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Wizard's Islands (Morrowind)

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
Anyone played this yet?
http://www.wizards-islands.com/wi.htm

Its a huge mod for Morrowind - 611 megs rarred, ~1200 megs installed

Has a lot of nice features, some of which address typical Morrowind criticisms.
Excuse me while I just dump the contents of the "Features" page:
(highlights are mine, showing possible improvements over vanilla flavoured Morowind)


The Wizards' Islands are an undetermined number of islands having own unique storylines, and related through a main story. They will be released in separate chapters, starting with the cold Island of Winter. The questing and plotline interactions bear more resemblance to Black Isle games than the crude generic dialogue of Morrowind, with custom dialogue for all NPCs and a strong party based main quest dynamic.

The Winter Island is larger than Solstheim, including dense forest, immense mountains, frozen lake, a pair of large towns with unique architecture & much more, including epic architecture, like cathedrals & castles, and over 100 interior cells, without counting dungeons (only town and misc.)

Many dungeons, and the size of them can go up to 15 cells each, darker and harder than the ones in Morrowind. Some of them will take days to finish, and use customised tilesets to create gigantic ice caves and massive descents into the earth.

The Winter Island holds a rich and vast history dating back 3 millenia, which gives you insights into the bizarre cultures of the Winter Island, how the situation came to pass, introduces you to figures past and present and grants insights into your task ahead and greatly enhanced knowledge of the fauna of the island.

New, unique and more intelligent behaving creatures will roam the icy mountains, wielding the same new magics that you do, and challenging even the most battle hardened group of warriors to the maximum, using a more pronounced 'vicious circle' dynamic of strengths and weaknesses, destorying the 'bash everything' style of play created by Morrowind oversubtle avoidance of classic 'rock, paper, scissors' relationships.

Over 200 npcs will populate the town and surroundings, all with unique dialogue made by our team of talented writers.

A large amount of unique weapons and armors, featuring unique enchantments and powers never before seen in Morrowind, such as fearsome vorpal enchantments.

An exclusive 3 hour soundtrack (over 4x Morrowind), composed by professional musicians, in a range of styles from ambient to orchestral, with a fully dynamic music system, featuring locational, time based, event based, incidental and boss music on top of the standard explore/battle music.

Creature riding!

Masses of new and unique spell effects, from comets to walls of ice and a huge list of new summoned creatures, including some truly awe inspiring effects than can only be cast by the truly superhuman.

Full traits and perks system, allowing the casting of the most powerful spells, barbarianism, 6+ new techniques of magic casting, levelling musical/bard skills with a full range of instruments and various martial techniques.

Crossover with mods such as Werewolves and Blood and Gore.
 

MrSmileyFaceDude

Bethesda Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Sep 24, 2004
Messages
716
This mod's been in development for at LEAST 2 years. A pretty impressive achievement to get it done.
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
Yep, it was in danger of being vapourware like so many other impressive mods.
But they actually finished it. Well," chapter 1" anyway, which I understand is still huge.

Hmmm....now where is that Morrowind box? Off to the shed I go...
 

MrSmileyFaceDude

Bethesda Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Sep 24, 2004
Messages
716
AFAIK it uses Better Bodies and Rhedd's Heads, along with assets from several other mods.
 

Dhruin

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
758
Just finished setting everything up to have a look at this (which is quite a task on its own). Be very interested to see how many of the features pan out.
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
For all I joke about Better Bodies, it's good if it incorporates that mod. In the end, it really improves some poor graphics that were, as I understand it, the result of some unfortunate choices in the production cycle.

This project is making me consider a run to the store to pick up the three pack again. It's pretty cheap now.

On another front, I looked at the status page of the Tamriel Rebuilt mod, but can't interpret what it means. *Shrugs*
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
Dhruin said:
Just finished setting everything up to have a look at this (which is quite a task on its own). Be very interested to see how many of the features pan out.
Make sure you post some impressions.
I don't have the time to look into it right now.
Ta.
 

Claw

Erudite
Patron
Joined
Aug 7, 2004
Messages
3,777
Location
The center of my world.
Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
PennyAnte said:
On another front, I looked at the status page of the Tamriel Rebuilt mod, but can't interpret what it means. *Shrugs*
Well, the percentage and cell size should be obvious. I guess a claim is a unit of one or more cells, but that really only matters to the makers.
Or do you mean the other values? As I understand it, they have split up the world into units for development. These start out Unclaimed until someone steps forward to work on it. Once finished, the work is reviewed by a team of reviewers, and finally approved. I don't know what "not available" means or why it appears twice in the interior list.

According to their status, they have ~79% of the exteriors and ~40% of the interiors done! Yay.
 

Saint_Proverbius

Administrator
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2002
Messages
14,046
Location
Behind you.
MrSmileyFaceDude said:
AFAIK it uses Better Bodies and Rhedd's Heads, along with assets from several other mods.

Have the original artists on Morrowind been properly punished for the models that shipped with the game? I recommend sending them to Uday Soccer Camp.
 

