The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

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Morrowind redirects here. For the in-game province, see Morrowind (province).

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Developer(s)	Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher(s)	Bethesda Softworks, Ubisoft
Engine	Gamebryo
Release date(s)	PC May 1, 2002[1] / June 8, 2002 September 5, 2002 October 4, 2002 December 4, 2002 September 29, 2003 Xbox May 16, 2002[2] November 22, 2002 November 6, 2003
Genre(s)	First/Third person RPG
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Xbox '
Media	2 CD-ROMs (PC) / 1 DVD (Xbox)
System requirements	Windows ME/98 - 128 MB RAM Windows XP/2000 - 256 MB RAM 500 MHz Intel Pentium III, Celeron, or AMD Athlon processor 8x CD/DVD-ROM Drive 1 GB free hard disk space DirectX 8.1 (included) 32MB Direct3D compatible video card with 32-bit color support and DirectX 8.1 compatible driver DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (aka Morrowind) is a single player open-ended computer role-playing game by Bethesda Softworks, and the third in The Elder Scrolls series of games. It was released in the United States in 2002 for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox. Well-received publicly and critically, selling over four million copies,^[3] winning 60 awards,^[4] Morrowind holds an average review score of 89% from both Metacritic and Game Rankings.^[5][6] The game spawned two expansion packs for the PC; Tribunal, and Bloodmoon. Both were eventually repackaged into a full set containing all three, Morrowind: Game of the Year edition, which shipped on October 3, 2003 for both PC and Xbox.^[7][8]

The story takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the Dunmer province of Morrowind, far from the typically civilized lands to the west and south that typified Daggerfall and Arena. The central quests concern the demi-god Dagoth Ur, housed within the volcanic Red Mountain, who seeks to gain power and break Morrowind free from Imperial reign.^[9][10][11] A particular emphasis in the design and execution of the game lay upon ensuring the freedom of the player. As such, the player may choose to avoid the main plot altogether, pursuing Morrowind's lengthy side quests, or merely exploring Morrowind's expansive and varied environments.^[9]

[edit] Gameplay

Like previous entries in the series, Morrowind is primarily a first-person RPG, playing from a character's eye view in a 3D environment. Third-person perspective is also included, but has been called "next to impossible" to use for any length of time.^[12] The player controls one character,^[13] though various NPCs may join the character temporarily.^[14]

A decision was made early on in the development of Morrowind to scrap most of Daggerfall's fast-travel system, where players were capable of instantly traveling great distances, to encourage travel by foot.^[15] However, Morrowind has a similar system to Daggerfall's in the form of the Silt Strider, which allows fast-travel between major in-game urban areas^[16] with a clean fade-in and fade-out. There are also various ferrymen around that act just like the Silt Strider.^[17] The fast-travel system returned in Morrowind's sequel, Oblivion.^[18][19]

[edit] Skill system

The game begins, as all the main series games do, with the player imprisoned, this time on a boat.^[20] The player is successively asked questions by a slave, an officer, and a bureaucrat; choosing the player character's name, sex, race, birthsign, and class.^[12] These affect the player's starting attributes, skills, and abilities.^[21][22][23] In a throwback to the Ultima series,^[12][24][25] the player has a chance to answer a series of moral questions to determine their class. To accommodate the successive menus and ease the player into the game, the opening sequence uses extensive scripting, and is one of the few parts of the game to do so.^[26] The level of integration afforded by this choice was recognized by most reviewers, and the tutorial has been called "seamlessly integrated",^[25] and an achievement for which the developers should "pat themselves on the back."^[12]

The player character's proficiency with a skill is increased either by practice or training. Practice involves performing the specific actions associated with a given trait. In order to become better with using armor or a type of weapon, the character must be involved in combat using the armor or the weapon. In order to become better with using magic spells, the character must learn spells and practice casting them.^[27] As skill level increases so does the character's ability to hit opponents with a weapon, block opponent hits with a shield, and throw spells without failing. Some skills, e.g. Athletics or Acrobatics, can be increased by running about or by jumping while walking about. The player levels up their character as a whole by leveling up individual skills from their major and minor skill lists, a set determined by their choice of class, a total of ten times. Each time the player levels up their character, they select three attributes to augment as well. The player is better able to augment abilities related to their skill set, as each levelled up skill adds to the multiplier by which the ability is augmented.^[24][28][29]

