Starting a new play and man do I love this game. I could talk about Morrowind for hours so lets do.
Question: There's a million little game breaking exploits so what limitations do you impose on yourself to keep the game fair? When are you cheating?
For me the uh compounding magic is cheating, like fortifying before making potions. Permanent buffs like soul trapping myself are cheating. spamming wait/rest (like for creeper) is cheating.
I really love the overworld. That's what it is. It's an entire foreign culture but like an original culture. The lore, the pantheon, the style. Game of Thrones is British derivative. Dune is the middle east. Morrowind feels unique.
Morrowind is special because it doesn't centralize the standard fantasy races. To the extent that there is a protagonist race it'd be the Dunmer who- yeah they're not the first dark elves but they're only superficially "dark elves". They're tribal and orthodox and xenophobic...they're Dunmer.
Love that "Dunmer" doesn't translate to "dark skinned elves", it translates to "kind of a bunch of dicks elves"
They do have some weird out there ones like Khajit being not just the cat anthros but also cats and tigers and elf looking dudes all depending on the phase of the moon when they were born. Or the apes that wear capes and insist elves smell better.
Morrowind was my early pandemic game. I'd come home stressed and worried about if my work would have to close down, and let my worries fade away while I get baked and play morrowind. I get the urge to go back every now and again. I recommender it to a buddy of mine and he said he couldn't handle the old PC jank it had which I guess is fair, but man they just don't make games like that anymore. I loved learning about the ashlander culture, I loved how fucking weird and contrasting it was against generic fantasy, and so much of the game just felt like a fleshed out world rather than a Skinner Box of shitty generated quests to get me on a loot treadmill. And despite such little screen time, Dagoth Ur is still such a great final antagonist.
Also Todd you coward, fucking bring back levitation
but man they just don’t make games like that anymore. I loved learning about the ashlander culture, I loved how fucking weird and contrasting it was against generic fantasy, and so much of the game just felt like a fleshed out world rather than a Skinner Box of shitty generated quests to get me on a loot treadmill.
It really is sad what capitalism has done to culture.
Honestly compounding buffs are one of my favorite things in the game. Last time I played I had a jump spell that would take me from Solstheim to Vivec in one leap. Felt like an absolute badass.
I love me a good jump spell! I also love making a super strong AoE damage on touch spell so you can walk into a dungeon, touch one enemy, and a whole room falls down dead. Beautiful.
I wanted to love Morrowind buuuuut......
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Cliff racers, I hate these creatures. Their screech is obnoxious, and you'd be walking down the road when BAM one of them hits you and your headphones ring out with a loud CLANG. I genuinely hated these things.
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The game doesn't want you to play it; no really:
"Hey, circumstances are dire! The world needs you! So despite having just arrived in (Seydaneen?), get lost and go to this other city"
"Hey, glad you're here! We're going to rescue the world don't you know! You're going to be of valuable help, but first, go join a guild"
"Hey, it's awesome having new members in our guild, we're so happy you want to join wait wait wait wait you can't leave just yet your application isn't finalized, go do this dungeon first"
"Oh hey it's you, I'd forgotten I sent you to go join a guild. Welp, go to this nearby town/city, I'm sure they'll think of something important for you to do or something idk just go away"
It's hard to emphasize just how much I disagree with this take. Morrowind does something really clever with it's story in that it's deliberately ambiguous whether or not you're actually the person from the prophecy. Like yeah, you're an outsider born at the right time and your parents are unknown, so maybe you're the one, but a lot of outsiders are born at the right time to uncertain parents, so until you actually start doing the deeds of the Nerevarine, there's no reason for anyone to think it's you. And people don't! The Ashlander matriarch you ask about the prophecy tells you flat out she doesn't believe you're the Nerevarine.
And I find this game-wide attitude of "eh, maybe you're special, probably not though" to be such a breath of fresh air compared to Skyrim and Oblivion, where you're instantly special right from the very beginning and everyone knows it.
You're also disease proof because you catch corprus lol that part was always really clever to me because it absolutely could go both ways for the prophecy.
Oh yeah, I forgot the corprus situation! What a clever idea, all in all.
That's awesome. Nice little bit of lore-appropriate fanservice right there!
Caius Cosades is fucking with you deliberately.
a) trying to make sure your weak ass isn't killed
b) testing out the prophecy
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Here's where I ride the exploit fence:
- I have a spell I call Pemenie's Shoehorn. It's 100% magicka resist for 1 second. :no-copyright: :bootlicker:
- My headcanon is that the only way good enchantments cost 100,000 gold, even though you already have the damn soul in the soul gem, is that the enchanter has to overdose on expensive potions to commune with the Nine or some shit. I mean the game doesn't even do an INT check on NPC enchanters. So I'll do that myself to buff my own character to the point where I can create Constant Effect items.
- However I don't make a bunch of strength/speed/etc. potions and 1 shot shit. Potion exploits are only for enchanting, and I sleep afterward.
- My custom mage class is called "Child of the Atronach" - a High Elf with the sign of the Atronach, every magic skill, unarmored, and blunt weapons. I find Amulets of Divine Intervention, Mark, and Recall. I dump huge spells on enemies way above my level, Mark the ground, Intervent, pray at the shrine for free, absorb the shrine spell up to full mana, and Recall. I'm back in the action with 200 or 300 mana back in the tank.
