exactly

I did just do a full playthrough to level 40 on vanilla, and I still found it super fun.

But now I play it with like 3 mods. (all of which are very minor game changes)

I use Real Time Silt Striders/boats (something that should be in vanilla anyway, this one is a must have IMO). Being able to ride silt striders and boats in real time, and being able to bail out at any time during your trip or skip it is completely badass. (much like taking the coach in Red dead Redemption, or the taxi in grand theft auto 4) Quick way to get to some places, like Bal Isra the Redoran stronghold. If you take a silt strider from ald ruhn to either gnisis or mar gaan, it goes right through the redoran stronghold, so you can take a silt strider right to your house basically.

More Red mountain. All it does is make Red mountain about 1.6 times taller, leaving everything else in the same spot, only higher. This made red mountain feel badass and more like a mountain.

And last but not least, I use MGE just for the distant land. I like being able to see pretty far (though not the whole island). Especially after 10 years of playing the game with constant fog, its nice to get a sight of Morrowind, but also still have foggy days where you cant see very far.

Heres two cool screenshots I like that I took myself. This one is a sight of http://imageshack.us/f/850/mgescreenshot004.png/
And this one is the http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3878/mgescreenshot001z.png (this picture also has a mod that adds grass like oblivion/skyrim in some places in Morrowind - only the ones that would make sense to have grass)

But as a general rule of thumb, I don't use any texture mods or graphic mods (besides MGE, but I don't even use it for better graphics, just for further sight). I highly dislike Better bodies and Better heads, and any mod that adds in half naked Japanese Anime dark elves with giant big blue sparkly eyes.

i like the idea. i always want to be able to enjoy the trip and see the scenery along the way on the back the giant bug.
permission to use those as my wallpaper..
please?
this i strongly agree
i dislike anime style, and i dont want them to turn mw into another final fantasy or any manga/anime out there

Actually have been playing vanilla since last week. I have it in my head i'm going to complete the three main quests with no mods, graphical retextures, or mge....its not actually that bad looking.

It really isn't. I really just think MGSO does a most fantastic job at the graphics in general, not just as an improvement. If MGSO was for some other game, I'd probably have it for that game as well.


I love me some God rays.

Yeah go ahead. I actually have them as my wallpaper as well.

Playing on old xbox copy found used, no expansions. Obviously no mods. Maybe I'd like modded MW better, but vanilla MW has been my favorite game _ever_ so no complaints about combat or graphics from me.

I choosed "No" because I keep playing with the graphic overhaul mod.
I′ve been playing this game since 2002... belive me I played vanilla soooo many times.
The graphics overhauls (as vanilla as I can use them, fortunately they have plenty of vanilla options) allow me to replay it in a fresh shape.
But also, I have the game installed on my netbook and I play vanilla there from time to time, when Im traveling... and I like the same, to play vanilla and with mods in any case.
But as I play the most in the main PC, I choosed no.

I played MW "vanilla" for about a year until I got Oblivion. OB got to be all-but unplayable for me without drastic modding to mask the excessive scaling and other issues. When I finally got through the MQ and went back to playing MW, the sudden downgrade in graphics and lack of several nice features from OB led me to add a few mods to Morrowind. I got up to about 50-100 in a typical play-through for a while. I hand-selected graphics files to keep the overall look and feel of the vanilla game in most cases, but with a lot better detail. Other than a leveling mod (GCD or MADD), a crafting mod (Morrowind Crafting), and a few smaller details, I'm gradually drifting back closer to a vanilla game from a game mechanic standpoint.

That seems like something I'd want in my game. If I travel long distances by silt strider ot boat, it feels like I'm skipping parts of the game, and I don't like that feeling...
Alternate start is also something I would consider, to make each character's story more different.

I like to keep it the way it is, if I download a mod not only do I have to go through the process of installing it ( I am a bit OCD when it comes to things on my PC; I like to have as less stuff on it as possible) but installing the mod would be with the intention to "improve" the quality of the game. This sends me into a state of mind where I seek perfection in which I will never obtain it nor be satisfied until I continuously download the next mod in hope of achieving satisfaction. This results in a vicious cycle.

yay!!


well i have similar experience. but mine being from mw to daggerfall
one of the reason i still play vanilla

Yeah, about that...

I went ahead and installed one of the DOSBox versions of Daggerfall a few months ago. I try to get into it every once in a while, but man... talk about a "sudden downgrade"! I haven't been able to get through more than about 20-30 minutes so far. It's just too retro for my tastes; the glaring 90s-ness of the game overshadows the rest of it too much for me. And I like old games... I still break out the original Shogun: Total War and Deus Ex (also the original)... and I still love them. But Daggerfall... man... that's tough, even for an old guy like me!

Back on topic: As I said earlier, I run a number of mods, but I've recently gone back to vanilla leveling. When you forget about the multipliers and play a more organic game, the vanilla leveling system behaves as a rather effective balancing feature... early on, at least.

I have the same problem with Daggerfall. Though the extremely short view distance and extremely mega-level difficulty does it for me as well. It's iffy whether I can make it out of Privateer's Hold on any given character. Open door - OH HI I'M A GRIZZLY BEAR. IN A CLOSET.