This mildly complex reciprocal system was generally praised, with some few exceptions. IGN's Barry Brenesal, despite finding the manual's description of the system unclear, found the classes well balanced and well designed for all play styles,^[28] and GameSpot's Greg Kasavin found the system clear and sensible.^[24] PC Gamer's Stevel Klett, by contrast, found the system unbalanced, with combat privileged over other features.^[13] GameSpy's William Abner gave what is perhaps the strongest commendation to the system, stating that "The advancement system makes so much sense that it makes other games, even games set in the D&D world such as Baldur's Gate, look silly by comparison".^[16]

[edit] Interface

Inventory, local maps, usable spells, and player abilities are accessed and manipulated by way of 4 resizable windows.^[17][28] The player is able to converse with NPCs using similar resizeable menus containing a main body of text and a sidebar to the right with selectable conversation topics. Words in the main body of text are hyperlinked to related topics, a system that has been commended for its intuitiveness.^[17][30] The text-heavy nature of dialogue was a minor complaint for reviewers of the Xbox version of the game, finding the text more suitable for a PC resolution than an NTSC one.^[31] Game developer Todd Howard described the game as "very object oriented",^[14] a trait eventually manifesting itself in that many of the objects the player encounters, whether flowers, bowls or shoes, may be moved around and taken by the player at will.^[17]

The player has a journal which is automatically updated with information from time to time following conversations with NPCs and important developments in the plot, each new entry following all those previous. Though IGN and GamePro commended the general interface for its relative ease of use,^[28][32] the journal was almost universally reviled. The journal was found to quickly become a "muddled mess",^[33] "hundreds of pages long",^[34] without any useful method of organization by quest title or completion level.^[13] The system was overhauled in Morrowind's expansion pack Tribunal, allowing the player to sort quests individually and by completion, much to the pleasure of critics.^[35][36]

[edit] Free-form design

Morrowind, following the tradition established by its predecessors in The Elder Scrolls series,^[37] attempts to establish a completely free-form world, with no constricting boundaries on the player's actions. From the beginning of the game, the player is left in a world where they are left to roam, steal, quest and explore, without necessarily paying heed to the main quest.^[13] Lead Designer Ken Rolston went so far as to call the main quest "of secondary importance" in comparison to the setting and side-quests.^[38] To encourage this behavior, Morrowind, in addition to creating an extensive main quest, provides detailed discursive quests for a variety of factions, including various guilds, religious organizations and aristocratic houses, in addition to mini-quests found by mere exploration. This gameplay style, sometimes called sandbox style gameplay, is seen by some as liberating, but by others as confusing. Morrowind's weapon and spell making utilities have also been found to be open to exploitation, with shrewd players finding ways to unbalance the game, producing weapons and abilities that can make the game's tasks extremely easy to complete. Imbalances between Morrowind's 21^[22] character classes have been noted as well, with mage and thief classes found to be at a disadvantage to fighter classes.^[25]

The storyline progresses exclusively through the decisions of the character; it is non-linear and can be discontinued at will. This type of open-ended role-playing gameplay is a feature of all The Elder Scrolls series. The people in the game world can have different stories and the player can easily end up in complicated situations and plot twists. The once visited computer characters will usually tell the same stories over and over again, unless the players situation changes or the player decides to do something that will affect somehow that particular character or travel to another place. The player can visit other cities in Morrowind and talk with people about things you talk with people in other cities and the stories might get twisted around depending who you talk to. (The individuals and races have different points of view just like in the "real" world.)

Some of the non-player characters the character will meet will have some kind of problem. They will probably ask the character for assistance with the problem, a quest. Their problems may be as simple as a lost friend that you have to find or a more complicated problem, such as obtaining information from some other non-player character who in turn will want the player character to do something for them before providing the information. The number of threads of quests and relationships can become quite complicated. Some quests can result in the player character having to choose sides in a conflict resulting in one party disliking the player character. In some cases, the quest can result in the player having to make ethical and value decisions. Sometimes these decisions can lead to combat or other repercussions.

