- Joined
- Dec 26, 2003
- Location
- Canadia Eh
Hi, my name's Liam, and im a recovering Morrowind addict.
I decided to write this Morrowind guide for beginners because of this thread http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=259410 .
So many people seemed to have quit this AWSOME game just because of the steep learning curve, and the dauntingly large map.
So i decided to write a breif guide to this game from my memory (refreshed a bit by looking through a few maps etc).
If anyone really finds this helpful and wants more I'd be happy to reinstall the game and do a little more research for a more extensive guide. I just don'twant to waste the time if no-one's going to find it useful .
The first thing i suggest for Morrowind is deciding upon what kind of character you want. In the long run it doesnt make too much of a difference what class you choose, as the leveling is so openended you pretty much end up becoming a mixture of all classes anyways. Personally, i chose a stealth-oriented character, as i tend to prefer roleplaying a thief. Morrowind also offers some really good opportunity for doing so, so i didn't regret my choice.
What i DID regret however, is my choice of race. If you can, download a few skin mods, or choose a good looking race. I chose a wood elf. Should have chosen a Dark elf...but oh well. Dark elf i think is the best race, with a 75% resistance to fire. check out this site
http://www.gamebanshee.com/morrowind/races.php
for some info on all the races. They also have a very detailed walkthrough if you get stuck on any of the main quests.
Don't pick argonian or khajit. both are "beast" classes, and can't use boots or helmets. in the long run, you would REALLY regret this, as theres so many kikass of both out there. in the end you re left with just dark elf, wood elf, breton, redgaurd, imperial, nord, high elf, and orc
nords, redguard, and orcs make the best fighters. Bretons and high elves make the best mages, wood elves and dark elves make good thieves ( as well as archers), and imperials are pretty good all around. Dark elves are IMO the best all around. i picked an ugly wood elf for my character tho . Not that it really matters in the long run again. But when you re starting off, a bad race choice for your personality is a really bad idea. You end up wanting to do things you cant, such as running your wussy wood elf thief into a cave full of nasty undead monsters (did that a couple of times). So pick wisely. Dont worry too much about the stats, again they only really matter in the beginning. focus more in their special abilities (found in the guide on gamebanshee).
And finally, before you start, make sure to download a few key mods. A house mod is key. I find balmora ones the most useful, as you spend an unproportional amount of time in this city. Later in the game, you will be able to get a house of your own, but they re all so far away from anything.
And lastly make SURE you download a mod that will lower the aggressiveness of the wildlife. The wildlife in morrowind is rather aggressive, and will literally chase you across the entire map for no reason at all. And when you re just starting, and can be killed by just about anything (especially those pesky rats), then this mod is invaluable.
Also, you might want to find a no-cd hack. Morrowind checks to make sure your cd is still inserted, and is a valid cd, every few minutes. This can decrease performance.
Now for starting the game. After starting in the boat and giving your name, and the brief walk to the customs agency, you will be given the opportunity to create your character. You have the choice of using premade classes, or making your own.
I strongly recommend making your own class, but if you feel uncomfortable with this, then you can create your own. If you choose to use premade classes, then you will be answered a series of questions. You will be given a situation, and given three possible answers, a stealth-thief type answer, a violent-fighter type answer, and an intelligence/magic-mage type answer. Choosing different combinations of the three answer types will give you a wide array of character classes.
If you make up your own, you will be given a list of skills and attributes and asked to choose. From the long list of possible skills, you may choose 5 major skills, 5 minor skills, and the rest become misc skills. Your major skills will start at 50, while your minor skills will start off at 30. (correct me if im wrong there). As you use each of your skills, a status bar (for each) will slowly accumulate until it gets to full and you gain another point in that skill. Once you have gained 10 such points, you will gain another character level once you go to sleep. Only points gained in major and minor skills count towards gaining levels (which is why this is such an important part of character creation, as bad major/minor skill choices can drasticly change your character's level progression)
This also ties in with how your character's stats progress. Each skill has a governing attribute, for instance the athletics skill has a governing attribute of speed, while longblade skill has a governing attribute of strength, etc. . When you go to sleep, you will be given a short explanation of your characters revelations upon his newfound...i dont know what. What really matters to you is the stats it will list. You will have three points. Each point may be put towards raising a certain stat by one. Depending on the skill points you accumulated towards your current attribute, you will gain a multiplier in the governing attribute of that skill, which will help you increase your stats faster by raising them by more than one point.
