Was Morrowind as good as I remember? - A look at the game's mechanics and storytelling

Morrowind is a

game

whose name alone tends to flood most people's minds with images of a time in the distant past where one could get lost in an immersive world full of mystery and adventure for those who grew up with it and played it. a lot. Often seen as a complex

game

that was one of the last of its kind that allowed the player to explore and pay attention to the smallest details for maximum enjoyment these days, the vast majority of new releases tend to be very straightforward. about how to continue in the game and I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate that with the short attention span I have there's still something that feels really

good

about going back to that old pen and paper method of writing notes and trying to figure things out. by itself and with the interest in my forgetting evaluation I thought it was about time to see how much my patience had deteriorated and find out if Morrowind is as

good

a game as I

remember

it being when I was 12. years I'll be honest with you here.

I don't

remember

much about it, but what I do remember is that I loved it for about a year when I played it at my friend's house and here's a little warning for everyone. friends who might be getting ready to play this game. I'm going to spoil almost everything in this new release anyway, let's jump into this, wait, I know. Oh, still a great song, even though we start on a prison ship entering SATA. 6a Dineen I don't know how to say these names, this guy wakes you up and tells you to pack your bags because prison time is over and this fool is coming to take you.

First you can choose your appearance, which ranges from an average bald man to different animals like cats, lizards or walruses, then you can do your class by answering questions or doing it yourself. I decided to do it myself and not choose athletics or acrobatics as important minor skills. I mean, come on, who would do that at that time? you get a nifty little tutorial where the game tells you how to do it in this room after looting the entire room for valuables and equipping your hanukkah staff for battle you approach this guy who the game tells you explicitly don't persuade, but Of course, every real player knows this is a trick and you need to persuade that guy before continuing, let's touch on the menu system so everything you do in Morrowind is usually done through a menu if you thought you were checking your inventory to grab a potion. and Skyrim was tedious, Morrowind makes it up to 11 to equip lockpicks in your main weapon slot, transfer loot and cast spells, it's all done through this big menu, there are things that make it easier and it's definitely not the worst system of the world, especially for 17 years. but it's definitely a little annoying at times, other than most of the dialogue in the game is unvoiced, which makes you really appreciate all those lines that were voiced in later games.

It's actually a little strange because I thought I would hate reading. all instead of hearing West Johnson voice each of the game's characters, but I didn't really care as much as I thought I would. It reminds me of something I used to do often, but it seems like a long-lost memory of reading books. Anyway, I wonder what happened to the books. When you enter this small town, you have arrived. Wait, wait, mods. Okay, that's better. When you enter this small town, you will notice the now beautiful swampy landscape that is Vardhan. It seems a bit backwards compared to later games, but it's actually a pretty good step away from the snowy mountains of Skyrim or the bag of landscapes of Cyrodiil.

After your release, you're sent to Balmorra to deliver a package because Uriel Septim is completely crazy and he picked you as a cool guy for a prisoner. I mean, he's right, the guy knows what he's doing, but damn, I'd be questioning the hell out of him if he were an imperial guard. He probably would too. be dead, but before that I explored around Satan a bit, as the commoners tend to give the same answers and direct you to a shop that also doubles as a tavern of sorts, one guy in particular tells you that his group of people tends to extort himself. to the locals for some sort of protection and that guy hasn't been paying so he sends you to find his hideout at night and my god you move so slow I'm doing this bow legged trot everywhere I go and it's infuriating . but I got over it eventually you take the hefty sum of 300 gold from the stomp and report well if you're stupid if you embrace your inner chaotic neutral you keep it to yourself the reason I'm going over this rather insignificant quest is because it actually explains how the Morrowind setting when you talk to the citizens they tell you not to attack anyone unless they attack you first, the guards are obviously roaming around and cracking down on simple things like loitering when you're trying to rest in the city but You still let this guy extort money from other citizens for protection money, if you choose to hand over the money, you have found this guy to be very sweet, here is one hundred gold out of three hundred gold and you feel like you even gave it to him. returned, citizens are useful. but very reserved in the way they approach you, they basically tell you that the system works here in a very friendly way to others, like they would do with you when I went to rest to regain my health, which is a very good feature by the way.

I was attacked on my break by what appeared to be a thief and his pet rat after missing 70% of my attacks. I finally took them both down only to find out that my attacker was part of the Dark Brotherhood when I asked the guard they basically said that. I didn't hear anything, don't come near me and go to Ebonheart to report the attack. Unfortunately, this line of inquisition really just leads to you being attacked over and over while resting outside of cities until you kill the leader of darkness. brotherhood, so I go find the guy and the goblins kill me, so yeah, I'll deal with the attacks.

I guess I'll point out here that the sewers beneath the Grand Bazaar are really intimidating, at least they were for me. I don't know what it is about older games that scare me more than newer ones, but something about these strange creatures with lesser graphics really scared me in a way that makes me feel like a kid again; In fact, you can probably say the same thing. Also about most of the misty and gloomy landscapes of Marwan, when this guy fell from the sky and scared the hell out of me. I tried his flight spell and just the trepidation of floating through the fog and not knowing where I was going to land put me on edge in a very primal way, the same goes for a lot of creatures in this game, it's not just wolves, skeletons and bandits, it's this thing and this thing and definitely this thing anyway after missing the river a dozen times before realizing it's not deep enough.

I managed to use flight spells to reach Balmorra quickly. I'm actually quite impressed with Elder Scrolls online at the moment because I recognized almost everything in these cities from my recent memories of them, unfortunately ESO has definitely revitalized Balmorra more than its original. iteration, this place is okay, it's very much for me to the point that I get bored while a fat person runs around it if you don't have it memorized, it's pretty annoying to keep wandering around while you check the doors to see if it's the one you're

look

ing for . I found it easier to just run around the city and then check the map after reporting to Caius, he gives you some gold and tells you that you can take orders from him now as a member of the Blades or go find him. some experience in other guilds in the city Bellmore is on the smaller side of cities when you compare it to something like the Imperial City, but all the guilds seem to reside here in one way or another.

