Rory Young Articles Published. Veteran reporter and editor with over ten years of experience. Probably reading comic books. Read Next in gaming. Enticed the gamers were, and stay they did.
Morrowind was a huge commercial success upon its release, both on PC and, somewhat surprisingly for Howard, on Xbox. I thought it would be successful, but I think I underestimated how many people wanted a game like that and how long it would be successful. I really underestimated how popular it would be on Xbox. Ken Rolston was less shocked by the enthusiastic response. So it would have killed me if it hadn't been a success. Morrowind also garnered a warm reaction from the gaming press, who heaped praise on its visuals, scope and freeform gameplay style; we gave it a stellar 94 per cent in issue But not everyone loved it.
A quick scout online reveals a slew of recurring criticisms: a lack of direction; too slow-paced; characters that were impassive and dull. The perceived lack of direction can be put down to Morrowind's open-endedness a big plus in most reviewers' and fans' eyes.
The pacing depends on personal preference, but Howard agrees there's some truth in the third point. If I could go back, I'd spend more time on the dialogue and general characters in the game to add more life -they do feel very stale, he admits. I know it's a desolate world, but at times it came across as too lifeless.
It seems that Bethsoft is spending a lot of time ensuring that such a criticism won't be levelled at Morrowind's follow-up, the forthcoming Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion see The Future', opposite page. Following its release, Morrowind's lifespan was bolstered by two successful expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, not to mention Bethsoft's decision to ship the Construction Set -the selfsame toolset that had been so invaluable during development - with the finished product. This gave fans the means to build and modify content for the game.
The number of plug-ins created and downloaded is staggering, says Howard. I think the big fan site is over five million downloads and growing rapidly. That's a big number. One of my favourites was created by Brian Robb; you can run around, do Matrix-style combat and lop people's heads off. We eventually hired him full-time. Despite Morrowind's resounding success, there have been very few imitators or even strongly influenced titles released since.
Ken Rolston believes he knows why. It's just too difficult. MMORPGs can provide vast landscapes and epic scope, but they lack the narrative depth to make those settings more than entertaining loot-and-advancement treadmills.
Singleplayer games can spend more energy on character and story, but they generally don't have the time or resources to build such wide and deep settings. In fact, it's likely that in this centric age of games development, no company will ever again attempt to create a game offering such breadth and freedom as Morrowind. Even Bethsoft seems to be narrowing the scope or altering the focus with Oblivion, which will feature less NPCs and fewer quests, with much of the emphasis on recreating convincing emotions and reactions in the game's inhabitants rather than on building the largest world possible.
So Morrowind may well turn out to be one of a kind, which suits its creators. I loved it," says Rolston. For all its flaws and blemishes, it's a classic monster whose like shall never be seen again. It was too big, too grand In conception, too overwhelming in scope to ever be produced. It was a miracle.
And sometimes, thankfully for the game's legions of fans, miracles do happen. While we may not see other developers working on Morrowind-esque titles, Bethsoft is currently working on its follow-up, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Currently scheduled to appear before the end of the year, Oblivion is set in another part of the Elder Scrolls world - the Imperial capital, no less - and its plot revolves around the assassination of the Emperor and the opening of a portal to Oblivion, a hellish underworld populated by legions of demonic nasties. If the screenshots are any indication, we're in for another visual feast, while Bethsoft is promising to inject far more life into the realm's inhabitants.
Improved Al gives the NPCs daily cycles, needs and desires, while combat will be far more visceral and dynamic than that of Morrowind. Gameplaywise, you can expect another freeform approach, giving you the opportunity to again join various different factions or simply do your own thing and ignore the main quest.
We can't wait. The mother lode has been struck, and you, my fellow RPG lover, are about to become wealthy. Morrowind is a classic RPG with uncommon realism and staggering replay ability. A single player game that is viewed in the first person, Morrowind has you select what race, class, birth sign yes, it affects the game along with attributes and skills that let you know you are in for a long, long ride.