For example, if you did a whole lot of fighting with your longblade, and all ten points you gained were in your longblade skill. Longblade is a strength skill, so when you go to choose your stat point placements, there will be a 5x or so multiplier next to the Strength choice. So you will gain 5 points in strength (if you put one of your point choices in strength), and 1 point in each of the other stats you choose.
once again, use gamebanshee to read up on all the different skills, as im not going to use up space here to list them all.
http://www.gamebanshee.com/morrowind/skills/combat.php
one skill you SHOULD pick however, as one of your minor skills, is acrobatics. The skill of jumping. Jump EVERYWHERE you go in morrowind. its massively useful for travelling (especially once you get good at it. at max jump skill, with not too much of a load in your inventory, you can jump absolutely massive distances, often you can hop right up the side of a mountain and down the other).
plus, having such an easy skill to level up in makes you level a whole lot faster. Also, make sure that at least one of your major skills is in a weapon class, and at least one is in an armour type. If you plan on being a mage, put a spell class or two in there too. If you plan on being a fighter, shields are always useful. If you re going to be a thief, sneak and security are musts. Mercantile or speachcraft are also good for major/minor skills. The better you are at mercantile, the better buy/sell rates you will get from merchants. And the better your speechcraft skill, the more people you meet will like you. and the more they like you, the more readily they will give up information. And if at first they dont like you, you can always flatter them with a fairly high rate of success. saves alot of money bribing officials for information for quests
now that you ve chosen all your stats, you can start the game.
you re given a mission to go to balmora. From where you start in Seyda Neen, its northeast. You can either follow the marked roadsigns, or you can go up near that giant flea shaped thing you see. Those are called stilt striders. Talk to the man/woman standing next to it and they will let you travel to different destinations for a small fee. You can travel on boats in the same way. This is the fastest mode of travel available to you if you are not part of the mages guild. As a part of the mages guild, you may also use mage guild guides that teleport you to different mages guilds scattered all over the island.
At first level, its difficult to do much of anything. Once you get to balmora, find Caius Cosades. Hes the guy ur supposed to go to. He will start you off on the main quest, as well as help you out. Try doing some of his missions in Balmora, and following his advice. He's scripted by the game-makers to help you newbies out, so listen to the man
Also, make sure you join the guilds. The thieves guild is in the South Wall Corner Club (same side of the river as Caius), while the mages guild and fighters guild are right next to each other near the stilt strider. The missions given by these guilds are also very good for beginners. Most of them are simple fed-ex missions too, so not very complicated.
If you re a fighter, you could also take the stilt strider up to Gnaar-Mok, and join the legion. The legion is VERY good for beginner fighters, offering you a wide supply of good equiptment to start off. The guild supply chests near the entrance of each guild is good too. They re always being restocked, and you can make good money off selling those goods.
If you're having trouble killing things in your weak, newbie stage, then the best approach to killing enemies is the hit and run approach. Use a bow, or another fast weapon to hit your enemy, then run away from them, using healing spells/potions you have saved in quickslots. Lure your enemy to an area load door, and go outside once you re in desperate need of healing. Rest until your hp/edurance is healed, then quicksave and go back in for another round of fighting. This approach can let you slowly kill just about any enemy in the game.
Once you re strong enough, its looting time. Buy a cheap dagger with paralyze, this thing will come in handy. Then take the strong weapon of your choice. Join the thieves guild if you havent already, then head for the trader in Balmora. Ra'Virr the trader in Balmora is my favourite kill. Hes got loads of crap in his little house, and after i kill him i tend to use that as a semi permanent residence. Hold down the sneak button, move in behind him, then backstab him with your paralyze weapon. Then switch quickly to the big guns and take him out. IF you can kill him before he can take out his big nasty axe, it makes all the difference. Make sure you saved before you do this.