Joining most of them is as simple as walking up to the right person and saying hey, let me in, which is cool and all, but it's a little off-putting with one Thieves' Guild in particular. I mean, you just walk up to the old sugar lips here and say, hey, let me in and I'm like, yeah, okay. sit back go steal some diamonds buddy it was a little disappointing compared to the last few releases but it is what it is as for the actual diamond ceiling your brand is in a store directly next to the store owner and a full view, so this is where I thought I knew how this was going to happen.

I thought I would wait until night and get in easily. Here is the problem. I went to the upper floor of the store thinking the owner would be sleeping in his bed upstairs. I would have gone through the lower floor but a guard was hanging around outside, luckily I didn't do that because upon entering the upper floor the store guard was still awake and just relaxing at the bottom of the stairs

look

ing at the front door. Upon further investigation, the store was just open like it never closes stores don't close in this game and merchants never rest it was probably around 1:00 AM. m. when I walked in and they weren't in their bed and the front door was still at first I was a little bothered by this but then I found three diamonds in the chest next to their bed which is a little convenient but I understand how the developers planned this mission right now, also, it's just the beginner mission that I don't know about.

I don't know as much as I appreciate the bait that was placed near the merchant only so there would be another hiding place above. It goes against logical convention to be able to make out in broad daylight, climb the stairs, and snatch someone else's diamonds. A strange mechanic here is the concept of public and private beds. This isn't something specific to the Thieves Guild, or it's just the game mechanic that I needed to go through at some point to get in, or so I thought and found several beds in the Dunmer temple, they seemed public enough. so I went to sleep in one and suddenly you tell me that I don't even get a warning that it's someone else's property and now I'm a fugitive because I tried to sleep in only one bed, which makes even less sense to me is the fact that I turned the corner in the same temple and slept in this bed without any problem, that is just ridiculous, you report and hand over this diamond and you get your next mission, which is to steal the key to a mansion.

You can do this by taking it from the owner himself or from his servant. The game suggests that servants are the easiest mark here, so I went for it. The problem is that he just stays there in plain sight all the time at all hours so I try to persuade him but my personality is only 30 so I try to bribe him and sometimes he rejects the gold completely and other times he says how cool I am and takes it. I was out of 700 gold before he finally decided to give me the key. I'm going to steal it, so I used the invisibility potion to try to take it from him, except he never seems to have it.

I try and try and the key never seems to appear and even when he does I usually get caught. even with invisibility because there are like 40 people around him so I decide I'm going to provoke the guy into attacking me but I didn't realize I had to do it multiple times for one to be on me so I decided to go all the way the place. city ​​to get a personality strengthening potion or a frenzy spell to use on him to make him attack me first again. No luck, so you know what I did. I went to the mansion and found the owner standing alone with no one watching the door. wide open at all hours of the day, you can go up the stairs and carelessly loot his valuables once, then you can go back down, stand directly in front of him, pick his pocket if he really has the key, and then just walk. through the front door without any reward, why does he look at him?

I understand this was over a decade ago. I'm not going to criticize a game for not being able to do something that newer games are capable of, but when you design a guilt to be about sneaking and stealing, how do you make the design choice very, very basic and easily implementable? There should be a sense of danger when stealing, no breaking and entering was required for any of these missions, you don't need to be particularly stealthy and it's all just luck. about whether or not you find the person's key before he starts attacking you and then the game has the audacity to say hello, by the way, the servants will probably be the easiest target here, like they wouldn't make an empty house and stay . the other guy who is there with no security, the next ones are no better when you go to recover goods from a guy who tells you he doesn't have them, have him attack you and then steal the key from him and take the goods.

This is followed by you breaking into a locked house for once only for the owner to be dead and just looting the place with no repercussions, then you're sent to break a guy out of jail by bribing the guard and then using him against them to free him and the final mission for the Balmorra branch of the Thieves Guild is to find a guy, that's all, as if it's all nonsense. I don'tI feel like a thief, I feel like an errand boy and I want to point out here that I didn't do it. Don't go into this questline thinking like that.

I planned my attacks. I waited until night. I sneaked around carefully and did my best to immerse myself in the Thieves Guild quests, but the game kept pulling me out of there with some generally poor decisions. in my eyes, so you know what I decided to do and I said that stealing is not for me in this game, so let's move on to the fighters guild, it suits my heavy armor, axe, carrying a blunt weapon, wielding everyone's ass Anyway, I started with the mission familiar to me, for some reason, of taking care of some rats in a lady's house from there, it's actually a lot, go here, do these kinds of missions, take care of these guys, collect this thing, Don't retrieve an item, go collect. a reward but I found I enjoyed the game more than with Thieves Guild and I didn't realize why until I stopped to admire the sunrise.

Morrowind has an absolutely incredible setting. It's not just the doom and gloom of the swamp, it's the parts that look like dead Nashi, it's the foothills and the mountainous parts with the craters and the general mix between prehistoric dinosaur-like enemies and out-of-this-world alien life forms, not all of it. is against you, there's not a threat around every corner, it's all very strange and interesting to watch, I don't think I felt that way with Oblivion or Skyrim, almost all the enemies in those games were just those enemies, but there are a lot of these strange jellyfish creatures, floating insect entities and even these vagina-faced ants inside caves that are just minding their own business while you walk around.