Once the game begins and you have created your character, it's off you go, into a massive gaming environment that breaks all the rules of traditional RPGs. Do you choose to start your quest, or do you choose to start robbing people and drinking in the local bar? Will you travel the main road, or prowl through the forest in search of villains and their treasure. The game's choices are literally endless and you could arguably play for as little as hours or for as many as , maybe even more!
Yes, this is the closest thing to an alternate reality I have ever had the pleasure of playing. What makes it even scarier is the game also includes a construction set to make your own quests.
But let the numbers do the talking:. Casual players and peasants will get the holy living bejeebers slapped out of them. The challenge has been issued, do you dare venture forth? At last, I have finally got my hands on Morrowind. Questions raced through my mind, can this game possibly live up to all the hype, will it be buggy, and could we finally have a decent RPG out on the XBOX?
Let me tell you what I found. Morrowind is a hugely ambitious game. Everything about it makes us RPGers salivate: non-linear game play, huge variety of character classes, countless NPCs to interact with, completely immersive interactive environments, an engaging plotline, as well as a seemingly endless number of quests, dungeons and lands to explore.
You have complete control over whom your character will be which is where the replay value really shines. You can choose to be play a good character, helping those around you in need, or you can play as a self-seeking rogue looking to enhance his wealth and power, stealing items when others aren't looking.
It's your decision. It's your life. This could be the last game you need to buy for the year! After playing only the first several hours, I began to realize how detailed this world really was.
I stumbled across a murdered tax collector pocketed the taxes, that he no longer needed , helped bring the murder to justice at the end of my sword, assisted a guard to locate the hiding place of a stash of treasure and by then I was hooked, totally immersed in the world of Morrowind. From this point on, you only go in deeper. I will continue to log some serious hours into this game.
This game is fantastic in its detail and depth. While I love this, the level of depth may also be a discouraging factor to anyone who isn't a die-hard fan of this genre.
To play this game right, you will need to interrogate the citizens of this world, join some guilds and make contacts and develop relationships with key players in each town, follows clues and wherever possibly continue to develop your skills and gain wealth. This game is not just about hacking and slashing monsters, although there is a lot of that, you have to strategize and plan your moves carefully.
Above all else, save frequently! Be prepared to take some time just getting to know the controls and familiarize yourself with the world, in the starting town.
There is no time limit so take your time and when you are ready, then move on to the next town, because this is when the action picks up and the real game play starts to shine, and there goes any free time you once had. The first Xbox RPG has finally arrived, and it's a doozy. Forget what you know about console role-playing games--Morrowind changes everything. You won't find any spiky-haired youths, turn-based battles or linear, one-truck storylines here.
In this game, it's just you, alone in a massive fantasy world with complete freedom to do as you choose. You determine every aspect of your hero's appearance, attributes and abilities.
If you're unhappy with the available character-class options, well then design your own custom class. When you want to take a break from the main storyline, embark on one of over optional quests. Fortify mximum health - Changes the Fortify Health effect to increase both maximum and current health. This helps preventing a sudden death of a character when the effect ends, and also makes a constant fortify health enchantment useful.
Warning: Remove active Fortify Health effects from the player character before activating this fix. Racial variation in speed fix - Corrects an issue in which the baseline speed of larger races was higher than that of smaller races due to body scaling. Argonian clothing choice - Makes Argonian females prefer to wear male versions of armor and clothing, to avoid looking like a mammal. NPC AI casts zero cost powers - This feature increases difficulty of the game by allowing NPCs to cast racial powers and other powers with the cost of 0 , just like you.
Permanent barter disposition changes - This patch makes the disposition changes of merchants towards you for failed and successful bargains permanent rather than temporary. Allow stealing from knocked out NPCs - The vanilla game prevents stealing from knocked out NPCs, giving the 'you are in combat' message when you try it. This patch creates an unintended side-effect, which allows speaking with hostile NPCs if you manage to sneak up on them unnoticed.
Strength-based hand-to-hand damage - Allows your Strength to affect the damage done by bare-fisted attacks, where previously, it was based entirely on your Hand-to-Hand skill.
