't take up so many valuable mod slots... anyways I won't get into that.

Here is your main quest: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Main_Quest

You'll probably want to use COC if you really are in a rush to just see how the main quest plays out. To be honest, the ending of Tribunal and Bloodmoon are very well done... they both have quite epic endings. Maybe after doing your speed run you'll be interested in experiencing the game in more detail... if not? makes no difference to me,

Set one of your marks at the mudcrab merchant and sell all your treasure there, and buy trainers. Or, use console to add money, or use console to increase your abilities.

I can understand that you might just be curious about how the main quest works out, but not entirely interested in Morrowind as a whole. I have different opinions, but you stated your request and you don't really deserve the trolling you're getting. Honeslty, the Hortator part of the main quest is rather tedious. Morrowinds's quests are basically your tour guide for the island and the lore... and some of the quests are very poorly written, whereas others amaze me.

Somehow, it's almost like saying that you're interested in relaxing on the beach, but don't want to spend more than 15 minutes. Most of the advice here are ways that I'd consider to "break" the game, not enjoy it. My advice would be to put it aside until you've got a bit more free time, then play it properly.

Superkitten might be right, but I think that playing is not the best way to see how the main quest unfolds before his interest wanes.Barachiel would rather read it. Or watch a youtube video, I bet there are tons over there showing the MQ.

-Just focus on going from quest to quest and don't get distracted.

-COC using the wiki for the info you need to jump from one location to another.

-Go into God Mode (TGM) if you ever get challenged.

That should allow you to experience the whole story-line and locations without worrying about much else. You won't get any grief from me. To each their own.

OP--i was in a similar...well almost simlilar position with Skyrim. I semi RP alot...but i have a habit of forgetting my RP story or role BUt i spent about 400 hours into Skyrim and hadnt beaten it yet becasue even though alot fo the quests were really well done..i didnt really liek the lack of story or drive with them, so basically added a lot of really great mods to enhance the immersion and basically just RP alot int hat game lol. 400 hours on one charector and problemly have about 25% left to really do in the game, but i recently discovered Kingpix Overhaul mod and got really excited about it. I started out with morrowind being my very first TES game and because i was so used to the FF or Dragon warrior rules in rpg, i was totally lost in the fundamentals so it pretty much turned me off on the whoel entire series until i played FO3 and realize that they were the ones to that also did the TES games. Well i pretty much spend a [censored]load of time in the games so it takes me a longass time to really finish them to my statisfactory. Well Skyrim comes along and i really enjoy it, but it was lackign in areas . So i had bought morrowind and dl'd and installed Kingpix overhaul mod <[censored]ign epic mod, dotn think i will ever add another mod check it out here http://morrowindoverhaul.rpgitalia.net/ > but i wasnt finished with Skyrim. So basically had to "rush" thru Skyrim to finish it so i could experience Morrowind. And holy [censored] cakes batman, im really really enjoying the way this game's mechanics and ow it plays out. Granted ive spent about a couple days and i finally got to lvl 2 lol, im takign scenic route and just fully enjoyign the game the best i can so no flame plz lol still a noobie i guess event hough im experienced and conquered OB and Skyrim, anyway.

Being a father of 3 and 1 on the way plus having to work and ten years ago before life threw responsibilities on me, used "skooma" to enhance my gameplay experiences, but can no longer use "skoome" since got kids now lol so im really aving to set time apart and can no longer play for hours and hours on hand every day so i cna understand the "rushing" to get thru the game. Hell u might have RL reasons to the amount of time u can spend on playing or might want to get thru to see story so u can go thru and complete a different game. My role now is that im not gettign nay more games until i finished my playthru of morrowind without using game guides or wiki for quests or cheats and anothe rplaythur of oblivion and then skyrim, after that i might redo playthrus FO3 and FONV so that im up to par with the new FO game .

But ya, ive always wanted to knwo the stroy behind Morrowind but for a long time had a badtaste in my outh or thought i did because of my inexperience when i first played it, and im in same boat with like daggerfall adn the other tes game...but i wont ever get them to play. I know i know, im a story [censored] also but im petty....i like the game to look soemwhat good for me to fully apprciate it unless i have alrdy played it int he past then nostagla takes over and helsp me thru but a brand new game...eh i lose interest no matter hwo well it is if it aint "average" in graphics"...i know i know im missing out, but hell i dotn have the time to do it anymore and honestly i dotn think ill have the drive after my marathon thru the TES and FO games lol.

and just realized that i ahve no advice to offer ya, EXCEPT after u playthru it and u take a break form grindingout games or multiplayers or whatever, come back and give morrowind a good try. Unlike the other TES games, u leave and come back at least u have a well written journal that will let ya knwo where ya at unlike the other games if u missed a few days ull be entirely lost.

I know you want to get through the MQ quickly, but if you're so busy, it might be nice to have Morrowind as a place to slow down and immerse yourself for a while. imo, Morrowind's ending is much, MUCH more satisfying if you've taken your time and learned what it's all about. But to each his own, I suppose. I do hope you'll have time to seriously play it someday.