Tamriel Rebuilt keeps chugging along

[CHEMS]

I've been playing the most recent TR build for a week now and there's still content left to do in the first two cities I visited (Andothren and Old Ebonheart).
The last time I played TR I didn't talk to a lot of NPCs, just walk around and explore, because I was of the impression that quest content is still largely unfinished.
I was wrong.

There's so much quest density in the cities, you can spend a lot more time in them than in any vanilla Morrowind city, except maybe Vivec. And even the fetch quests are usually interesting.
Go deliver 5 bottles of wine to a tavern! Oops, the tavernkeeper expected 10 bottles, the merchant must have mixed the orders up, gotta hunt down 5 more.
Go deliver an ebony sword to a mysterious client! But wait, what's that - the sword is a fake, it's just steel made to look like ebony! The merchant is a scammer!
Lots of cool little twists on the delivery quests to make them less mundane. And usually, when a quest leads you to another town, you'll find other mini-quests or interesting locations along the way.

The quality of quests is, in general, above Morrowind's average. Granted, most of Morrowind's quests were extremely basic fetch and kill quests, but TR takes the same concepts and makes them more interesting with little twists.
TR also makes much more extensive use of Morrowind's dialog choices. It has always been a function in the game, but very very few vanilla conversations actually give you dialogs where you must make a choice. In TR, almost every quest has at least one of these. And very often, you can attempt to persuade an NPC to give you something or tell you something, and the likelihood of him agreeing is based on his reaction score towards you, so speechcraft actually becomes useful.

My favorite questline so far is Andothren's thieves guild. The guild was driven out by the Cammona Tong and you're tasked with re-establishing a foothold. Recruit new members, disrupt Cammona Tong operations, take over their smuggling business, etc. Some of the quests even involve choices with minor consequences (get rid of the Tong's skooma brewer - it's a khajiit they keep as a slave, you can either kill him or free him, and if you free him he arranges for your guild to receive regular skooma shipments).

My favorite city as far as quest content goes is Old Ebonheart. It's chock full of stuff to do. Lots of tiny little side quests, also several factions you can join (and they plan to make another, as of yet unjoinable faction, the Imperial Archaeological Society, joinable later, with quests and everything). I did Imperial Legion quests there, as well as East Empire Company quests, and a whole bunch of smaller side quests, some of which lead down into an extensive sewer network that connects to several basements so you can go and rob shit if you're so inclined. Apparently the thieves guild has their base in the sewers but I haven't found a way to access it yet. I also found a mysterious sanctuary that had nobody in it, so maybe that becomes important later.

There's been enough talk about making a new project for Vvardenfell once the mainland is done that I don't think you'll need Rebirth unless you're partial to it for whatever reason. Most of what I've heard has been about bringing the island more in line with what concept art and the beta suggested, along with a general TR-ification of land/quests/etc. But we're at least a decade away from that.

There's already a finished mod for Solstheim (the Bloodmoon expansion island) called Tomb of the Snow Prince. It's not officially affiliated with the Tamriel Rebuilt or Project Tamriel teams, but they endorse it as a high quality overhaul of that island's landscape. Haven't explored it yet so I dunno if it adds new quests or anything, but according to the description it tries to bring all of Solstheim's content up to par with modern TR quality.

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46810

Andothren's Thieves Guild quests are very fun, and i don't even like the Thieves Guild

 

[JarlFrank]

I also like how some dungeons are quite creative, or have cool shit to find in them. Some of Morrowind's also had cool shit, but it's more frequent here.
Like one ruin that apparenty was an ancient dark elf fortress once conquered by the Empire during Reman times. It has skeletons with different equipment, ones with local dark elf weapons and shields and ones with Reman legion weapons and shields. When you take the enchanted weapon held by a skeleton on a throne, all the other skeletons wake up and fight each other. Super cool.
Today I found a daedric ruin in the Velothi mountains covered in ice, and within was a shrine of Sheogorath in front of which stuck a unique ice sword with high damage and dealing frost damage on strike.

My most impressive discovery yet was a witch within a rather centrally located and unassuming daedric ruin. She gave a quest to me and... well, you should experience that for yourself. Really blew me away.

Also really cool is the city of Tur Julan, an ancient Indoril city taken over by daedra. Not all of them are immediately hostile, some even give you quests. Really cool and unique place.