I really like it because the scenery does a very good job of building tension, especially on a foggy night, you feel like God knows what will rush you just to see this docile alcove floating around is mystical in its own way and I'm glad that the guild quests of fighters have helped me realize that I think my favorite landscape at this point in the game is all of Droon, especially when it goes through an ash storm. I referenced the future and Chrono Trigger a lot and it really helped make the area feel immediately different from everything else.

Anyway, as I continued I couldn't help but notice the naked Nord hanging in the middle of the intersection at night, I mean. I'm not one to do side quests, if I'm going to be honest, usually when it comes to things like hey, I lost my ring, I was in this mine, my response is usually along the lines of well, I guess he left then, huh, but when A man with a six-inch floppy disk asks you for help finding his cloud cutter. I mean, you got it. You don't have to ask me twice. It's a short and fun side quest where the Nord is obviously a fish out of water on this earth. -called witch who paralyzed him and took all his things said he was getting too friendly with her so she gave him a lesson in the end you have to choose which one to believe in and therefore which one to kill so I helped my partner Nord Bob It was so wide until we got his ax back and he continued as if nothing had happened.

I like side quests like that, they're really nice to add to the game without taking up an excessive amount of time or feeling like Pierre Filler, unfortunately the fighters. The union is not without setbacks. I was looking into the Balmorra and Aldrin branch quests just because they were short and sweet or sent you to really interesting areas around the map, but the vet on the other hand, okay, let's talk about vivec, this might. I know the part where some of you tell me that this really isn't that hard and is something you just get used to as you learn where everything is and I eventually got used to it, but anyway, navigating Veck is a nightmare .

The temple-like design of it is really cool to admire from a distance, but as with Balmorra, everything looks great. After a few spins to reveal the map, you now have the luxury of being able to hover over each little square to find which one. part of the void, pay attention to go to ok so that you have the general locations of the Guild's stores and waste memorized. Now combine that with the slow, slow movement of this game and the gigantic city that is Vivec and you have what can only be described as boring, even being sent somewhere else is no fun because you know that when you come back you have to cross three pyramids, climb multiple ramps up to the top towards the guild room, down the ramps towards the back of the room only to be sent back down. doing it all over again complements that resentment of walking back and forth with exciting quests like picking up this thing and killing this guy and you have an extraordinarily mundane part of the game that I barely enjoyed, plus when I got to hang out a room altar for a brief moment.

Overall, I would say that the fighters guild is a great way to acclimate to the game as quickly as possible. It's mainly about collecting rewards for people who refill the occasional mind and learn to stock up on potions because if someone runs out. You have to unleash all your strength or reload which is just absurd, it doesn't evolve much until the end with interesting areas like this cultist lair, it's pretty straightforward and you're helping to maintain peace and justice and its rewards tend to come from who you kill or the layers you crawl through, there's no big overarching theme or epic story, it's just there to help you navigate Vartan Fell or so it seems, until the end when you finally escort him.

Deliver and hunt for rewards to reach the top, you are left with the last two quests from the guild master. First he asks you to take the leaders of the Thieves Guild and say that the Fighters Guild has lined up to make sure they are on the winning side of whoever is victorious when Uriel Septim dies and that the Thieves Guild branch here is in our path, so in a strange form of poetry I set out to kill the people who took me in first before any other guild. I actually felt pretty bad about this. I'm not going to lie, but I did what needed to be done and got front row seats to some of the funniest AI routes I've ever seen, while guards scattered in all directions to figure out where to stand.

I'm in. I ended up walking towards them to pay my reward after this extermination. You were sent to kill the Thieves Guild's big knight boss, Jim Stacey, he dies pretty quickly and has some cool things about him, he's actually nice. It's interesting that the game puts you on this path because it shows you what you could have had if you had followed the Thieves Guild questline, but then gives it to you anyway. It's also worth noting here that they tell you that after this the master of the fighters guild would retire and you would take his place, what he doesn't mention is that the way you would take his place is by killing him because this madman is out to get you. as soon as you tell him you killed Jim.

Stacey is yet another person who sends the hero to do something he can't do and then for some reason he hopes to beat him. What's even funnier is that your old mission giver says they're not going to steal my position and then attacks. you too i was sitting here thinking to myself, yeah this guy could probably keep doing what he's doing and stay in his position, but hey, next on my to do list was the morag tong, this is basically the version of Marwan of the Dark Brotherhood, although they are much more respected for maintaining balance between the houses and less for openly killing for the glory of the disease.

They are a secret society of hitmen who are hired to carefully eliminate the right target to ensure peace in the nation based on the community they live in. The concept is really cool and I was enjoying the idea of ​​being a hitman for a while, That being said, most of your marks are in Vivec, which is a real shame because I enjoyed the guild a lot more when I was sent. I like the idea of ​​slowly approaching my target from a distance. The tedium of running around Vivex's identical-looking structures combined with Bethesda's proprietary ones made me increasingly dislike missions in this area of ​​the game.

It even adds to this by giving you a way to bypass the guild's cumbersome entry into Vivec and allowing you to accept warrants from other Morag Tong Guild locations instead, only to be sent back to Vivec regardless of the targets. The actual commands are uninteresting and they basically won't talk to you, so you can't provoke them to attack first without a high-level frenzy spell or taking off all your clothes. It's interesting and fun the first time, but after that it's more annoying to take off all your clothes. your team gets them to talk, taunts them into attacking, and then puts all their gear back on.

You are eventually given special orders that begin to unravel the history of the Dark Brotherhood separated from the tong and their rivalry over differences in religious beliefs along this line. Missions have you dismantling different key elements for the Dark Brotherhood and usually have you exploring different Daedric shrines to reach your objective. You are also tasked with retrieving 26 blood elements that comprise the threads of the web that you were only told about. a couple of them and the rest is up to you to find interesting because it seems like a lot of the initial thinking here was that we will create 26 different boss enemies carrying these items for the player to fight, but then they decided to wait, there are too many, maybe we let's keep two, three and some of these guys, no big deal.