Ra'Virr has some amazing weapons in his stash. Once you ve killed him, quickly run to the thieves guild and down into the basement and talk to the guy wearing the funny blue shirt. For half the price of the bounty on your head (the downside of committing crimes in morrowind), he will clear up your problems with the authorities for you.
If you could not join the thieves guild, then drop everything you have and find a guard. Talk to him, and pay off your fines with him. If you have anything on you that is stolen, it will be taken from you. If you accidently lose an item this way, then head down to your local legion depot and make your way down to the basement. Theres a locked chest named "evidence" that holds anything they've confiscated.
Once your legal troubles are all cleared up, head back to Ra'Virr's and pick up your new loot. He has several swords worth up to 9000 dollars, and lots of good equiptment for you. Go sell what you dont want to buy some equiptment for yourself, and go back to doing quests. Hint: never kill a merchant who has more than 300 or so dollars to buy items off you, or will buy all types of items. Finding merchants who will take your goods are invaluable.
Making the most of the merchants in morrowind is another large facet of the game. In Pelegiad, one of the manors (cant remember which), has a house full of orcs. If you travel up to the top, you ll find al ittle gremlin dude. He will buy anything off you for up to 500 bucks at as close to its actual buy/sell rate as you can find in the game. Just sell him some small things first. Then go to sleep for 24 hours so he replenishes his money. Then you can go back and sell him more stuff. Once you get to your big items, buy all your small items back off him until he has enough money to buy your expensive item off you. Then sleep and replinish his money and sell all your small items back.
The only better merchant in the game is the mudcrab. He's on the islands just to the east of Vivec. Hes just labeled as a regular mudcrab, so good luck finding him. I had trouble doing it myself.
That's all the information i could think of at the moment. I'm really tired and i think im gunna go to bed in a bit. If anybody else has any more info to contribute, just pm/email me and i ll stick it in here (and give you some credit for it ). Or if anybody has anything they want me to cover do the same.
Happy adventuring!
I decided to write this Morrowind guide for beginners because of this thread http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=259410 .
So many people seemed to have quit this AWSOME game just because of the steep learning curve, and the dauntingly large map.
So i decided to write a breif guide to this game from my memory (refreshed a bit by looking through a few maps etc).
If anyone really finds this helpful and wants more I'd be happy to reinstall the game and do a little more research for a more extensive guide. I just don'twant to waste the time if no-one's going to find it useful .
The first thing i suggest for Morrowind is deciding upon what kind of character you want. In the long run it doesnt make too much of a difference what class you choose, as the leveling is so openended you pretty much end up becoming a mixture of all classes anyways. Personally, i chose a stealth-oriented character, as i tend to prefer roleplaying a thief. Morrowind also offers some really good opportunity for doing so, so i didn't regret my choice.
What i DID regret however, is my choice of race. If you can, download a few skin mods, or choose a good looking race. I chose a wood elf. Should have chosen a Dark elf...but oh well. Dark elf i think is the best race, with a 75% resistance to fire. check out this site
http://www.gamebanshee.com/morrowind/races.php
for some info on all the races. They also have a very detailed walkthrough if you get stuck on any of the main quests.
Don't pick argonian or khajit. both are "beast" classes, and can't use boots or helmets. in the long run, you would REALLY regret this, as theres so many kikass of both out there. in the end you re left with just dark elf, wood elf, breton, redgaurd, imperial, nord, high elf, and orc
nords, redguard, and orcs make the best fighters. Bretons and high elves make the best mages, wood elves and dark elves make good thieves ( as well as archers), and imperials are pretty good all around. Dark elves are IMO the best all around. i picked an ugly wood elf for my character tho . Not that it really matters in the long run again. But when you re starting off, a bad race choice for your personality is a really bad idea. You end up wanting to do things you cant, such as running your wussy wood elf thief into a cave full of nasty undead monsters (did that a couple of times). So pick wisely. Dont worry too much about the stats, again they only really matter in the beginning. focus more in their special abilities (found in the guide on gamebanshee).
