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The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind Tribute Page
Sadrith Mora in the morning
Contents
There are a lot more ambitious pages about Morrowind on the Internet. This is simply my
humble tribute to (in my opinion) a very good game. I consider Morrowind to be among the
top 10 (maybe even top 5) best games I've ever played. Morrowind is not without flaws
though: Enemy AI is pretty bad and fighting is simple. The real value of Morrowind
is the exploration and the overall story and adventure.
Except for hours and hours of more or less random adventuring, I've played through the
main quest thread of the game as a Nord and become Nerevarine (demi-god something) in the
process. I joined the Fighters and Mages Guilds as well as the Hlaalu House (the latter an
obvious mistake being a warrior/fighter). Now and then I still go hunting for unexplored
caves and treasure around Vvardenfell. I've also played Tribunal and Bloodmoon as well as
some of the free plugins, notably Sword of the Perithia (parts of) and Sea of Destiny.
For those of you that haven't yet played this game, and can spare some odd 150+ hours,
there are two good options.:
- The Game of the Year Edition for PC or Xbox. It includes also Tribunal and Bloodmoon for
a very good price.
- If that's too steep, the base Morrowind game sells for even less.
Screenshots from Morrowind / Vvardenfell (pictures
23-555)
See also my separate page for The Elder Scrolls IV -
Oblivion.
I bought Morrowind Game of the Year Edition (July 15, 2004) to get hold of Tribunal and
Bloodmoon, and played through both expansions (main quests and many side quests) during my
vacation. I also played through TRON 2.0 simultaneously, but that's another story.
In my opinion the gaming engine used for these games hit the roof in Bloodmoon. Action
and scripted sequences are quite clunky in that game, and the engine is not good at
"intelligent AI" (whatever that means). I hope Bethesda will improve this in the
next engine, which early information about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion actually
indicates.
Tribunal took approx. 27 hours to play, including breaks, which is fairly short for an
RPG. Don't be fooled by Mournhold being "just" a town though. Most action is in
the sewers and dungeons underneath the city, and some of the dungeons are pretty large and
tough. Succeeding with Tribunal requires a fairly high-level PC, from the start. I was
pleasantly surprised by the amount and diversity of underground environments to explore. I
grew fond of the Dwemer mechanics in Morrowind, and I got my fair share of that here. The
only real disappointment was that I early on in the game got one of the NPC's upset (a
high level one at that), which led to him chasing me every time I was close to the temple,
sometimes killing my avatar in the process. To finish him off I temporarily had to go into
god mode. After that it was smooth sailing (well, most of the time at least).
Screenshots from Tribunal / Mournhold (pictures
556-629)
Bloodmoon took considerably more time to play through than Tribunal. Unfortunately not
just for good reasons, but also because of bugs and strange script behavior. I also noted
that when I loaded older games while in game play, active game state somehow got through,
making the gaming engine confused. Bloodmoon crashed very often for me. I was disappointed
by the fact that pretty much everything in the game happens on the island. There were very
few hidden areas to explore, and really very few surprises, and the castle was a real
disappointment (at least compared to expectations). Reviews indicated the building of the
colony provided optional scenarios and configurations, but really it didn't. The game was
in any case worth playing through, but I didn't think it was as good as many reviewers
have claimed. You don't need as high level PC to get started with Bloodmoon as with
Tribunal. To finish the game the demands are fairly high though.
Screenshots from Bloodmoon / Solstheim (pictures
630-708)
This is a free plugin made by Clone Gaming Studios. Area-wise it's fairly extensive
(similar to Bloodmoon), but is very simple to play through. Only at the very end is there
any real challenge, but that was probably because I used my now well-developed avatar. I
didn't start out from scratch, which I probably should have. I played it through in 4
hours (effectively), which included aimlessly wandering around the island until I realized
I didn't have to wander around at all (silly me).
You can download the plugin from Unforgotten
Realms, where you can also find a lot of other plugins and info.
Screenshots from Sea of Destiny (pictures 709-732)
These are geological maps, showing landmarks and nature, rather than
providing a politcal view. Try the smaller ones first. Maps are enhanced for higher clarity. Even the large map is
scaled down from the original 10752 by 12032. Don't ask me to publish that one though, as
it's 20 MB!
- Small (824 by 950 pixels)
- Medium (1650 by 1900 pixels)
- Large (3300 by 3800 pixels)
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