MrSmileyFaceDude

Bethesda Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Sep 24, 2004
Messages
716
Now now, it's not their fault they were forced to use admittedly poor texture sizes... Besides, the same artists (plus many, many more) are working on Oblivion, and I haven't really heard any complaints about the characters in that so far.
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
This is not exactly on topic, but I'm glad to hear Bethesda retains employees from game to game. It implies good things about Bethesda's stability and working environment. Seems like too many companies wash through whole teams in each iteration of a game. It hurts consistency.
 

Saint_Proverbius

Administrator
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2002
Messages
14,046
Location
Behind you.
PennyAnte said:
This is not exactly on topic, but I'm glad to hear Bethesda retains employees from game to game. It implies good things about Bethesda's stability and working environment. Seems like too many companies wash through whole teams in each iteration of a game. It hurts consistency.

Shiny, anyone?
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
I finally downloaded this beast and will be giving it a go in a couple of days.

Since no-one has posted any impressions thus far, I'm assuming that it is:
(a) crap (sadly)
(b) no-one cares
(c) both of the above

Did you get it going Dhruin?
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
PennyAnte said:
I actually went to go buy MW again a few days ago, but couldn't find it.
Down here in "I betcha can't locate us on an atlas"-land it seems to be everywhere. MW by itself is only about $7.50 US, and with both expansions prolly only $20-30 US. It seems to be a popular seller (still).

I'd still like to hear impressions.
I'll post some, just so people can have a better idea whether to bother or not.

I hope the mod doesnt need you to start at higher levels. I backed up my old save-games, but damned if I can remember where I put the disk I saved them onto :?
 

Psilon

Erudite
Joined
Feb 15, 2003
Messages
2,018
Location
Codex retirement
Yeah, that always bugged me about Tribunal. Now I can load Bloodmoon, get the quest sorting, and not activate Tribunal until later, but new games always bugged me with just the one expansion. Sure, the assassins in question were weak as hell at early levels, but a level 2 thief can still have problems against a Spider Blade, especially when the camping is to restore HP and MP.
 

gromit

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
2,771
Location
Gentrification Station
I downloaded this as soon as I heard about it, but it's recommended for level 40+ characters. There's a line in the readme somewhere that says the main quest for this puppy breaks if you leave the island, so I haven't even been to it to look around, but whatever. I never really finished Morrowind before, and this'll give me a decent excuse.

Working my way back up, at fourteen already, but it'll still be a while... luckily I'm a alchemist, so I should be able to brave this mod in just ten or fifteen more levels. For what it's worth, the apparition that tells you how to start the main quest was very well-written.
 

Dhruin

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
758
Tried it. Didn't get far before quitting.

In fairness to the people who obviously put a truckload of effort into it, I didn't persist all that much. I'm also not a fan of MW, although I don't hate it - I can understand why it has its adherents.

*** Spoilers below ***

They recommend a lvl 20 or above character. I hadn't played MW for a couple of years but some save games were still in the folder, so I found something suitable and set off.

After travelling to the right location and obtaining a special item, you set off on a boat trip to the Island. A nice scripted storm occurs and the ship sinks - quite well done. You swim to some floating flotsam...screen fades...you awake washed up on the beach. A pretty good start.

The textures look fantastic - MW is still capable of exceeding any RPG out there.

So, you seem to be in the far SE corner of the island and you need to find the guy's manor in the NW corner, so it's off to search.

And then that awful combat sets in. I was beset by giant bees and wasps that cast paralyzing spells (or maybe it's meant to be the effect of being stung). Over and over again - sometimes I would have 5 or 6 surrounding me and couldn't move or do anything because of the paralyzation. Eventually I found the manor but basically noone was there (don't want to spoil it further), so I didn't get to see this Black Isle-inspired dialogue.

That was enough. I couldn't face more of that combat even if the dialogue was somewhere to be found.
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
Well, i just tried installing it, and the damn installer came up with a "files corrupt" message about 80 percent into it.
*sigh*
Looks like a while longer before I get to try it :(
 

Andyman Messiah

Mr. Ed-ucated
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
9,933
Location
Narnia
The combat is still horrible, but the dialogue almost makes up for that. It's actually really well written, so I encourage Dhruin to go back and play it again. Maybe it's not exactly Black Isle-standard (whatever standard that is) but at least the dialogue is bit more... lively, so to say. :wink:
 

gromit

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
2,771
Location
Gentrification Station
Dhruin said:
They recommend a lvl 20 or above character.

I just went and sniffed around their forum - you are absolutely right. I have no idea where the hell I got that 40 from. My guess? Either another mod, or some uninformed jackass poster. Oh shit, now I'm part of the problem! *weeps*
 

DarkSign

Erudite
Joined
Jul 24, 2004
Messages
3,910
Location
Shepardizing caselaw with the F5 button.
Locue said:
The combat is still horrible, but the dialogue almost makes up for that. It's actually really well written, so I encourage Dhruin to go back and play it again. Maybe it's not exactly Black Isle-standard (whatever standard that is) but at least the dialogue is bit more... lively, so to say. :wink:

Black Isle...you know...the guys who wrote the amazing dialog and dialog choices in Fallout?
 

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