Morrowind: Worth a second look?

[mindx2]

I tried Morrowind when it first came out and was NOT impressed, especially after my fond memories of Daggerfall. I never got very far into the game and it and it's expansions have sat on a shelf for these past few years.

After reading through some of the "nostalgia threads", a few people have mentioned that Morrowind isn't so bad after all as long as you have some of the great mods installed.

My question to those who did think it was better after installing mods is.... WHICH ONES?! What's the best way to sift through all the junk and get to the rare jewels? Which ones improve on the role-playing? Leveling? Monsters and NPCs? Graphic overhaul (I finally have a PC that can handle improved graphics)? Etc.

There are many mods out there but few ways of determining what is worth installing. Since I tend to agree with the hive mind of the Codex most of the time I come to you for suggestions.

 

[Zomg]

Morrowind is Oblivion with inferior combat and better in-game books and art design. Fie on revisionism, I say.

 

[cardtrick]

There are all kinds of texture replacers and such which improve the graphics quite impressively, and also a number of different mods to toughen up the game and improve the weird leveling aspects. A good list, broken down by category, is here: http://www.mwmythicmods.com/themes.htm.

The one mod (or actually, set of mods) that I suggest is the Less Generic NPC Project. It adds unique dialog to NPCs in various cities, giving each of them personalities, backstories, and quests. Although the modders are still somewhat limited by Morrowind's "keyword style" dialog, for me the LGNPC mods drastically improved the quality of the areas that they affect. That's the catch though: they only affect certain areas. It's a bit jarring to transition between, for example, Balmorra, where all characters have exactly the same response to exactly the same topics, and the LGNPC version of Ald'ruhn, where the NPCs are actually characters, with independent personalities and stories to tell. That said, the LGNPC mods are far from perfect. The prose is quite a bit more flowery than I'd prefer, and I think too much of the conversation centers around romantic gossip. However, they do a good job of sticking to the general framework of the story, and really flesh out the world. After trying the LGNPC mods, I find vanilla Morrowind practically unplayable. There are occasional (rare) bugs with some of the added quests (which tend to be pretty decent, are quite varied, and never have overpowered rewards), but I've found the forum at the website linked above to be quite helpful in finding solutions to such bugs (generally in the form of console workarounds).

 

[Section8]

It's no better than it ever was, but it has the added bonus of only being the second worst Elder Scrolls game now.

 

[Atrachasis]

Although it is not an "overhaul-type" mod and only adds one faction and quest line, I found Brother Juniper's Twin Lamps mod a real gem in terms of role playing(*) (at least by Morrowind standards). It conveys what is sorely missing in the vanilla game, the feeling that your actions affect and change the world around you. It actually offers *gasp!* choices and consequences, and may end - at least theoretically, though the mod stops short of depicting it - in a political upheaval for Morrowind.

I wanted to try out the other Brother Juniper mod - Vivec's Fate - at some point, but it only kicks in after you have beaten the main quest, and I just cannot get myself to play through it again.

(*) As long as you feel like role-playing an abolitionist, that is.

 

[hakuroshi]

Morrowind is not bad only in comparison with Oblivion. It does have some good points, but does not worth any second looks if first was unfavorable.

 

[kingcomrade]

I never even took a first look.

 

[Claw]

I took a long first look. Don't bother with a second.

 

[Elwro]

Twin Lamps and The Seekers are good faction mods. I'd also install one of the mods which (gasp!) give some money to merchants.

 

[Lumpy]

I don't know about mods, but it was a good game in my opinion.
The setting in particular was very good, the story was decent (and logical :D), the graphic design was pretty awesomesauce, the "dialogue" text was also decent, although not great, and the quests ranged from awful to great (specifically, the dwarves one).
As for the factions, they were very diverse and should in theory have allowed good roleplaying, however the game was designed so that you would play several of them.

 

[don_tomaso]

Yes, correct me if im wrong, but as I remember it you could actually join all of the rival factions, before the mainquest forced you to, and noone seemed to care about it, even thou they were enemies..Now how´s that for good roleplaying

 

[Elwro]

Hm. I'm pretty sure joining each of the Houses was mutually exclusive. You had to mod the game in order to be a Hlaalu, Redoran and Telvanni at the same time.

 

[Callaxes]

Morrowind has 3 pros:

1. Absolute open-ended freedom, if you enjoyed Magic Candle, you'll enjoy Morrowind if you are willing to play it has a sandbox game. Think of it has Ultima 7 with 5% of its interaction.

2. Fantastic and detailed world. It's suffers from lackluster NPCs which won't explain what they are doing in a tent in the middle of nowhere, but will be happy to give you info about latest rumors. If you stay away from conversations, you'll find the world very believable and interesting to explore.

3. Quests. No wait. Half of the quests. Yes! Half of the quest have diplomatic solutions, unfortunately it just boils down to "Give me 200 gold coins and I will leave "NPC X" or give you "NPC X's" necklace back. It's not much, but atleast it offers more diplomatic chooices then, say... Forgotten Realms games.

Edit: Confused Broken Hourglass with Magic Candle

 

[Cronstadt]

I took a long first look. Don't bother with a second.

 

[dagorkan]

I found Brother Juniper's Twin Lamps mod a real gem in terms of role playing(*) (at least by Morrowind standards). It conveys what is sorely missing in the vanilla game, the feeling that your actions affect and change the world around you. It actually offers *gasp!* choices and consequences, and may end - at least theoretically, though the mod stops short of depicting it - in a political upheaval for Morrowind.

I wanted to try out the other Brother Juniper mod - Vivec's Fate - at some point, but it only kicks in after you have beaten the main quest, and I just cannot get myself to play through it again.