And finally, before you start, make sure to download a few key mods. A house mod is key. I find balmora ones the most useful, as you spend an unproportional amount of time in this city. Later in the game, you will be able to get a house of your own, but they re all so far away from anything.
And lastly make SURE you download a mod that will lower the aggressiveness of the wildlife. The wildlife in morrowind is rather aggressive, and will literally chase you across the entire map for no reason at all. And when you re just starting, and can be killed by just about anything (especially those pesky rats), then this mod is invaluable.
Also, you might want to find a no-cd hack. Morrowind checks to make sure your cd is still inserted, and is a valid cd, every few minutes. This can decrease performance.
Now for starting the game. After starting in the boat and giving your name, and the brief walk to the customs agency, you will be given the opportunity to create your character. You have the choice of using premade classes, or making your own.
I strongly recommend making your own class, but if you feel uncomfortable with this, then you can create your own. If you choose to use premade classes, then you will be answered a series of questions. You will be given a situation, and given three possible answers, a stealth-thief type answer, a violent-fighter type answer, and an intelligence/magic-mage type answer. Choosing different combinations of the three answer types will give you a wide array of character classes.
If you make up your own, you will be given a list of skills and attributes and asked to choose. From the long list of possible skills, you may choose 5 major skills, 5 minor skills, and the rest become misc skills. Your major skills will start at 50, while your minor skills will start off at 30. (correct me if im wrong there). As you use each of your skills, a status bar (for each) will slowly accumulate until it gets to full and you gain another point in that skill. Once you have gained 10 such points, you will gain another character level once you go to sleep. Only points gained in major and minor skills count towards gaining levels (which is why this is such an important part of character creation, as bad major/minor skill choices can drasticly change your character's level progression)
This also ties in with how your character's stats progress. Each skill has a governing attribute, for instance the athletics skill has a governing attribute of speed, while longblade skill has a governing attribute of strength, etc. . When you go to sleep, you will be given a short explanation of your characters revelations upon his newfound...i dont know what. What really matters to you is the stats it will list. You will have three points. Each point may be put towards raising a certain stat by one. Depending on the skill points you accumulated towards your current attribute, you will gain a multiplier in the governing attribute of that skill, which will help you increase your stats faster by raising them by more than one point.
For example, if you did a whole lot of fighting with your longblade, and all ten points you gained were in your longblade skill. Longblade is a strength skill, so when you go to choose your stat point placements, there will be a 5x or so multiplier next to the Strength choice. So you will gain 5 points in strength (if you put one of your point choices in strength), and 1 point in each of the other stats you choose.
once again, use gamebanshee to read up on all the different skills, as im not going to use up space here to list them all.
http://www.gamebanshee.com/morrowind/skills/combat.php
one skill you SHOULD pick however, as one of your minor skills, is acrobatics. The skill of jumping. Jump EVERYWHERE you go in morrowind. its massively useful for travelling (especially once you get good at it. at max jump skill, with not too much of a load in your inventory, you can jump absolutely massive distances, often you can hop right up the side of a mountain and down the other).
plus, having such an easy skill to level up in makes you level a whole lot faster. Also, make sure that at least one of your major skills is in a weapon class, and at least one is in an armour type. If you plan on being a mage, put a spell class or two in there too. If you plan on being a fighter, shields are always useful. If you re going to be a thief, sneak and security are musts. Mercantile or speachcraft are also good for major/minor skills. The better you are at mercantile, the better buy/sell rates you will get from merchants. And the better your speechcraft skill, the more people you meet will like you. and the more they like you, the more readily they will give up information. And if at first they dont like you, you can always flatter them with a fairly high rate of success. saves alot of money bribing officials for information for quests
now that you ve chosen all your stats, you can start the game.
you re given a mission to go to balmora. From where you start in Seyda Neen, its northeast. You can either follow the marked roadsigns, or you can go up near that giant flea shaped thing you see. Those are called stilt striders. Talk to the man/woman standing next to it and they will let you travel to different destinations for a small fee. You can travel on boats in the same way. This is the fastest mode of travel available to you if you are not part of the mages guild. As a part of the mages guild, you may also use mage guild guides that teleport you to different mages guilds scattered all over the island.
