Morrowind for the XBOX...

[dave4shmups]

I would really love to get the game of the year edition of this game, but I have heard it described as "the buggiest game on XBOX" by reviewers, according to whom the game sometimes (among other things) freezes on you/

And, while I hate bugs in all games, I hate them most when they appear in RPG's. For example, I had problems in Champions of Norrath with portals, near the final boss of the game, no less, not activating like they were supposed to. (I'm not sure I even want to touch Return to Arms now.)

So, has anyone here experienced bugs in the XBOX port of Morrwind, and if so, what are they? I know that there are buggy releases of games; JP pointed out to me a long while back that I had a buggy release of Serious Sam, for the XBOX.

[E. Randy Dupre]

It's awful. Really, the entire thing is just a mess. Not just because of the bugs and glitches, but also because of the crappy visuals. It's quite easily one of the ugliest games on the system.

If you have to play it, go for the PC version instead - at least you can fix that up with patches and mods.

[gavin19]

I didn't find it to be that buggy. No permanent bugs that couldn't be overcome with reloading. In fact, Oblivion crashed on me much more often. I should mention that it was a custom GOTY I was playing, including a lot of ported PC mods.

[jp]

I would really love to get the game of the year edition of this game, but I have heard it described as "the buggiest game on XBOX" by reviewers, according to whom the game sometimes (among other things) freezes on you/

And, while I hate bugs in all games, I hate them most when they appear in RPG's. For example, I had problems in Champions of Norrath with portals, near the final boss of the game, no less, not activating like they were supposed to. (I'm not sure I even want to touch Return to Arms now.)

So, has anyone here experienced bugs in the XBOX port of Morrwind, and if so, what are they? I know that there are buggy releases of games; JP pointed out to me a long while back that I had a buggy release of Serious Sam, for the XBOX.

As someone who has probably put 1000+ hours into Morrowind and Morrowind GOTY on Xbox:

Yes, Morrowind is buggy. Yes, the graphics are less than stellar compared to current gen stuff. Yes, there is a lot of fog. But none of it matters, because Morrowind is fucking awesome.

As for the bugs, the game just freezes up from time to time, there might be some slight sound glitches, some characters might do something stupid. Nothing too horrible as far as I can recall. I mean, given the size of the game its pretty easy to let some stuff slide on the buggy side (especially considering when it was made).

Granted, I've heard of a lot of other strange bugs with quests and my ex-roomate killing the final boss accidentally (though I still don't fully believe him).

There's nothing game breaking and consistent though.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't know if I quite put in 1000+ hours on the game, but I certainly have spent more time with the original release of Morrowind than I have with almost any other game.

Playing the game on a TV is a great experience. Playing on a PC is a great experience too (I've played the game considerably on PC as well).

I loved the game so much I contributed a little to the UESP (Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages), and they still need some help on the Tribunal expansion pack...and I still need to finish the game properly.

Yeah, after six years or so I still haven't gone through the game and beaten it properly. That's partly because the game relies heavily on the sheer volume of its content for enjoyment, and the levelup system is broken no matter what version you play or whose modification you use.

Quick note on the bugs - most slowdown comes when you've moved a lot of shit needlessly, and on the Xbox that's something you'll want to avoid. In fact the official recommendation is to leave stuff in place if you can help it.

My experience with the game bugs is like this:

Xbox - used the permanent weapon attribute bug to knock up stats to incredible levels which breaks normal gameplay (there's never really a happy medium for speed, no matter which version you play), fell through floors, had the game dump on me with a false "dirty disc" error which should've been "ran out of memory because you moved too much stuff lol," guards acting unpredictably, people starting not to like me due to a legally forgiven transgression from long ago

PC - script bugs (especially when using any user modifications, including Better Bodies and Better Heads, the only two main modifications I use; enabling and disabling mods is bad), falling through floors, guards acting unpredictably, people starting not to like me due to a legally forgiven transgression from long ago, and also lots of bugs caused by abusing the console system for fun and profit (my favorite is setting up acrobatics and speed temporarily to get around faster)

You're definitely on the right track to get the GotY version; there were some specific horrible bugs in the original Xbox version that were fixed in the GotY.