What I love most about Tamriel Rebuilt is how it recaptures the feeling of playing Morrowind for the first time back in 2002. It has the same layer of mystery, the joy of discovery, an exotic world with different biomes, lots of quests that send you across the land, just pure explorefag goodness.

Can't wait for the Cyrodiil release later this year.

And one day we'll be able to travel across all of Tamriel on foot, with all the provinces seamlessly connected...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

What I love most about Tamriel Rebuilt is how it recaptures the feeling of playing Morrowind for the first time back in 2002.

What kind of character are you playing?

 

[JarlFrank]

Hybrid, as usual. Melee + magic. Long blade, medium armor, and pretty much all magic schools as my main skills.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Hybrid, as usual. Melee + magic. Long blade, medium armor, and pretty much all magic schools as my main skills.

Nice. The main reason I ask is I'm curious how balanced the world is in Tamriel Rebuilt around different character builds. Have you noticed stuff designed around thief type skills, for example? Also, are there more guilds in the new areas? How are the movement systems in the mainland? I assume there's still boats, but are they using Silt Stiders or other means? And how connected are the locations with these movement systems? I assume there are regional variants of the Morrowind armors and weapons? Lastly, are you using OpenMW?

 

[JarlFrank]

Hybrid, as usual. Melee + magic. Long blade, medium armor, and pretty much all magic schools as my main skills.

Nice. The main reason I ask is I'm curious how balanced the world is in Tamriel Rebuilt around different character builds. Have you noticed stuff designed around thief type skills, for example? Also, are there more guilds in the new areas? How are the movement systems in the mainland? I assume there's still boats, but are they using Silt Stiders or other means? And how connected are the locations with these movement systems? I assume there are regional variants of the Morrowind armors and weapons? Lastly, are you using OpenMW?

I have played around in the Aanthirin region, and around the northwest coast of Telvannis, which was re-designed recently. Haven't gone to the old Telvanni lands or Sacred East yet.
About a year ago, I also played the part of Skyrim they released.

All the areas I've visited have the classic travel systems. The mage guilds have guild guides that can teleport you from guild to guild. There are silt striders and boats to transport you around, in Skyrim it's horse carriages and boats.

Skill-wise, I find that magic is almost indispensable in some dungeons - at least levitation. Plenty of areas you can only reach with levitation, as well as some pits and pools of water you can fall into that require levitation to get back out. But vanilla Morrowind also had some dungeons where you had to have levitation to access some parts, so it should be in your spell repertoire anyway.
One skill that feels way more useful than in vanilla is speechcraft. It still functions in the old bribe-intimidate-admire way to raise an NPC's reaction, but there are way more quests where persuasion is a possibility, or where the outcome of choosing a dialog option depends on an NPC's reaction towards you, so using speechcraft to raise an NPC's reaction pays off way more than it did in vanilla Morrowind.
Thief skills are kinda eh. I'm playing through thieves guild quests because they're fun, but I get through most of the challenges with magic. Lock opening spells make the security skill pretty much obsolete, and stealth isn't really a required skill either since it's so easy to hide behind the architecture to avoid line of sight of the static NPCs.

Yes, there are way more regional variants of weapons, armor, clothing, etc. This applies to mainland Morrowind, Skyrim, and the upcoming Cyrodiil.

I'm playing with OpenMW. For big mods that expand the landmass significantly, it's the only way to get the entire map to appear in your in-game map, as vanilla has a limit as to how far it can go. So if you play on the original engine you won't get to see Skyrim on the map if you play there, as it's too far from the center.

 

[Robber Baron]

Very tempted to start another TR run reading this, but I will probably hold off until the next expansion along with Skyrim and Province Cyrodill are released to dive in deep

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

All the areas I've visited have the classic travel systems. The mage guilds have guild guides that can teleport you from guild to guild. There are silt striders and boats to transport you around, in Skyrim it's horse carriages and boats.

I kind of figured they'd have to do this because Silt Striders are pretty unique to the region of Morrowind, but it's nice to know that they actually do regional differences in things like the travel systems. It's definitely a nice touch.