At first level, its difficult to do much of anything. Once you get to balmora, find Caius Cosades. Hes the guy ur supposed to go to. He will start you off on the main quest, as well as help you out. Try doing some of his missions in Balmora, and following his advice. He's scripted by the game-makers to help you newbies out, so listen to the man
Also, make sure you join the guilds. The thieves guild is in the South Wall Corner Club (same side of the river as Caius), while the mages guild and fighters guild are right next to each other near the stilt strider. The missions given by these guilds are also very good for beginners. Most of them are simple fed-ex missions too, so not very complicated.
If you re a fighter, you could also take the stilt strider up to Gnaar-Mok, and join the legion. The legion is VERY good for beginner fighters, offering you a wide supply of good equiptment to start off. The guild supply chests near the entrance of each guild is good too. They re always being restocked, and you can make good money off selling those goods.
If you're having trouble killing things in your weak, newbie stage, then the best approach to killing enemies is the hit and run approach. Use a bow, or another fast weapon to hit your enemy, then run away from them, using healing spells/potions you have saved in quickslots. Lure your enemy to an area load door, and go outside once you re in desperate need of healing. Rest until your hp/edurance is healed, then quicksave and go back in for another round of fighting. This approach can let you slowly kill just about any enemy in the game.
Once you re strong enough, its looting time. Buy a cheap dagger with paralyze, this thing will come in handy. Then take the strong weapon of your choice. Join the thieves guild if you havent already, then head for the trader in Balmora. Ra'Virr the trader in Balmora is my favourite kill. Hes got loads of crap in his little house, and after i kill him i tend to use that as a semi permanent residence. Hold down the sneak button, move in behind him, then backstab him with your paralyze weapon. Then switch quickly to the big guns and take him out. IF you can kill him before he can take out his big nasty axe, it makes all the difference. Make sure you saved before you do this.
Ra'Virr has some amazing weapons in his stash. Once you ve killed him, quickly run to the thieves guild and down into the basement and talk to the guy wearing the funny blue shirt. For half the price of the bounty on your head (the downside of committing crimes in morrowind), he will clear up your problems with the authorities for you.
If you could not join the thieves guild, then drop everything you have and find a guard. Talk to him, and pay off your fines with him. If you have anything on you that is stolen, it will be taken from you. If you accidently lose an item this way, then head down to your local legion depot and make your way down to the basement. Theres a locked chest named "evidence" that holds anything they've confiscated.
Once your legal troubles are all cleared up, head back to Ra'Virr's and pick up your new loot. He has several swords worth up to 9000 dollars, and lots of good equiptment for you. Go sell what you dont want to buy some equiptment for yourself, and go back to doing quests. Hint: never kill a merchant who has more than 300 or so dollars to buy items off you, or will buy all types of items. Finding merchants who will take your goods are invaluable.
Making the most of the merchants in morrowind is another large facet of the game. In Pelegiad, one of the manors (cant remember which), has a house full of orcs. If you travel up to the top, you ll find al ittle gremlin dude. He will buy anything off you for up to 500 bucks at as close to its actual buy/sell rate as you can find in the game. Just sell him some small things first. Then go to sleep for 24 hours so he replenishes his money. Then you can go back and sell him more stuff. Once you get to your big items, buy all your small items back off him until he has enough money to buy your expensive item off you. Then sleep and replinish his money and sell all your small items back.
The only better merchant in the game is the mudcrab. He's on the islands just to the east of Vivec. Hes just labeled as a regular mudcrab, so good luck finding him. I had trouble doing it myself.
That's all the information i could think of at the moment. I'm really tired and i think im gunna go to bed in a bit. If anybody else has any more info to contribute, just pm/email me and i ll stick it in here (and give you some credit for it ). Or if anybody has anything they want me to cover do the same.
Happy adventuring!