There are several different groups, guilds, and organizations. The player character can join several guilds at the same time for instance the Fighter Guild and the Mages Guild. Non-player characters who are members of the same guild as a player character will typically ask for less for training and spells than would a non-player character who is not a member of the guild. The size of a town will determine if the town has a guild office or not. For instance, Balmora has both a Fighters Guild and a Mages Guild. The Thieves' Guild also has representatives there as well as other groups such as the Camonna Tong. The guild boss will provide to the player character duties or quests. Sometimes the assigned duty will involve an action that will gain the enmity of another guild. One example is some Balmora Fighters' Guild assignments that can cause friction with the Thieves' Guild.

The player can also join several organizations at the same time such as the Temple and the Imperial Cult. Normally, the player can join only one of the Great Houses. Each of the different organizations will have their own quests and assignments. Different towns will have different representatives for the various organizations and guilds. The Mages Guild boss in Balmora is different from the Mages Guild boss in Vivec and they have different personalities. A guild boss in one town will have different assignments than a guild boss in another town.

A third-person screenshot from the game, demonstrating Morrowind's then-advanced graphics: Pixel Shaded water, long render distances, and detailed textures and models.

[edit] Plot

[edit] Setting

Main article: Morrowind (province)

The game environment of Morrowind is large and richly detailed, with real-time weather effects, a day/night cycle,^[30] and great variety of plant and animal life.^[12][39][40] Developers, rather than developing the common Medieval European setting of fantasy games, chose a more eclectic route, taking elements from Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and early Japanese culture.^[15] The development team also gave particular credit to Gladiator, high fantasy, Dark Crystal, and Conan as influences.^[14] In a 2001 interview, game developer Todd Howard cited Middle Eastern architecture as a major influence on Balmora's Hlaalu architecture.^[17]

Morrowind's soundtrack was composed by Jeremy Soule. Soule stated that the "epic quality" of the Elder Scrolls series was "particularly compatible with the grand, orchestral style of music I enjoy composing the most".^[41]

Along with graphical improvements, one of the most obvious differences between Morrowind and the older games is that Morrowind takes place in a much smaller area than the previous games. While Arena featured the entirety of Tamriel as an explorable area, and Daggerfall featured sizeable portions of two provinces of Tamriel, Hammerfell and High Rock, Morrowind includes only the "relatively small" island of Vvardenfell within the province of Morrowind.^[42] The change was a result of a conscious choice on the part of the developers to feature more detail and variety in the game. Whereas Daggerfall and Arena's dungeons were randomly generated, each area in Morrowind was specifically detailed, and each item specifically placed. Reviewers, contrary to what one might think of such losses, were generally quite impressed with the game-world's variety, while still finding the game world "enormous".^[42] In contrast to the "generic"^[42] nature of Daggerfall's design, reviewers found Morrowind's design spectacular, varied,^[40] and stunning.^[39] GameSpot's Greg Kasavin stated that "Simply exploring Morrowind is possibly the best thing about it."^[39]

The game area expands to Mournhold on Morrowind's mainland in the Tribunal expansion, and to the island of Solstheim to the northwest of Vvardenfell in the Bloodmoon expansion.

The Elder Scrolls series, especially since Morrowind, is famous in part because of its unique setting. Since Daggerfall, The Elder Scrolls universe and cosmology have been developed both by a dedicated team of writers and contributions from all the developers. The series' setting is not traditional for fantasy, as it is designed with believability and authenticity in mind, and aims for real world complexity and subtlety. There is nothing clear and definite in the world's state or history unlike most fantasy worlds, but rather there are many points of view, expressed in texts produced by various parties and interests, as in the real world. Morrowind has no fight between good and evil, but rather its own philosophy of change and stability, of political and cultural transformation and evolution within the world and some ideas put forward being very interesting on their own. The game has over 300 books (not counting scrolls), which together contain over 1500 standard pages of text, more than any other game. One particular compliation of the text runs to 1241 8.26'' by 11.00'' sheets of paper.^[43] PC Gamer weighted the in-game text as equal to 6 standard-size novels.^[13] In the opinion of one columnist, the in-game literature and its integration within the game were Morrowind's "most original and lasting contribution to the history of games".^[44] Nearly all books are part of Morrowind, and the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions only add about 50 texts including scrolls.

Together, in-game books and dialogues allow attentive players to feel a much more lively and detailed world than just what is seen on the screen. The mysteries of the Elder Scrolls universe have attracted many players, who have taken to jokingly calling themselves loremasters, to study its nature.

