Morrowind Review

Gameplay - General
This is the hardest part to do in this review. Because Morrowind is so open, you can play the game in numerous ways. You not only create a character, you also generate - in your own mind - his background. If you just want to live in Vvardenfell - fine, do it. If you want to follow the plot - do it. If you want to be the badass and kill all things living - do it. You can do whatever you want, and so gameplay will be different for every gamer in some way. With some classes and characters, live is harder, with some it is easier. Not everything is as balanced as you would wish (hand to hand combat is one of the weaker points in Morrowind, since playing a monk with no other combat style will be frustrating, even at higher levels), but most gameplay aspects are well done and encourage roleplaying. If you are going for a standard character (warrior, mage or thief), you can't go wrong.

The open gameplay may be a problem for the casual roleplayer - there are little directions to follow when you leave the main storyline, and since you can go everywhere every time, it is up to you to make decisions. If you are used to games like Diablo or Dungeon Siege, where you had to go from A to B with little distractions, Morrowind will be a whole new experience for you. Even Baldur's Gate looks fairly linear compared to this game.

Some people complain that walking is rather slow, and they end up running all the time, as long as their fatigue allows it. I can see that this may be a nuisance to some, but personally, I like the fact that some things in Morrowind are slow. Actually, when I have no agenda, I prefer to walk. I always hated that everybody in Dark Age of Camelot was running like some corporate fool on his quest for a career. And running was ON by default in DaoC - yiiek!

Generally speaking, there are five things for you to do in Morrowind: Combat, Magic, Stealth, Questing and taking care of your finances. Apart from that, the most important thing during gameplay is to get to know the island, regarding geography and lore. If you allow yourself to read the books found in the game and to listen to the tales, you find a detailed background with lots of info for your game. Of course it is not important to read a book about elven proverbs, but it is fun, and only doing the important things is a sickness of our times - not one in Vvardenfell :-).

Now, let's have a closer look at some of the aspects of gameplay.

Gameplay - Combat
There are two ways to handle your combat: by hand or automated. Each weapon has three different styles of attack - the automated combat version always chooses the one that does most damage. I found this very convenient, since the attack methods are based on your movement during the attack, not too easy to learn and sometimes a little frustrating.

Apart from conventional attacks with swords, spears, axes, daggers and blunt weapons, you can attack your foes with ranged weapons like bows and thrown knives. This is a separate skill, and once you got it up higher, it's a convenient way to fight.

Hand to hand combat doesn't actually damage the health of the opponent, it damages fatigue until he becomes unconscious. After that, you start to hurt him. Hand to hand combat is a little bit flawed, since even with your skill at 100, it's the weakest method of fighting. I would not advise you to make a character based on that attack style alone (although you can wear enchanted gloves that do additional damage).

There's a large variety of weapons in Morrowind, and since weapons and ammunition can be enchanted, the diversity is nearly endless. Just to give you some examples: you can enchant your weapon with a spell that transfers health to you, poison it, make it paralyzing, you can add fire damage, make the opponent blind, silence him - you name it, you can do it.

Your opponents have various methods of responding: melee attack as well as magic. What they use for defending (swords and armor) can be looted from their bodies after you killed them. Generally speaking: the better the armor of melee oriented NPC looks, the harder they are to overcome (but there are unpleasant surprises in the game, like outcasts with weak armor and deadly weapon skills).

All in all, combat is done in a convenient, but not brilliant way. Once you reach level 30, there isn't much to withstand your attacks if you play a fighter type, but still magic users can harm you. If you are in for exciting fights, there are better games for that alone.

There are three kinds of armor in the game as well: light, medium and heavy. Heavy armor lets you get tired faster, but offers better protection. Light armor is rather weak, but doesn't slow you down a lot. These armors come in different qualities and different looks, and hunting for cool looking pieces is quite some fun.

Weapons and armor degrade when used, and you would be wise to repair them yourself (a skill) or let them repair by certain vendors. Worn armor gives less protection, worn weapons do less damage.

Gameplay - Magic
Magic is something where Morrowind really shines, where it outperforms any other RPG - big time. There are several schools of magic, and even the casual warrior can at least use basic spells (and more complex ones when he starts to train these skills). There are different spell animations, there are different spell sounds, and not only do you get to buy spells from NPCs or find scrolls or enchanted items that carry them, you are even allowed to make them yourself, combine different spells from different schools in different strengths - you get the point. For an example: in the spell maker at the mages' guild, combine a jump spell (pushes your jump ability to 200 for 5 seconds) with featherfall for 30 seconds, and you gain the ability to jump on top of houses or across mountains. This can be handy for people with marksman skill, since these are places where your opponents can't reach you and you can take them out. Or combine invisibility with unlock door - a very useful spell for thieves. The only limit is your imagination - and of course you can unbalance the game with strong deadly spells (if you have enough money, you may create a fireball that wipes out complete villages.

There are lots of magical items in the game, and you can make them by yourself with the enchant skill. Nice things are robes of healing or enchanted swords, and if you are a powerful enchanter, you may even add permanent effects to items (like raise intelligence for ten points). In order to enchant items, you will have to use soul gems. Soul gems trap the soul of killed creatures which then is used to create or reload enchanted items. To catch a soul in the gem, you have to use the spell called "soul trap" and kill the creature within a certain amount of time thereafter. The stronger the creature, the stronger the soul, and soulgems come in different qualities, too.