I just found it funny after completing the special orders and eliminating the nightmother of Vardhan Fell, they made you Grandmaster. del morag tong there are a few other quests to do as a Grandmaster, but they don't have a particularly strong narrative and can actually make you cut other quest lines, so I decided not to do them for now, it's funny because the old GM tells you that normally you're supposed to kill him to become the new Grandmaster, but then he says: I'm pretty tired, so you could let me go if you want. Even more fun is if you go to sleep late. his bed after becoming the Grandmaster, whether he's alive or not, they kick you out of the damn guild because it's still considered their property, the beds, man, putting that aside, I left it to finally join one of the three Great Houses. and the house of agility tell Vaughn that he tends to have house members who keep to themselves and are extremely magic-oriented to the point where they come into conflict with the wizards' guild over magical resources and the house they run. retreat respects the warrior spirit, reveres strengths, resistance and honors its fundamental interests. he involved making Morrowind great again by rejecting the Empire's presence and attempting to reestablish the roots of its culture as the dominant aspect of society.

Yes, I joined that one and that's why the Grandmaster of both the fighters guild and the morag tong was sent to kill mud. crabs that have been bothering the local livestock from here are just a bunch of unimportant quests delivering potions escorting a guy this guy took a helmet and calls you a mama's boy you know standard stuff eventually you'll get a chance to reach a rank higher in the house. When rescuing the son of one of the counselors, he is basically being held by the arc master because he has been accused of murdering his best friend.

This mission is a good example of learning the game

mechanics

and using them to their fullest extent. Now you might think, man. I sneak past all these guards with this guy behind me and I have to make sure he doesn't die too but a real Morrowind veteran will tell you I can't follow them and you can just run past them when you get back they send you to find out what really happened With the murder of another retiree, the counselor's son tells you that he doesn't remember anything. He just woke up next to his dead friend, but he thinks it has something to do.

It has to do with an ash statue that he received while playing. When you confront the player, he attacks you directly and you can repeat the note that the doll in charge signs, for some reason, simply put, these statues were put into circulation to corrupt people, as evidenced by the casual Demon Basement in this girl's house It's a pretty fun mission that kept me wondering why this game has guards in the middle of very narrow hallways that make it almost impossible to get past them every time you see an unexpected surprise, move on and after that.

It's back to normal. I thought the subsequent quest was pretty fun because you go back to the house of this guy whose key you stole when you were at the Thieves Guild to confront him about spreading rumors about the Ark Master beating up some council member's wife. or something my boys are waiting here at the front door like they'll come back any minute and just kick him and then punch him after stealing his key. In fact, I've been digging in searchof Ren from the red house for quite some time. A while ago they tended to have a lot more flavor, for example, they soon send you after a warrior who went crazy and hid along with his soldiers in a cave.

This cave is called leche, I don't know what kind of This is a bad joke, but I had a hard time trying to memorize all the ridiculous foreign names in this game when I looked up a lissander Liam, Arvin Vaughn's house, real adelio that shouldn't Being confused with Arlen Van Shine hurt and you have the audacity to throw milk. He looks at me like we can't just call these places cheese, cloth and sweet bread, but anyway you find out from the Lord's crazy father that his son went crazy when a crazy man took his daughter in a tower.

I'm not kidding. This guy has created four test tube daughters from his own DNA and it is implied that he fucks them in the Reg. What the hell Bethesda? he goes on to say. Oh, like a kidnapped girl, yeah, I don't know, she's probably here somewhere, dude. You know, good luck, you find her and then you have her follow you and then you go and tell the Mad Lord that his daughters don't go out anymore and Craster's Fun House and then you come back to get the news that a fortress has been built , now this is where I discovered that the house was red and the quests really started to get bogged down as your fortresses were built.

You must begin to gain the support of other counselors to become a house parent and then eventually a house counselor. This means running back and forth from one mansion to another. Going through this godforsaken shell of a fungus that looks like a dead crab, the quests are not at all interesting and don't take much time. There's a lot to complete anyway after that, it's just sleeping until your fortress is ready to go and then you have to go back to improving the strength and getting more support. It's not fun and I probably wouldn't care as much if it didn't.

It seems like it's all about you going from one place saying "hello, I'm here" and then coming back to report that everything is fine, God I hate these narrow bridges. A particularly fun part of this whole endeavor is the part where you go visit your fortress. to see what else could use some work and this guy is like it's a sausage fest around here we need women so your options are to ask for women to join your fortress and marry your men or go buy slaves like If you couldn't make this up right. I guess you can do it, and Bethesda sure did.

I just thought it was funny going from citizen to citizen. I need handcuffs for strength. You finally get your strength fully upgraded with women and the last one who resists the advice is a guy called miner, first milk, now miner. Anyway, miners like the NAT guy can't support you, which of the councilors finds strange, so he sends you to find out if he's under the influence of Tell Vani, and sure enough, another daughter has been kidnapped. I think we're starting to reach a dead end in terms. You're looking for creativity at this point, but either way you eventually become a member of the council and your last task is to take the archmaster's place by defeating him in a duel to the death, as is tradition to replace almost all of the guild masters until now in this game.

Oh, okay, let's pause to go over what I haven't joined or completed yet: there's the Mage Guild, obviously, the Imperial Cult, the Court Temple, the Imperial Legion, and the main questline for the swords. I'm sure I'm probably missing something here. but I'd be lying if I said I'm not eager to jump into the main questline at this point. I have met Vardhan and I am quite attracted to other guilds that I have covered and I am very curious to meet him. the ever-looming Ghost Gate and learning what Morrowind is all about definitely seems like a game that needs to be played with multiple characters to cover all the houses and that's fine and all, but I can feel myself starting to burn out at this point.