[edit] Story and characters

Main article: Characters of Morrowind

The story takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the Dunmer province of Morrowind, far from the typically European lands to the west and south of Daggerfall and Arena. The central quests concern the demi-god Dagoth Ur, housed within the volcanic Red Mountain, who seeks to make himself god. In his mad quest for power, he blights the land of Vvardenfell and corrupts the minds of the weak.^[9][45] The player begins fresh off a boat from the mainland, freed from imprisonment by the string pulling of a distant and obscure emperor.^[46] At this point the player is under no obligation to follow through with the main quest, and may instead choose to take part in regional politics, to explore or adventure, or to pursue minor side quests. As with previous entries in the series, a particular emphasis in the design and execution of the game lays upon the freedom of the player.^[9] As the player moves through the main storyline, he/she begins to take on characteristics of the Nerevar, all the while learning more of the tumultuous past of Vivec, Nerevar, and Dagoth Ur. After receiving the support of the Great Houses^[47][48][49] and the nomadic Ashlander tribes,^[50][51][52] the player comes to be called "Nerevarine",^[52] and plots an assault on Dagoth Ur with the help of the living god Vivec.^[53] Now facing Lord Dagoth, the player breaks the Heart of Lorkhan with Kagrenac's tools, destroying him. Red Mountain is cleared of blight, House Dagoth falls, and the player is congratulated for his/her efforts by the goddess Azura.^[54][55]

[edit] Development

A third title in the Elder Scrolls series was first conceived during the development of Daggerfall, though it was to be set in the Summerset Isles and called Tribunal. Following the release of Daggerfall, it was set up around an SVGA version of XnGine, which Bethesda later used in Battlespire, and set in the province of Morrowind. The game was "much closer to Daggerfall in scope", encompassing the whole province of Morrowind, rather than the isle of Vvardenfell, and allowing the player to join all five Dunmer Great Houses. The blight was conceived as a dynamic force, progressively expanding and destroying cities in its wake. It was finally decided that the scope of the original design was too grand given the technology current at the time.^[56] According to Ken Rolston, something was said approximating "We’re not ready for it, we don’t want to jump into this and fail".^[57] The project was put on hold in 1997, as Bethesda went on to develop Redguard and Battlespire,^[56] though the project remained in the back of the developers minds throughout this period.^[57]

The completion of Redguard in 1998 led to a return to the Morrowind project, as the developers felt a yearning in their audience to return to the classically epic forms of the earlier titles. Finding that the gaps between their own technical capacities and those of rival companies had grown in the interim, Bethesda sought to revitalize itself and return to the forefront of the industry.^[56] The XnGine was scrapped and replaced with a Direct3D powered engine, with T&L capacity.^[57] It is said that the greatest push towards this goal came from Project Leader Todd Howard, called a "graphics whore" by both Bethesda's Director of Marketing and PR and Morrowind's Lead Designer.^[58] The scale of the game was much reduced from the earlier concept, focussing primarily on Dagoth Ur and a smaller area of land. It was decided that the game world would be populated using the methods the team had developed in Redguard, that is, crafted by hand, rather generated using the random algorithmic methods of Arena and Daggerfall. The project, despite the reduced scale, became a massive investment. According to the team's reasonings, the endeavour took "close to 100 man-years to create". To soulève their défi, Bethesda tripled their staff and spent their first year of development on The Elder Scrolls Construction Set.^[56]

[edit] Modification

Main article: The Elder Scrolls Construction Set

Bethesda Softworks, the developer of Morrowind, offers gamers the ability to recreate the world with a variety of mod making tools, such as The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which allows the modder to create and edit different races, signs, abilities, and skills. Characters can be made as strong or as fast as the user wants, and allows the player to experience the game in a way that would not normally be possible within the game's mechanics.

Morrowind is well known for its ability to be changed by plugins (often referred to as Modifications or mods for short) using the Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which comes with the PC version of the game. These plugins are usually easy to install and can change almost everything in the game. Modding is the main reason that many fans consider the PC version better than the Xbox version. Plugins can include new creatures, weapons, armor, quests, people, Easter eggs, stores, cities, and even introduce new plotlines. Some plugins have added entirely new aspects to the game such as some stores closing and locking up at night, abolitionist and slave-trading factions warring over the area's slave trade, and ridable, breedable horses. Others create immensely powerful "god items" and place them in convenient locations. Still other mods change the graphical aspects of the game, such as lighting, 3D models, colors, and textures. Some of the fans have attempted to create immense mods which change the entire game.