Skill-wise, I find that magic is almost indispensable in some dungeons - at least levitation. Plenty of areas you can only reach with levitation, as well as some pits and pools of water you can fall into that require levitation to get back out. But vanilla Morrowind also had some dungeons where you had to have levitation to access some parts, so it should be in your spell repertoire anyway.

I really tend to try to ignore magic casting in games, which I know is pretty robust in Morrowind. I remember running across those towers in Morrowind where they didn't have lifts of stairs because the people that lived there expected any visitor worth allowing to visit should be a magic user. I couldn't decide it I was annoyed by that or if it was pretty cool in terms of setting lore. What the Hell, I could afford the potions. It was just a matter of buying them.

One skill that feels way more useful than in vanilla is speechcraft. It still functions in the old bribe-intimidate-admire way to raise an NPC's reaction, but there are way more quests where persuasion is a possibility, or where the outcome of choosing a dialog option depends on an NPC's reaction towards you, so using speechcraft to raise an NPC's reaction pays off way more than it did in vanilla Morrowind.

This is a good thing considering the Dunmer are a very political race. They can't just settle all their problems killing one another. In fact, if you consider the history of the main plot of vanilla, there would have had to have been some negotiations that lead to the fall of the Sixth House.

Yes, there are way more regional variants of weapons, armor, clothing, etc. This applies to mainland Morrowind, Skyrim, and the upcoming Cyrodiil.

Good deal. It sounds a lot like they've really fleshed out the work they've done. It's great that they're spending their time making areas feel like new areas. It's also great from the player perspective since it can give the character a sense of being an adventurer that covers a lot of ground.

I'm playing with OpenMW. For big mods that expand the landmass significantly, it's the only way to get the entire map to appear in your in-game map, as vanilla has a limit as to how far it can go. So if you play on the original engine you won't get to see Skyrim on the map if you play there, as it's too far from the center.

Good deal. I was planning on playing with OpenMW. I was curious if there were issues getting everything working in OpenMW as opposed to the original game.

 

[None]

I'm playing with OpenMW. For big mods that expand the landmass significantly, it's the only way to get the entire map to appear in your in-game map, as vanilla has a limit as to how far it can go. So if you play on the original engine you won't get to see Skyrim on the map if you play there, as it's too far from the center.

Not the case anymore. UI Expansion was updated to remedy this issue.

 

[mindx2]

What are some good mods to go with TR or does it need any? Such as texture upgrades or graphics extender, etc.

 

[thesecret1]

What are some good mods to go with TR or does it need any? Such as texture upgrades or graphics extender, etc.

https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/recommended-mods

 

[luj1]

What are some good mods to go with TR or does it need any? Such as texture upgrades or graphics extender, etc.

https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/recommended-mods

severely outdated

 

[JarlFrank]

Honestly just slap your favorite QoL mods on this and play as is, no gameplay mods needed.
Except for something that slows down leveling because there's a LOT of content.

 

[None]

Proportional Progression (MWSE) is what I use to slow leveling down. You can get as specific as you want or just have a broad reduction to skill gain rate.

 

[Skinwalker]

Is this real life?

 

[Robber Baron]

Is this real life?

impressive
very nice
is that tiny bridge the only means the megapolis is connected to the rest of the Empire? Imagine the morning traffic boy

 

[ds]

impressive
very nice
is that tiny bridge the only means the megapolis is connected to the rest of the Empire? Imagine the morning traffic boy

They built the city before everyone forgot how to teleport and levitate.

 

[exe]

Is there a drawback to OpenMW or is it just an total improvement over MW?

 

[Butter]

Is there a drawback to OpenMW or is it just an total improvement over MW?

A lot of the really cool mods don't work with it. If you're playing unmodded or lightly modded, it's strictly an improvement.

 

[JarlFrank]

OpenMW has no MWSE functionality, so any mods using MWSE (Morrowind Script Extender) won't work with it. Other than that it's straight up better.

In the future, OpenMW plans to add similar functionalities, but that's in the future.

 

[ds]

OpenMW does have it's own script extensions and there are mods that use them: https://modding-openmw.com/mods/tag/openmw-lua/

You can go well beyond lightly modded with OpenMW but yeah unfortunately it still restricts the mods you can use.

Hopefully they'll pull their heads out of their collective arse and just implement the MWSE API sooner rather than later.