There's a mod for Morrowind that transports you to Privateer's Hold at the start. That was only the second time I managed to get out of there alive. All of my DOSBOX attempts at DF have led to frustration because of the intermittent way that it handles the mouse. I can't even make an attack about 95% of the time. It's one thing not to successfully hit a Rat before it gradually gnaws you to death, but when you can't even try to swing.......?

Hmm. Did you change the settings of the mouse so it goes to first person? Like what I mean is that when you start the game out of box, your mouse is like a cursor on the screen, and you gotta put it to the side of the screen just to face another direction. If you go into the options once you are in game, you can change it so the controls become more like any first person game, like morrowind, oblivion etc. So you use the mouse to look around like normal, and move with the keys. Then you can run around, and attack while moving and stuff.
Most of the battles I win in daggerfall is by running back and forth, dodging their hits and hitting them at the same time. (like you would in oblivion or morrowind).
The only thing you cant do is face another direction while swinging at the same time, but that's not much of a problem.

But anyway, if you do that, you should have absolutely no problem swinging a weapon and moving around at high speeds. My thief characters end up being so damn fast, I feel like speedy gonzalas.
Also privateers hold is actually really small. My first few playthroughs I never made it out alive. But once you know the way, you only have to fight 2 rats, a bat and run past an imp at the exit and you should be fine. (mages are the hardest character to make it out alive though).

But yeah, I went like 4 times trying to play the game before I found out about the changing controls so it becomes like a logical game haha. If I was playing it the old way, I would never have made it out of the dungeon alive.

Started Morrowind in 2002, directly after release, still as member of the MW fanclub that much later should become The Nexus. And already before I reached Balmora vanilla was history. And the best thing about being me... there were so many "me"s in those days.

seems like everyone here had a culture shock when dealing with this ancient wonder
morrowind as the best game of the year after it was released means that the vanilla state is actually works on its own.


PS: your account name.. are you vegan or something?

man, you're creepy..

True, true... but for what it's worth, my first computer was a Commodore Vic 20, and I've been playing some form of "video game" ever since. I also had an Atari 2600 (before it was known as the 2600! Ha ha!) I'm not totally turned off to old video games just because they're old (I played Space Invaders in the arcade)... but I've just never been in a DOS-built Tamriel before, and it's... weird. But you know, all that said, after I wrote the above-quoted post, I sat down and played DF for about 2 hours! Ha ha! So yeah, it is, indeed, a wonder! Well said!
I agree... and disagree! For instance, I think there's way too much over-valued loot in the vanilla game, such that finding much of it becomes uneventful well before level 20. There are other examples like that (Service accessibility, the general ease of joining/advancing in factions, etc.), where a mod or mods have found logical, lore-friendly ways to handle the... um, "issues" (I hesitate, as many do not see these items as "issues" at all! ). But yeah, so much of it really is "right" out-of-the-box. Beth's crowning achievement, imho!
Well, you know, I was a vegetarian for about 5 years, but that was long ago. The name actually predates that, and refers more to my state of mind all-too-frequently from the mid-80's through maybe the late 90's... or so... maybe longer... maybe current... hard to say.

wow. a veteran gamer. you could as well open a video game museum.
i like old games. new games like skyrim with all its stunning graphics make me feel dizzy all the time. i only managed to finish the mq and dawnguard but just that's it. i have a copy of hearthfire and dragonborn but never play it.

yes, daggerfall is a wonder. i still cant forget the sound of a skeleton screaming at you.
haha. when i first got morrowind, i completely blind of what's coming to me. so i basically just swallow everything they thrown at me and i managed to get so far into the setting and finally finish the mq. then i do some research on the net and found things attributed to mw, bugs, glitch and whatnot.. have i found those bugs at my very first playthrough i might think that the game was a broken and unfinished one. luckily i don't, and i still okay with vanilla up to this day.
i always wanted to be a vegetarian. but the sight of big mac..

Actually, I consider DF to either be one of the first generation of "modern" video games, or the very tail end of the last generation. First were the old text adventures, which is about all that one could actually play on a monochrome text monitor. Then there were the "side scrolling" video games, where either the figures moved on a static background, or the background moved behind a static figure. The "3D" games were next, and DF was one of the more elaborate early attempts, with some vestiges of the old methods still present. I've played "computer games" since the 1970's, first on punch cards (yes, we were desperate), later on terminals, and then on PC from the mid '80s until the present.

Some things in this world never change. Luckily... some things do. One is development, and this is advanced. So when we replay e.g. DOS games we remember the past cos it is our past. It's a one-way time machine ha. Without such a past it is just funny retro style experience, though. Like wearing popi's old uniform from the Boer Wars.

I may skip graphic mods with the next character, still undecided, but I would never play the game completely mod free. I'm accustomed to some mods like better bodies / faces (though I may mix this up), the unofficial patches, and more...

nostalgia is the majority of the reasons for tes fans to consider mw as the best game of the series.
nostalgia is also the reason i like doing vanilla.
oh, the first time i step up that ladder and see the beautiful landscape of seyda neen..
good old days..