As cool as I'm sure the Mage Guild is, I think it's best left for another day with another character and another game, so while I'm sure it'll be blasphemy to some of you, I'm going to give up on Imperial. call and the wizard guild and move on to the court temple and the Imperial Legion. I decided to go to the temple missions first. The court temple has been a pretty big part of the game without me being directly involved, so I figured it was time to get religious. as I try to join your first envoy on a pilgrimage to visit the Seven Shrines across the land, presenting a unique offering to each of them or undergoing a unique test, I actually really like this because, as I have emphasized, I think that The setting of this game is easily its best feature and an even better ghost gate is mentioned as part of this pilgrimage so at least I can dip my toes into whatever it is, everything was fine until I got to the sanctuary that allows you to float for a wicked.

How long do I wonder how high I can go? Will this last forever? I keep going up, yeah, can I just check the map like this? Oh, um, I'm going through the Ghost Gate, oh God, okay, that's not it, what's going on? ah, I'm going to die, I'm going to run into something I want to be here, let me fall, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here, don't let me down, let me down, let me down, let me down I was let down, this was easily the thing most anxious I've ever been in a horror game and there's really no reason for it because there was nothing that could go that far, but seriously, the pilgrimage is awesome, it gives you some awesome powers that basically shows you what Lord is all about.

Vivec. The part where you drown to reveal a path to a friendly but jaded dream aura is hilarious because the guy is basically there for the pilgrims to show up and give him the silver swords they are. in the chest next to him like they are the special ones to do it, guys basically a Disney worker, anyway after you go through all the shrines you start working as a member of the temple, this includes curing a racist or a COO, worshiping sheogorath, taunting a Daedra until he threatens to rape your corpse, gently solving three riddles posed by several adren axes, chopping down a necromancer, turning into a belmont and slaying a pack of vampires, making a vow of silence as you travel north and recover many lost relics, not all missions in the temples are unfortunately interesting, there are many that are of the same type of cure.

This person brings you supplies. He kills these evildoers. Still, I can say that a very large part of it kept my attention span for much longer and turned me on incredibly. In a way that many of the other factions haven't at this point, I truly believe that the temple questline is the pinnacle of what Morrowind has to offer. Many of the powers gained from worshiping Lord Vivek feel like cheat codes that are built into the game and made me feel more and more like a demigod, but not without some wariness and trepidation that comes with Daedric temples and the ghost fence It's a good balance between being worried about something attacking me in an ash storm.

From the beginning of the game to laughing in the face of most of the enemies I encounter and yet somehow still being very nervous in the hellish landscape of Red Mountain, more of the mystery of this intimidating giant fence is revealed as you You progress through this quest line which reveals that he is there to keep the plague of the Ash and Vampire army from the Earth of Gotha at bay, you are eventually given an audience with the art cannon who tells you that you will be his replacement, but first they give you one more pilgrimage to Continue, they send you to visit the Daedric shrines and you read them a nice poem.

Some of them require additional offerings, but they're all pretty standard Daedric shrines, plus uh, well, alpha shell gore, although they're not as crazy as Oblivion's Shivering Isles shrine yet. has some pretty silly things that happen after you finish, they send you to one more place to get a nice eben-emael. When you return, you are told to keep the armor and that you are now the new patriarch of the I enjoyed almost every facet of this faction immensely. It was a very interesting journey of exploring and learning about what makes Lord the Vex so special and Morrowind as a whole.

The way culturally it is to end my tour of the faction. I enlisted in the Imperial Legion. The bar was set pretty high for me personally after the court temple quests, but I tried not to get my hopes up too much when you first joined your immediate dispatch to take title to a woman whose husband broke her in the egg mines, that's it, uh. Well, it's definitely an interesting start just because it makes the Legion look like many natives tend to paint them as if they are basically a foreign nation that is imposing the will of the Empire on a very cultural and spiritual people, so go try to get this one back. writing and the widow tells you that she believes a legion soldier killed her husband.

This is an interesting crossroads because I could have stolen the deed, but I could also uncover the situation I initially thought of with the same way I was ordered to recover the deed no matter the cost, my commanding officer wouldn't care about this foul play, but it turns out that he ordered the guy to be executed, which I already did and decided to abandon the investigation on the land. Amassing this initial mission paints the character of the Imperial Legion as a well-intentioned group that tries to fairly and equally beat everyone, but always puts the Empire first, if push comes to shove, they are on shaky diplomatic grounds with a foreign nation. and are trying to preserve the peace while working to help the Empire after this, your missions tend to return to rescuing this person and escorting them to a security scenario that you have witnessed thousands of times before, but that also involves you as an investigator internal while trying to find out why some of the members of the Legion are practicing the worship of Tiber Septim in secret, it is a bit strange because that practice is totally allowed within the Imperial Legion, so the secrecy is worrying, indeed, this dingus decided Don't Burn the note that told him to burn it and also told him that they were going to try to kill Uriel Septim.

Side note here. You must wear the armor given to you at all times when interacting with Legion officers. It definitely hindered me at least to some extent because the armor they give you is garbage compared to the ebony I've been sporting at this stage of the game. The next order I got is funny because you go from doing generally productive things for the Legion to this he was talking about, he said we don't have any courtesy, go show him we have courtesy, yeah, okay, nevermind, let's go back to killing a traitor. in a cave somewhere, wait, someone is slandering us, so yeah, this quest giver for the Legion is super different. from the first he ignores it, which may have a lot to do with defending his honor, but it's just a very strange break between helping the Legion with rescuing people and driving out the cultists and putting people in their place because they said some bad words. about the Empire as time went on I started to realize that the Imperial Legion and Vardhan Fel don't seem to know much what they're doing, but they apparently pretend they do at all times, at least that's how I interpreted it in that façade initial. of them as do-gooders in a foreign land seemed to dissipate as more and more incompetence shines through in more than a quarter of their missions, our rescue missions and the stakes don't tend to rise too much after progressing with those who give the mission in final order.