Due to the amateur nature of their production, however, not every mod is of excellent quality. Many graphic improvement mods bring sharper textures and more complex models, but they often decrease game performance on older hardware. Missing models are also a common problem encountered by players who use an ill-designed mod or install one incorrectly. Mods with their own scripts also increase the risk of game-freeze or crash. However, due to the initial game design, nearly all problems can be avoided if the player has at least minimal mods editing skill.

There are also some official mods made by Bethesda, such as "Siege at Firemoth". They can be found at the official site.

[edit] Expansions

There have been two expansions:

• The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal (November 2002)
  • This puts the character in the self-contained, walled capital city of Mournhold, and drastically increased the number and complexity of dungeons and caves (one of the criticisms of the original game was its paucity of such). The new city is not connected to the original Morrowind land mass, and the player starts the game simply by being transferred to the new city from Vvardenfell. The storyline continues the story of the Tribunal deities.
• The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon (June 3, 2003)
  • This is a much more complete expansion than Tribunal with a large island (Solstheim) that has a sub-arctic climate and is integrated into the original Morrowind land area (i.e. one could move seamlessly from Vvardenfell to Solstheim by boat or another method, including swimming). In this expansion the player sees the isle threatened by the curse of werewolves and has to help the native Nords stop it, or join the hairy beasts and live like one of them. As normal in Elder Scrolls games, there are many side quests, like the founding of an Imperial mining colony.

In 2003, Bethesda released a Game of the Year edition for both PC and Xbox, which included the original game with both expansions. This is notable because, beforehand, neither expansion was available for the Xbox. Reviewers noted differences between the PC and Xbox versions.

Although many fans had asked for it, Bethesda Softworks does not plan to release a multiplayer version for Morrowind, claiming that putting their focus on a single player campaign allows them to create a better single player experience.^[14] Zenimax, however, Bethesda Softworks' parent company, has had plans to develop such a game since early 2006, stating on their website that "ZeniMax Productions is our division for the development of a world class massively multiplayer on-line role playing game."

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• Morrowind Architecture - Architecture of Morrowind
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Information about the sequel to Morrowind

[edit] External links

[edit] Official

• The Elder Scrolls official site.
• Bethesda Softworks, the developers.

[edit] Info sites

• The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages Wiki A comprehensive wiki devoted to The Elder Scrolls games.
• The Imperial Library Comprehensive fansite containing all in game literature and lots of information about the games' universe.

[edit] Modders' sites

• Planet Elder Scrolls (formerly Morrowind Summit), one of the most popular Morrowind modding and news sites and the common repository for mods.
• Empirical Morrowind - Large list of Morrowind mods
• Rethan Manor/Elder Scrolls Central Keeps a listing of mods (with links) and hosts the work of several modders, as well as discussion forums.
• Unforgotten Realms Large site with a Morrowind section for downloads and Morrowind forum.
• Telesphoros' List o'Mods A very extensive list of Morrowind mods.
• Khalazza productions Developers of visuals improving mods, which replace characters faces, world textures and other elements with much more detailed ones.
• Psycho Dog Studios, authors of the popular Better Bodies and Better Clothes mods.
• The Unofficial Morrowind Patch - Fixes hundreds of bugs in Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon.
• Wiwiland Elder Scrolls website in French, hosts a French analog of TIL.

[edit] Other

• Tamriel Rebuilt - An enormous effort to recreate the world of Tamriel (the Elder Scrolls universe)
• TEScreens.be A place where people can submit, view, rate, and comment on screenshots from The Elder Scrolls.
• The Adventurer's Guide to Morrowind Fan site with plugins, hints and tips on the game (No longer updated)
• Speed demo archive Detailed info on the Morrowind speed record.
• The Literary Achievement of Morrowind An article discussing Morrowind's literary merit and The Elder Scrolls setting.
• Hannah's Whereizit Site Great whereizit site, detailing where some of the more difficult things to find are.
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Wallpaper Gallery - A collection of Morrowind official and fan-submitted desktop wallpapers.