Morrowind, blast from the past, yeah Options

[unitself]

Have any of you played and/or finished Morrowind?
I bought it years ago, never got very far, got frustrated and put it away. Well, I took it out over the weekend and made a new character and started over. I am only a few hours into it so I have only completed a few Fighter's Guild quests. I am on "Find me a Code Book" quest for them right now.
Basically, does anyone have any pointers?
1) Is there a good way to spend money on weapons and armour? Does a weapon type have an advantage over another?
2) Is there a way that I can find out what herbs and animal parts do what? For example - What is Rat Meat useful for or what does Moon Sugar do? And how does my character find out?
3) Is it better do join a guild and do all of their quests, then join another guild and then do all of thier quests, repeat, repeat... or roam around and pick up quests along my travels? I am curious because during my last game, I FREQUENTLY got caught by much stronger opponents when I just roamed the roads.

Anyways... any tips?

[HC82]

It's good to stick to the main quests in the main town, jumping from each person back and forth. The fighter guild and thieves guild don't get along with each other, so as you progress in one, you can't fully complete the other.

Buy... weapons and Armor???
Stealing is the shizzle in that game, why buy stuff when you can steal it? Just don't EVER get caught. Save your game and make sure you're out of sight. Learn to increase your sneak if you're melee. The fastest way to do it is to pay trainers to increase your sneak, then once you get it up to a high level, you can just level it up by sneaking behind people back and forth. The sneak icon will change colors to let you know if you are or aren't being seen. You can only level it up if your behind someone and they DON'T sense you. You can be fairly far away and still be considered sneaking. Different trainers are more or less skilled in certain areas and can train you up higher then other trainers in certain areas.

You can get the same "sneaking" affect by using spells that make you go invisible, so even a mage can be a killer thief. Some of them break free when you do something, others stay on you regardless, so you want the one's that don't break free. You can also use telekenesis to steal from a distance. You need to be a fairly good mage to get the better versions of the spells to steal well.

Whenever you level-up, your stats increase depening on what skills you raised up in. If you did more sneaking, then you'll get an amplifier in the stat that governs the sneaking ability(check instruction manual for the stat to skill relationship). The more skills you raise up before you go to sleep to level up, the more stat amplifiers you'll get out of the level up. You can only get a max of a 5 times amplifier to a stat per level up, but you can do this in many stats(accept luck).

The skills that you made your major will natural have a stat-giving amplifier when you level up. What does that mean? That means you'll get a naturual stat amplifier in the areas that govern the skills of your major when you gain a level up, even if you never used them. So if Long Sword is a major, you'll get a strength multiplier when you level up, even if you barely used it. Although, you must level up in your majors to gain levels.

Also, consider checking gamefaqs for further breakdowns of the game.

[Wiryu]

The best tip i can offer is can morrowind and go to fable.

[unitself]

[Crushinator]

HC basically covered it as far as stealing/skillups goes. It's a fine Elder Scrolls tradition that only chumps pay for items, stealing/pillaging is definetely the way to go.

Regarding what different ingredients do, as you level you skill in Alchemy, then your character will be able to tell what the ingredients do just by looking at them (either when you look at them in the "real world" or check them in your inventory.) When you create your character, make sure you put alchemy as one of your skills, or just pay a trainer to level you up in it, and you'll start seeing the basic effects of the ingredients. As you level up more, then you'll see additional effects for each ingredient, I think each one can have up to 3 effects, and the magnitude of the effects in your potion also depends on your alchemy skill, and the quality of tools (mortal, pestel, etc) that you use to create it.

As far as quests go, like HC said, follow the path laid out by the main storyline to a degree, till you get a feeling for what you can handle. Do quests for the guild that are in your current area, but once they start asking you to take long tours of duty, its probably a good idea to get back to the main story quests and move on a bit till you're more powerful. Also, try to choose a house and guild that are appropriate for your class. I can't remember off the top of my head which was which, but the 3 big houses you can ally with (redoran, telvanni, and something else) each focus on one area, diplomacy, warrior/combat, and magic. So make sure you talk to the representatives of the house before you join so you end up with quests that are easier for your type of character to tackle.

Another important trick is to make an anchor and warp spell as soon as you are able. If you don't have the right skills naturally, just train up Mysticism and you should be able to wing it. That way when you get a quest, set the anchor for your warp near the quest NPC, then head out to the dungeon or whatever the quest required you to do, then when you finish it, just warp back instantly. It's also good if you get into a hot situation and need to blink out in a flash, but you can also use the Intervention scrolls for that.




Did you go with a custom class, or did you just use a preset one?

I just gotta say that Morrowind was one of my favorite game experiences of all time, and definetly my favorite RPG of this last gen of games. It's great to see you're giving it another go

[DivA]

*nods* cosmic, SCU ~ this is a noteworthy series...i remember playing elder scrolls 3 awhile back, it was a good game for the time ~ though visually, i was more impressed with the pc version; the x-box, though intriguing, looked a 'lil dated...but it's the adventure that counts for something, yes? speaking of which, have you looked into elder scrolls 4 yet? that game looks seriously verified, & the visuals look absolutely stunning ~ especially the forests (ign).. hopefully the battle system would be further refined & expanded, as well as faster refresh rate; but if xbox-360 is what everyone hopes it to be, then i'm game..

[unitself]

thx alot everyone!
You guys are giving me some great info / insight into what I can do better.
btw - I am a Nord. Knowing that I am more of a hack and slash rather than a magic user type of game player, I answered the guys questions with that in mind and it worked out just fine.

and.. sneaky DivA! Slinking back in - hoping no one would notice... HA!