For the one who gives a mission in mathematics is to recover a glove that one of the Legion soldiers gave to a floating Armiger, who is a soldier who serves in the temple of the court and Lord Vivec, the mission is as easy as entering a cave and say: Can I? Having that gauntlet back basically the Imperial Legion sees both the computer, the boy and Armiger as rivals and they are very concerned with appearing to be the best of the three to the rest of the public so they can indoctrinate Mauro. and easier, this makes the rest of the orders you receive a mix of mundane and childish, as you are sent to make the Legion look like heroes to the public by shutting other people up and dealing with small threats faster than they can. local military forces.

It's a far cry from the initial thrill of getting caught up in moral conflicts or investigating an internal betrayal, even the final missions seemed to paint the Legion as incompetent when they tell you that a very important armor was stolen right beneath them in the same building in the What you find when you go to investigate is a hidden exit that leads to a cave where the guy is sitting still in the armor. I don't understand why he thought the best place to hide was 200 feet from the crime, but I guesswhich has the same merit as a hidden entrance in the stone that no one in the fortress knew about besides him, so you hand this super important armor back to the guy and he just puts it on and says, "here's my." man, have fun and then he tells you, okay, you can have the best rank in the Legion, but first you have to get me a legendary sword that is guarded by a witch, so I do that too and he says cool, cool, you're practically the best. rank now oh, you want my position too much, I mean, you have to fight me to the death, so it seems pretty smart to duel the guy who just got you the legendary equipment, but yeah, sure your funeral, what a bunch of nonsense is the content of this quest line.

It wasn't the worst thing in the world. I wasn't super bored or anything, but man, talk about a lame group of people. One more thing before we finally move on to the main mission. I feel like I probably didn't. Give the Thieves Guild a good shake. I've done some research and many of the Thieves Guild's goals sound particularly interesting, such as helping the poor by stealing, creating a centurion spider from scrap metal, and ending the corruption of several high-ups. high ranking members of various factions there is quite a bit of intertwining between the thieves guild quests and others I have completed for the fighters guild and the morag tong so I really got the other side of the coin for some of these quests.

Damn shame because these motifs sound fascinating and I would have loved to be able to put aside my disdain for how stealth theft and other aspects of the Thieves' Guild work. I feel like in a more modern, polished game these missions would have been really good, but it's hard to justify spending the time reviewing these objectives when the

mechanics

built around them are so flawed in my opinion. I just want you to know that while I may have been a little hasty in my judgment earlier, I still stand behind the fact that I would have been left with a very bitter taste in my mouth from the game despite the stories that were told and since that's out of the way, let's finish this, so after coming back like a year later.

Because you decided to follow Caius' advice and gain some experience, the shirtless boy is still at home waiting for you to bring him information about the sixth house and the nerevarine after doing a few laps around the Dwemer runes for this box of God-forsaken puzzle he learned. that the sixth house was a group that betrayed the rest of the houses and was apparently completely dismantled by murdering most of its members in absorbing the rest after this I took a nap because I did some training and had risen from level as this happened my screen went black and it was not the traditional black of the game.

Locking the diary gives you a better picture as it tells of a man in a gold mask chanting these words among a crowd of frozen people not breathing when you tell Caius about this dream. He tells you to keep it to yourself because the temple would lock me up for being a prophet, a witch, or just plain crazy. Little does he know that I am the temple. On top of this, some random people started approaching me and thanking me. for saving them from their dreams and then walked away while demonically singing about the 6th house, which I mean, it confused the hell out of me after doing some research, apparently some of the quests I did intersected with this part of the quest line meaning major. that I missed a bit of dialogue and explanation about what's going on here, which, let's be honest, is a bit up there, this is an increasingly frustrating facet of Morrowind as a game that has been bothering me more and more if there were ignored many things.

Of the side stuff I would have had more dialogue and less of the main quest, but since I went and played the game I wanted, now I'm punished for it. I'm all about being able to do what I want when I want. I want to and I agree that if I started stumbling across various Daedra runes and fighting the Lords within, I would be sabotaging my own game, but it seems downright silly to have the game's side quests intersect with the main quests, it was already enough It's annoying when faction quests overlap with other faction quests, but this is a bad decision for me anyway.

Next, we find out a little about the Nerevarine cult, a very small group of Ashlenders who condemned the temple for worshiping false gods and instead chose to believe in a mortal hero who once fought to unite the Dunmer against all evil. false gods and threats to the land. They believed that the legendary hero Naira VAR will be reincarnated once again to unite all the natives and purge all foreigners from the lands of Marwin. The problem here is that so much time has passed that there are many conflicting reports about what exactly Nerevar represented and that the Nura Vareen cult seems to think that their will is to suppress each and every Outlander, which leads them to constantly clash with other factions, which I am Now the leader of the court temple constantly seeks out and crusades against this comparatively tiny faction that raises quite a few red flags.

If the temple has nothing to fear, why would they bother going after this small sect of Ash-lenders with such impunity that it's worth noting here? If you haven't realized that the main plot of Morrowind is very complicated for someone who hasn't been exposed to it, it's not as simple as the gates of hell opening and then you have to defeat the bad guy who is creating them. There are many things. of internal struggles that you have to work through to get to that point of oh, okay, here's the bad guy, let's kill him. It's an interesting contrast to Oblivion's plot because the threat is extremely clear from the beginning and infighting and politics are prevalent because of the portals. openness around cyrodiil as opposed to the deep-rooted disdain many of the factions in Morrowind have for each other before anything major happens.