You can even let items enchant for you in guilds, but strong enchantments have unbelievable prices (tens of thousands of gold), and you will see that this means that you can't afford them due to some economy restrictions in the game we will talk about later on.

The third kind of "magic" in the game is alchemy, once again a skill. It lets you combine ingredients to make potions with spell-like effects. Each ingredient in the game has four effects, of which you know zero with low alchemy skills and two if you start with an alchemy specialization. In order to create potions, you have to have at least two matching effects on two different ingredients, and the quality of your potion depends on your skill and the quality of the apparatus you are using (you need four of them). Alchemy can be a good source of income, and in order to get the necessary ingredients, you have to visit places all over Vvardenfell - so it is fun to play an alchemist, at least in the latter stages of the game.

Gameplay - Stealth
In order to become a successful thief, you need stealth and security as skills. Stealth lets you move unseen in the back of your target (giving you the chance to pickpocket or to do a damaging (4x) attack). Security is the skill needed to open locks and disarm traps. Security is slightly unbalanced since once you reached a skill of 50, there's no need to improve it further, since you can add another 50 points with relatively cheap spells. To unlock a lock or disarm a trap you need a lockpick and a probe (again coming in different qualities, and they are used up after a certain amount of attempts). Security is a useful skill for every character, since you'll find locked chests almost everywhere in caves and tombs.

Thievery in Morrowind is fun. But if you get caught, the punishment can be severe. Picking a lock is relatively cheap, but attacking a person that didn't attack you first will get you in jail if you can't pay the high fine, where random skills will be reduced. So, playing a thief or assassin requires strong nerves.

Gameplay - Questing
There are quests galore in Morrowind. You can either get them from normal people or from guilds and factions. They range from simple delivery quests (which DO make sense in Morrowind, since they will introduce you to new places) to complex quests with several twists. Faction quests help you to gain ranks in the faction you are working for (many different factions can be found in the game, and while you can join some of them simultaneously, some are enemies and need you to harm the other faction), and you will get pretty nice rewards for doing these promotional quests. They start out easy on the first guild levels, but the higher you get, the harder they become, and they sometimes force you to make moral decisions. There's even a faction that will build a stronghold for you when you are at high faction level, and this is indeed a nice reward.

During quests, you will enter dungeons (300+ are said to be in Morrowind) and tombs, travel to distant cities and escort people from A to B. The largest Dungeons I have seen so far can be completed in less than 20 minutes, and from looking at the editor files I can safely say that there are no massive dungeons like a complete level of Ultima Underworld. This is something I miss, but I am sure that some folks with the construction kit will add them to the game.

I haven't found a boring or silly quest so far, and they all add to the atmosphere of the game.

Gameplay - Economy
The economy is a weak point in Morrowind's shining reputation: Vendors simply don't have enough money to buy the expensive stuff from you. I am sure this was done to keep gameplay balanced, but finding a helmet worth 8000 gold and not being able to sell it for that price simply sucks for atmospheric reasons. On the other hand, enchanting items with magic in the mages guild costs insane amounts of money, while enchanted items you find sell for a bargain. This is one area of the game that could have been done way better - but as I said, this doesn't really spoil the game because it has been done to balance it, not to ruin it, and it clearly helps balancing the game. Nevertheless - it's a flaw.

Gameplay - Storyline
The storyline of Morrowind is very interesting and I find it worthwhile to follow it from time to time. However, you are not forced to do so - you can stop doing the main storyline quests at any time and follow your own agenda. Of course I won't spoil you here, but let me say one thing: once you have done some quests in the main plot, some things you hear in the streets will suddenly make sense - and you will discover that Morrowind can be really spooky.

Gameplay - NPCs
As I mentioned before, there are more than 3000 NPCs in the game. They react according to your faction, your fame and your race. Some will refuse to talk with you and some will be a source of good information. None of the NPCs in the game has an agenda. You will find them in or around their places all the time, be it day or night. This isn't really realistic, and having NPCs with agendas would have added to the atmosphere of the game - but for gameplay reasons and maybe for performance reasons the decision is understandable.

Greetings and fight taunts are recorded, most of the dialog isn't. This is due to the huge amount of text in the game, and recording all of that would have been way too expensive (I know what I am talking about. I have recorded 1000+ commercials myself). Sometimes the initial reaction and the things people tell you do not fit, but this is very rare indeed.

The NPCs are animated using skeletal animation, they are dressed differently and have some nice idle animations and idle sounds as well. Walking through a town and seeing the passers-by is a nice view - only when they are far away and some animation cycles are skipped for performance reasons, they tend to look a little stiff. But get close, and you know why there are 5000+ polygons per NPC - they are very detailed and realistic.

Conversation is done using a hyperlink tree, and navigation through the topics is relatively easy. If attacked, NPCs react according to their class - so don't mess around with the guys in the mage's guild early on, they will instantly kill you :-)

Overall, NPCs are nicely done, although they don't have personalities, at least not many of them.

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