I have seen the pics from the new Xbox 360 version. It looks oh-my-god good. It's hard to believe the graphics and gameplay that we are going to be presented with. Just think how far all of this has come! I remember, when i was a kid, thinking that Intelevision totally blew away the 2600. HA! And now look at what we are presented with.

I thought Elder Scrolls 3 for the Xbox looked ... ok. The buildings and interiors looked great. The scenery (trees, plants, etc) looked pretty good too. The characters... hrm... not so hot and their animations seemed very clunky. I also don't like the way that people speak an introduction to you, usually slightly insulting, but then you have to read their responses to your questions which are often opposite in tone to their spoken greeting.

[HC82]

[DivA]

[unitself]

so, after a couple of weeks (re)playing Morrowind, I have descovered that I was going about it all wrong in my previous attempt. I travelled way far away and was basically getting my ass kicked where ever I was. This time, I am trying to follow the story, doing the errands for Casius (the shirtless guy), and I am having much more success. It's still fun to just hop a boat and go visit some far away island, but I have learned not to butt in.
This is still WAY premature, but did anyone ever get the add-on (GTOY)? Was it fun to fight or become a werewolf?

[Crushinator]

I just started a new Morrowind campaign myself (not entirely uninspired by your own new one, Scu ) on the GOTY edition, so although I'm not high enough level yet, I'll definetly report back when I start hitting up the expansion content.

I've already gotten a little tangled up in one of the expansion's plots when one night I was resting and I got attacked by an assasin (in awesome armor) from the Dark Brotherhood. Apparently they have it out for me, and I have to return to the mainland city of Mournhold to figure out what's up.

I decided to go a totally different route from my previous characters for this game, and so far its proving to be a great exprience. My first 2 times thru the game were as a "Dragoon", basically my morrowind take on Kain from FF2. Main focus was spears, medium armor, athletics, acrobatics (Take my HIIIIIGH JUMP), etc. My 2nd was a "Ninja" with the obvious ninja trappings, ranged weaps, short blade, stealth, acrobatics. As a dragoon I was pretty neutral and just did whatever came my way, since it was my first time through, and as a ninja i was pretty evil, stealing, killing, joining bad factions.

This time I made a Nord (female!) "Paladin" with my focus on Heavy armor (goddamn its so slow when i started ), Long Blade, Blocking (first time using a sheild effectively), Restoration, Mysticysm, Speechcraft, and Athletics. I'm also playing the game "To character" by joining the Imperial cult and legion, doing all quests in the most positive manner, sparing everyone's lives, being very religous, etc etc. It's been an awesome change of pace, and it's totally psyching me up for Oblivion

[unitself]

Last night, I was "trying" to play Morrowind and the @#$%ing game froze on at least 4 times. I have had it freeze before, but it was never really that bad and I have learned to save VERY often because of it. Last night's rash of crashes was just too much for me to bear though. The part that really pissed me off was the fact that I am looking for this person who I cannot find at all. I have searched everywhere where she is supposed to be. Well, everywhere except for in the sewers... but when I go down there I get killed. So, if she's down there... she's S.O.L. :D
I hate to cheat in video games, but with all of this game crashing crap and the fact that I can't find this lady I don't know if I can even play the game anymore. So, I am going to cheat and read where she is located and maybe I can get past this B.S.

Anyone else have this freezing problem?

[HC82]

It only froze on me once, and that's because I was playng for an insane amount of time, doing that for many days straight. Hopefully your room isn't too hot? Machines perform best in cold conditions.

[Crushinator]

If you're playing the original version of Morrowing on Xbox, unfortunately there are a lot of bugs in it where you will freeze up or get a disc read error, sometimes for no apparent reason at all. It happened to me a lot in the past, and my only advice is to save early, save often. Every time you get a new quest, save, when you complete a part of the objective, save, when you complete it, save, before you enter a dungeon, save!

Don't be afraid to make a bazillion new saves either, you'll never run outta room on the HDD. I think at one point i had like 80,000 blocks of morrowind saves and it still said "50,000+ free" in the dashboard.

I'd also like to note that on my new game on the GOTY edition I haven't had a SINGLE crash/freeze/DRE, so if you can pick it up, I'd highly recommend it. All your old saves are fully compatible with the new version, too, so you can pick up right where you're at.

Regarding the person you're looking for, did you ask the original quest giver every possible blue word associated with the quest, including the name of the person and their location? If you don't ask all the questions to the original quest NPC, sometimes they won't show up as conversation topics with other NPCs, and it won't show any relevant info in your logbook.

[unitself]

I remember reading about the original version being buggy, and that is the version I have. I was thinking about going ahead and picking up the GOTY version because it's only $20 and I am (well I was) having fun with it. The bad thing is that there are two games coming out fairly soon that I know I am going to dump Morrowind for (Fable and Shadow o/ Colossus). Over the weekend, I am going to see if I can power my way thru the game freezes, finish the quest, and move on.
I don't think my room is too hot either and I don't have any trouble with any other game so I don't think that's it. Speaking of hot, the damn PS2... You could bake brownies on that thing. Geez!
anyways...

The quest I am doing is really early on. I have to talk to three people in Vivec. That's it! The guy gave me their names and building locations, I just can't find the person who lives in St. Olms and no one helps me either. They all say, "That sneek? Oh, she's around here somewhere, but I don't know where. Go ask someone else."