The main takeaway here for anyone who may have found Morrowind boring in comparison is that there is a lot of research to be done. fact and a lot of reading is necessary to fully understand the elements at play here. Hell, I'm sure I'm missing a lot at this point, but I'm not going to weigh in on whether this is a good thing or not. something bad because it's really just a personal taste. I could totally understand why someone would see Skyrim or Oblivion as the better game than Marlin, but I could also totally understand why avid Morrowind players would be unhappy with later releases anyway.

I'll try to keep plot details to a minimum so that this doesn't become a dissection of the game's story elements, as fascinating as it is. I could probably go on for at least ten minutes covering the various relationships between these groups, so let's get back to it. I continued to dream these strange visions of seemingly being resurrected as I continued my information gathering. It is noted that almost all of Ashe's lenders feel that the foreigners should abandon their lands or at least leave them alone, but even the average Ashe Lander feels quite skeptical about this. The prophecies that the Nerevarian pushes, all of this leads Gaius to let you know that the Emperor is sure that you are the reincarnation of Lourdes narrate var and that you, as a potential Nerevarin, must go be tested to see if this prophecy is true or not once.

You become friendlier and pass some tests with the Ursula Ku clan. They tell you that you can't be the new reverent, but that you can become it. Still, the main problem is that much of the information has been passed on to the wise. The women of these tribes are fractured or lost. The Aku Land itself repeatedly tells you that it only knows certain elements and that you must go and discover more about these lost prophecies. It seems a little silly to believe so much in a series of prophecies that you only know parts of, but who am I to judge?

Returning to Caius with this information, he directs you to the base of a sixth house that must be annihilated when you meet Minister Dag in Garris at the end of the cave system. he tells you that De Gotha has returned and that he basically forgives you. De Gotha knows that you are the incarnation of Lourdes, VAR narrates and explains that you and him used to be very close friends and that he was your faithful servant before you betrayed and killed him. While guarding your treasure, he now invites you to join him again, explaining that he has left the past behind and will give you immense power as the two of you can reign once again and spread the plague across the continent.

I would have loved it. I have had the option to join Agathor and do not need to fight Dag Garris at this time. I wouldn't have accepted that offer, but you really have no choice since Garris attacks you anyway after your talk about defeating the goth Garris. you contract the body's disease, which appears to be incurable by traditional means, so you are sent back to the crazy wizard from before, here you are, basically suppressing all the symptoms, you are still infected, but you experience no negative effects of the disease and now you actually are. immune to all other diseases and aging, the aging part is mentioned very casually, as if, furthermore, you don't age now.

An interesting part of this quest is that you actually meet a dwarf who refers to himself as the last living dwarf of them all. of Tamriel, when you return to Caius, he basically gives you his position and tells you that he has been called back to the Empire. He tells you to keep figuring this whole situation out and not to worry about the imperial city because everything will go to hell when Uriel Septim dies soon. It's quite interesting how accurate he is with that assessment given the forgetting events. After this, you return to the search for information that eventually leads you to the dissident priests of the temple.

These priests question the direction in which the court temple is located. has been proceeding and believes that the biggest threat here should be repelling Dagoth, you are not hunting the Nerevarins, this has unfortunately led to them hiding from the temple as they are hunted for clashing with the temple hierarchy here after they send you to a sanctuary that is ignored by the goddess Asura called the cavern of the Incarnates, it is here where Zira explains to you out loud what to do, like very loudly, how to scare me very much, very good, okay, look, there is too much story, I don't want to say for me, but for this. video, what am I the body equivalent of Morrowind?

Let's break down the rest of this super quick. Some time ago there was a great war between the dwarves and the elves of Morrowind. This war occurred because the dwarves were trying to use a very powerful artifact. Filled with divine energy to basically create a mechanical God, Nirav, they joined their people and launched an all-out assault on the gates that ended with them being completely wiped out as a race. It is speculated that they could have used the power of the artifacts and destroyed them. themselves or moved off-planet in the end, the tools the dwarves invented to harness the power of the artifacts were left behind and a huge debate broke out over what to do with them, as Arthur was immortal at the time and they were in fact friends. with Navarre and suggested that the tools be destroyed due to the suggestion that NER 'var entrusted Dag Arthur to protect the tools while they debated what to do with them when they returned.

De Gotha refused to hand them over because he had become curious and absorbed some of the divine power into himself, the end result leaving Agatha dead and Nirav severely injured, who died shortly after. There are somewhat conflicting views on how Nirav ended up dead, many said that he was wounded during the battle and was finished off by his lieutenants with poison, the narrow vars, the remaining lieutenants gained power from the artifact and became gods themselves, creating the court temple as a religion for people to worship them and causing the Wrath of Asura to basically transform the elves of Morrowind into dark elves which the new gods then set out to cover. the truth of what happened when he rejected the old gods and spread his new religion to the rest of tomorrow.

This is the best I can do for a summary and even then it could be wrong. You see, Bethesda wasn't sure what. what they wanted to do with the story at this point and because of that there was no definitive version of it, each group, tribe and faction seemed to have their own version of events and everything is painted in a very murky way. I actually enjoyed this. plots a lot because it reflects that ancient idea of ​​the winners of wars, the correct history, it is a drastic journey of madness after madness in which I started out believing one thing and learning about the beliefs of the temple through my pilgrimage, but I ended up discovering information that had led me to change my perspective with each new piece, so let's get back to the game.