I wouldn't call it a gem or even a great mod, but yeah it's the only mod for Morrowind that I felt hadn't totally wasted my time. And I played dozens of mods...

There was another Twin Lamps mod by another modder. I can't remember which is which, but they had slightly different approaches. If you're bored you could even compare them... Though if you're that bored I'd suggest you take a look at your life, because it's not normal.

 

[Surgey]

3. Quests. No wait. Half of the quests. Yes! Half of the quest have diplomatic solutions, unfortunately it just boils down to "Give me 200 gold coins and I will leave "NPC X" or give you "NPC X's" necklace back. It's not much, but atleast it offers more diplomatic chooices then, say... Forgotten Realms games.

Tell me about it. Trying to use any Speechcraft skills at anything less than around 75 usually led to about utter failure. It was especially difficult to taunt people into attacking you. I don't know why you have to be so skilled at talking to try to get somebody to attack you. I'm a terrible speaker, and I can guarantee you right now I can walk outside and provoke somebody into fighting with me.

 

[JarlFrank]

3. Quests. No wait. Half of the quests. Yes! Half of the quest have diplomatic solutions, unfortunately it just boils down to "Give me 200 gold coins and I will leave "NPC X" or give you "NPC X's" necklace back. It's not much, but atleast it offers more diplomatic chooices then, say... Forgotten Realms games.

Tell me about it. Trying to use any Speechcraft skills at anything less than around 75 usually led to about utter failure. It was especially difficult to taunt people into attacking you. I don't know why you have to be so skilled at talking to try to get somebody to attack you. I'm a terrible speaker, and I can guarantee you right now I can walk outside and provoke somebody into fighting with me.

Maybe the people in Morrowind only fight against intellectual people.
"Meh, the insults that thou usest do not reache up to my level of conscience. Thou art truly a simpleton, and I do not act out the honorable ways of combat with a complete simpleton like thou art. I only fight those with wit!"

 

[Nog Robbin]

I guess the whole speechcraft required to goad someone was a way around the fact that if they attacked you (even if you provoked them) then it is no crime if you kill them. Sure, it doesn't make sense, but I guess that's the reason.

 

[Surgey]

Yeah, but there are some quests where you have to kill somebody, and there's no way to get around the illegal thing. You'll wind up having to kill them, then running away from the guards all the way to the guy that gave you the quest, then talking to him to have your bounty removed. And it was buggy, so sometimes the guards would still attack you.

Also, I guess all guards had psychic powers and were able to recognize anything stolen in your backpack or that you're wearing. Also, apparently when I talk to a guard, it means I'm turning myself in.

 

[Fodel]

My question to those who did think it was better after installing mods is.... WHICH ONES?!

-Wakim Game Improvements

-Necessities of Morrowind

-Advanced herbalism

-The Regulars.- Sitting NPCs

-Inscription

-Myth and Murder

-Passive Healthy Wildlife

-The Seekers

-The Runaway

-Traveling Merchants

-Persuasion Response

-Less Generic NPC

-Better bodies

-The Iluminated Order

-DynamicMagikRegenerate

-WeatheredSigns

-Giants

-Morrorwind comes alive

-The Twin Lamps

-Bethesda plugins

 

[Nog Robbin]

Yeah, but there are some quests where you have to kill somebody, and there's no way to get around the illegal thing. You'll wind up having to kill them, then running away from the guards all the way to the guy that gave you the quest, then talking to him to have your bounty removed. And it was buggy, so sometimes the guards would still attack you.

Also, I guess all guards had psychic powers and were able to recognize anything stolen in your backpack or that you're wearing. Also, apparently when I talk to a guard, it means I'm turning myself in.

That hasn't been improved in OB either. In fact, now you can't sell stolen stuff to any one other than a fence - so even the shopkeepers are now pyschic.

 

[cutterjohn]

Morrowind is Oblivion with inferior combat and better in-game books and art design. Fie on revisionism, I say.

Actually it has better combat as it's stat/skill based, rather than some sort of action game that only applies stat/skills for damage.

Personally, I find Morrowind to be more enjoyable than Oblivious, and by using Timeslip's Morrowind Graphics Extender it looks pretty good to boot. (Adds a sort of distant landlike feature, but it needs a decent machine and GPU w/at least pixel shader 2.x IIRC).

 

[dagorkan]

Did anybody try the 'Enhanced Combat' thing? It had some kind of external program you ran to get around the limitations of the engine. I never got around to checking it out.

I'm not going to reinstall TES3 but it would be interesting to see what it changes.

 

[cutterjohn]

Oh yes, you should also try the better bodies and better heads mods which replaces the character models and textures to something that looks MUCH better. Check around for other if you don't like that one.

Also, again, I'd suggest a levelling mod of some type. I prefer ones that modify stats immediately, i.e. use a skill(s) tied to a stat some many times and improve them then bingo stat goes up a point or something. In my current game I'm using the Madd Leveller mod, since after a quick look I couldn't find another that sounded any better or didn't add stuff that I didn't like...

I've been trying to finish off NWN2 again recently(just before getting the keep in chapt. 2 I think...) so I don't recall what else I may have added to MW other than the Bethesda mods plus the other ones that I've mention in these 2 posts.

EDIT:
Almost forgot look up Telephoros'(or similar) List of Mods on the mythicmods site. It has a list of good mods and is pretty good about warning about potential conflicts.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Did anybody try the 'Enhanced Combat' thing? It had some kind of external program you ran to get around the limitations of the engine. I never got around to checking it out.

I'm not going to reinstall TES3 but it would be interesting to see what it changes.

It lets you go into bullet time and chop off heads.