Spellmaking max. This is rather unbalanced with strength fireball being the argument , but makes some effects more useful primarily the Burden and the Feather.
Makes dragging the duration bar more precise. Spellmaker area effect cost - When determining a custom spell's cost, there's now a dependency between its magnitude and area of effect.
Also, spells targeting large areas now cost significantly more. Hidden traps - With this feature enabled, all visual indications of a trapped object are removed, and probes always use a charge when testing an object, even if there is no trap present. Hidden locks - Turns off the display of locks, all you have to detect locks is the sound a locked object makes.
The 'lock too complex' and 'successfully picked' messages are still present. Detect life spell variant - Changes the Detect Animal spell effect to detect both NPCs and creatures, instead of just creatures.
Loud interface sounds fix - Tries to avoid extremely loud interface noises. Sets sounds that appear to be incorrect volume to play at minimum volume instead. Use it only if you are experiencing this problem, because the fix may affect more sounds than necessary. Attribute uncap - Allows leveling of the eight main attributes past This will be incompatible with leveling mods that have not been updated to cover stats over Not compatible with Galsiah's Character Development mod.
Skill uncap - Allows leveling of player skills past Mod related features The features listed here mostly either require mod support to work or give more possibilities for modding the game.
Scripted music uninterruptible - This prevents combat and explore music from interrupting music that's being played via the StreamMusic command. Recommended for users of mods which add scripted music. Inventory sounds for axes - This option allows axes to make their unique inventory sounds for pick-up and draw , but requires a mod that adds sound IDs for axes. As of today, only Morrowind Acoustic Overhaul does this.
If you enable this feature without it, axes simply wouldn't have inventory sounds. Weapon resistance change - Enchanted weapons of low base quality below dwarven no longer bypass the 'normal weapon resistance' that many creatures possess. Under the new rule, an enchantment of such a weapon ex. Allow scroll enchant price modifier - Allows enchanting services NPCs to charge a different price for cast once items, like scrolls. Hi-def cutscene support - Allows mods to include cutscenes up to x the default maximum was x Improved animation support - Allows for higher quality animation mods.
Allow faction leaving - Allows the removal of a player from a faction, which can be used for creating interesting story twists in quest mods.
Service refusal filtering - Allows modders to filter service refusal by individual service type instead of 'all or none'. This will cause dialogue problems with the very few mods that use multiple greetings to run scripts. Economy Adjuster - Merchant Skills. If you notice a greeting that loops forever, you should turn this option off. Creature voiceover enable - Allows creatures to play Hello and Idle voiceovers. The fix is useful even without mods, since vanilla game has a few creatures with voice.
Lock level scripting - Modifies the GetLevel script command to additionally work on locked objects. This allows extra modding based on locked items. Disable weapon transition on unequip - Skips the short 'put away' weapon state on all unequip actions and when switching to hand to hand. Simplifies state detection with weapon mods. Interface changes Options for a more versatile user interface.
Map expansion for Tamriel Rebuilt - Makes the area shown on the world map approximately two times larger. This is pretty essential change, considering how many new lands mods are available.
Includes 2x map zoom function. Disable land smoothing - Makes the in-game world map appear more crisp and less blurry. This feature improves the appearance of world map zoom see the fix above. UI display quality fix - Makes the program stop deliberately misaligning the user interface, so that it appears blurrier than it should.
Don't loot on dispose - You can now avoid picking up all the items on a body if you Ctrl -click the Dispose Corpse button. The items will disappear with the body. Shortcut key improvements - This patch greatly improves game controls by making three simple changes to shortcuts: 1 the dialogue window, books, and scrolls can now be closed with Space ; 2 full stacks of items are picked up by default and Shift -click instead opens the quantity menu; 3 when examining a container, all items may be taken at once by pressing the Ready Weapon key.
The unfortunate side effect of this is that you cannot open the journal while the dialogue window is open, but it still worth it. Very much so. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help!
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