What have I been doing? Searching for information. It's very clear that Bethesda wanted to tell her story here and for good reason, it'sa pretty good read. In fact, I found myself. More interested in trying to find the answers and understand the plot than actually wanting to complete the objectives at this point isn't necessarily a bad thing. I was just having a lot more fun trying to interpret everything than going to the end of a tomb. grab a bow and then leave, although the game throws you the odd curveball or two, like going to buy a slave to become this guy's wife so he'll call you a Nerevarin or murdering half of this tribe so the other half Call you Nerevarine after your encounter with Lord Vivec, he gives Wraith Guard a glove capable of wielding two powerful tools to destroy the divine artifact from before called the Heart of Lorkhan.

He also proclaims that the temple will no longer hunt down the nerevarine cult and will allow the dissident priests who were exiled to return, your next task is to find these tools called rupture and lament and then reach the final showdown with dag. Another interesting side note here, you can actually kill Vivec, it's a difficult fight, but if you do, the game tells you that you have cut the thread of destiny and that you must reload an old save or continue in a doomed world, but that's not technically true because Vivec has an artifact on his body that the spider dwarf can figure out how to discover. use it and turn it into a rigged version of the Wraith Guard Gauntlet, there are no further consequences to the game's story beyond this, which is pretty strange, but it's still something you can choose to do if you want, so off you go to Red Mountain for one last crusade.

First recovering from Sunder and then regretting it. I'm not one to complain about short dungeons and quests, but the final quest is surprisingly short. Sure there are some optional things you can do to gather more powerful gear, but if you go straight to the main page. goals, it takes 25-30 minutes tops when you finally make it out as he calls you to his room, you have a little chat with him, the wrathful God asks your motives before you ask him his, he claims to be the indicated. that he will drive out all the Outsiders, create a nation of divine beings, and eventually take over all of Tamriel after Morrowind becomes his beacon of divine justice.

He also intends to finish what the Dwemer started by completing the giant bronze god they tried to build for so many years. What's funny is that Dag Arthur tells you several times that you are the challenger and that you will be allowed to have the first hit, but he doesn't allow you to do so. As soon as you finish talking, he starts casting spells. immediately luckily he isn't unfortunately he certainly is when you exit the doors leading to the heart after running away from him and smoking the heart he is vulnerable again and easily dispatched honestly the fight with vivec was 20 times harder, but I appreciate the idea.

Behind this fight, I just wish the heart didn't take so long to take out, it would make more sense if the goth kept attacking again or if enemies constantly spawned around the heart, but yeah, that's not the case, either way, the heart . destroyed and Nazira floats down to give you a ring thank you for the help almighty goddess when you climb back outside, the fiery red ash storm is gone and you are greeted with clear skies over Red Mountain, the ghost gate deactivates and the corridors from the cliff you are free to attack yourself as always.

I'll be honest with you. I really didn't think I would like Morrowind as much as I did when I was a kid. I remember being fascinated by the amount of things you could do because it was the first game I played. It was, but delving into it again after so many years of improvements to various system mechanics and general quality of life changes has made me resent a lot. of its obviously older and clumsier design choices. There were so many things that made me wrinkle my head. I nose and roll my eyes because I couldn't ignore them.

The town of Vivec remains a horribly designed main hub which made me relieved to return to the brown and boring looking Balmorra. Movement is incredibly slow at the beginning of the game only gets a little better when you get to the end, combat is a series of glitches until you finally manage to level up with a war axe, and the stealth mechanics are ridiculously non-existent for most of it. of the game and you don't feel it. It's rewarding to practice taunting until someone attacks you. The concept is a horrible chore that makes me want to take the punishment for attacking someone directly, but even then it will result in expulsion from a particular faction most of the time.

Many missions are repeats of others, and I mean, many missions are repeats of others and some even send you to the same places you've been before, while every cliff runner in a five-mile raid heads to your location. , some quests even intersect with others in such a way that it breaks up different quest lines even outside of the fighters and thieves guild quests, but at the same time the Morrowind setting is absolutely my favorite to explore in every Elder Scrolls game. . I would say it is mysterious, misty and full of ash. storms and has this daunting final area that you can go to right away if you're feeling brave.

It actually gave me the same feeling of dread and unease that I had in Final Fantasy 6 when I was hunting death, look at the power-ups you get in the The trials you go through for the tribunal temple were a lot of fun. Engaging with the idea that you can be your own person and do things the way you want is always present and encourages you to try different routes and other ways to play. and the sheer amount of narration is crazy in a good way because it made me care about the game in a way I didn't think I was capable of.

Anyone who's followed my videos for a while probably notices that I rarely, if ever, dive in that deep. deep into the history of a game like the one I have with Morrowind. In fact, I surprised myself with how invested I am in the plots of this game. I can tell you right now that before undertaking this endeavor I had almost no interest in good. impression of the seemingly endless lore of the Elder Scrolls. I have to praise a game for making me care about what's going on in the background so Morrowind is as good as I remember it, yes and no it's not as good as I remember it mechanically because those old men took the nostalgia glasses off my eyes almost immediately with very dated mechanics, but from an exploration and story perspective, it's some of the most fun I've had in an Elder Scrolls game the way you forge your destiny as nura Vereen, whether you believe or It's not like you're him or just a cool guy who's in the right place at the right time.

It's a really fun way to add your flavor and play your way. It's not for everyone. I am very aware of that hell. I would say that on a day when I feel like turning my mind off and having a little fun and killing things and doing whatever that tomorrow is, it's a horrible choice for that, but I respect him tremendously for what was accomplished during his time and I can I can easily say I'm a bigger fan of the game than ever and that's it, thanks for watching this has easily been the most discouraging video for me.

I honestly had a lot more fun than I thought I would if you like. catch me between this video and the next. I rarely stream on Twitch beyond that. I have a Twitter that I use sometimes on Discord where you can relax and chat about things if you want to have a good conversation.