- Oh I also have some 5-second Fortify Destruction/Restoration spells that let me dump more mana in exchange for casting stronger spells.
My custom mage class is called “Child of the Atronach” - a High Elf with the sign of the Atronach, every magic skill, unarmored, and blunt weapons. I find Amulets of Divine Intervention, Mark, and Recall. I dump huge spells on enemies way above my level, Mark the ground, Intervent, pray at the shrine for free, absorb the shrine spell up to full mana, and Recall. I’m back in the action with 200 or 300 mana back in the tank.
lol if this is riding the fence....
Hahaha it's a real blast, and it has limitations especially compared to "just mega-fortify your INT and WIL bro" but it is very strong.
It's also within all the regular rules of the game, and something people in the game would figure out when they keep running out of potions 😁
My headcanon is that the only way good enchantments cost 100,000 gold, even though you already have the damn soul in the soul gem, is that the enchanter has to overdose on expensive potions to commune with the Nine or some shit. I mean the game doesn’t even do an INT check on NPC enchanters. So I’ll do that myself to buff my own character to the point where I can create Constant Effect items.
this is good shit
Haha thank you!
Honestly I would adore it if Elder Scrolls 6 brought back this system but with terrible side effects that had to be counteracted and counter-counteracted the higher and higher you go, such that managing all the potions, charms, spells, and poultices required to have 3000 Strength without going blind and exploding is about twice as difficult as just playing normally, in addition to being extremely expensive, requiring a day of looting to afford a couple hours of this gameplay.
And you could unlock special items that make it slightly more practical to up your fortify-stat game, via a side quest arc involving a small cult of insane potion-stacking outcast wizards. One of these wizards is a Dunmer who is convinced this method was what actually created the Nerevarine, and they heatedly argue with the others on this point.
Man I loved the lore/world, it was so much cooler than generic medieval western Europe or vikingland, but I just can't deal with how badly the gameplay has aged. It was fine when I was a teen but I don't have the time for it.
Eagerly awaiting the Skywind mod, and will rebuy Skyrim to play it if necessary, but I'll probably be eaten by post apocalyptic cannibal raiders first.
Even though I've been playing games for quite awhile now, I've never got around to playing Morrowind. Gonna wait for Skywind to come out in 2035(I kid but bless those devs for volunteering to make a remaster that Bethesda won't make but so many people want.)
Morroblivion is out now if you don't want to wait for it. Mechanically, Oblivion is the weird middleground between Morrowind and Skyrim, and I don't think it's as good as either of them at what those games were trying to do, but the mod does at least make it easier to not immediately bounce out of Morrowind.
Yeah I had some looks at it and idk I already have to mod Oblivion to the death to be remotely worth playing again lol. So I think just the template of Oblivion on Morrowind would be off putting because honestly vanilla oblivion is not far off from Morrowind in terms of advancement in how a game feels. I could definitely give Morrowind a college try because I definitely can enjoy old games but Skywind just looks so dope and the idea of combining Morrowinds amazing world and authentic RPG mechanics with skyrims graphics/ dialogue system (suppose to be Morrowind dialogue with nothing cut I believe with full voice acting) just sounds sooo awesome. I don't wanna risk spoiling Morrowind in like a halfway playthrough before atleast trying Skywind. Honestly I got sooooooo many games to play when I want to lol I can wait.
Question: There’s a million little game breaking exploits so what limitations do you impose on yourself to keep the game fair? When are you cheating?
not so much an exploit, but i try to forget where all the top-end gear is laying around
oh, that and exploiting the bad ai pathing, it's mostly improved in OpenMW, but still not greatRegarding exploits, I've mainly just made a conscious effort not to learn how to do the famous ones. If I discover it myself, it's kosher, but I'm not gonna look up how to do it. The game's easy enough even without exploits tbqh
Morrowind is one of those games I want to get into but the sheer number and scale of all the "How to play Morrowind PROPERLY" guides out there confuses and frightens me.
If I have any questions to which I'd like a succinct answer, they are:
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Which levelling mod is best? Levelling should be "number go up" and not "Ha ha you didn't take the time to punch crabs and buy and sell calipers over and over so you're gonna miss out on stats".
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Storage. I know there's an abandoned house somewhere that lets you store stuff, but is it secure? Are there any ideal places/methods/mods to stow my piles and piles of valuable, worthless crap? I'm a hoarder.
Remember: Killing an elder god with a lockpick isn't normal, but on Skooma it is.
Skooma: Not even once.
I just do vanilla leveling. Yeah, you have to think about it a little, but you can't get locked at shit stats anywhere near as easily as in Oblivion. And once you're at the end game and can pay for trainers, leveling is really not that big of a deal.
For storage, there's an empty (well, mostly) house in Balmora that has a dead body in it that can hold an infinite amount of shit. I always use that house (the body) for storage until I've joined the Telvanni and grown my own house, which also conveniently has a dead body that can hold infinite amounts of stuff.
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Or this?
https://youtu.be/f3MqADgMIks
Lay down your weapons it is not too late for my mercy.
It's only cheating if you do that stuff early in the game. By late game you will inevitably become a demigod, and at that point the game's challenge is more based on exploration and solving the riddle that is the main quest.