On the other hand, only the PC version can use expansion packs. I felt this was significant just for the official packs like Fort Firemoth, a slightly buggy but fun romp through a lost fort to the west of Balmora. The other stuff is mainly just mood enhancement and a quest to pick up propylon indices (little bits of stone you use to get the ability to warp from place to place, very nice for de-cluttering your inventory).

[subcons]

One word: Oblivion.

All the things wrong with Morrowind are at least better or all-out fixed in Oblivion. But I'm guessing you don't own a 360 or PS3.

[t0yrobo]

The xbox version has it's issues and the pc version is much better for many reasons. But being able to plant your as on the couch with a controller in your hands makes the xbox version preferable to me.

[jp]

One word: Oblivion.

All the things wrong with Morrowind are at least better or all-out fixed in Oblivion. But I'm guessing you don't own a 360 or PS3.

And everything that made Morrowind great was taken out of Oblivion.


The area is nowhere near as interesting.
The plot isn't half as good.
In Oblivion you can join the Thieves Guild, Fighter's Guild, Mage's Guild, or the Dark Brotherhood. In Morrowind there are three factions controlling Morrowind you can join, every guild I mentioned above (except instead of the Dark Brotherhood you join an actual honorable Assassin's Guild), you can join the army, various cults, etc. SO much more to do in Morrowind.

Also: Scaling enemies is retarded. God awful even. Completely takes out the sense of adventure. Wherever you go in Oblivion, be ye level 1 or level 50, whatever you find wherever you are will be leveled to match you. So if you're level 10 at the end of the game, thats cool, 'cuz your just fighting goblins. If you're level 50 and near the main city, then for some reason Land Dreugh are walking around as if its no big deal.

Meanwhile in Morrowind, you learn very early on how to walk AROUND the map, since walking across the map is assured death due to the Ashlands. And even when you're around level 40 and you come across some eldritch tomb, you can walk in and get devestated by something that crawled right out of an H.P. Lovecraft story.

Oblivion has no sense of exploration or adventure. It got watered down heavily so that the mainstream kiddies would like it. Morrowind is where its at for Elder Scrolls, at least, if you want to get immersed in an awesome world anyways. If you just want to walk around some pretty landscape and hit things with swords and suffer through one of the most repititious main quests ever, then by all means, check out Oblivion.


Oh, and Oblivion has absolutely NO counter for Dwemer Ruins. None. Nothing in the game can even begin to compare.

[dave4shmups]

One word: Oblivion.

All the things wrong with Morrowind are at least better or all-out fixed in Oblivion. But I'm guessing you don't own a 360 or PS3.

Not yet! But thanks for the input, I'm glad there is nothing game-breaking in there. I'm not sure if I could run it on our PC; that's one issue I have with PC games, the other being that I don't know if/when a controller with dual analog sticks would work. For example, I'd like to play some of the sequels to Half-Life, as well as the original Diablo, our PC, but I don't know if the game would "recognize" a controller. I just like using game controllers better then the keyboard and mouse configuration.

[gavin19]

I really wanted to try the PC version with the mods but I couldn't map the PS2 sticks properly. Either the left or right stick was inverted, I could never get both working properly.

[Ed Oscuro]

This was meant to be an Arbitrary post break! but like six people posted after I was writing it.

Then I messed up and edited over my first post and lol.

BUT ANYWAY!

This is the post you've been waiting for, where I get all technical about winning at Morrowind. It's a short Morrowind Strategy Guide, about as short as I can make it. It's all about leveling, unfortunately, because that's the only part I think should be spoiled for you.

Some hints from an oldtimer:

I talked with another college kid recently about Morrowind, and while I had forgotten exactly what to do I knew that there was an efficient way to level up. It's pretty tough to do, however. The upside is that if you read this you'll learn something that not even many vets of the game know about.

First off, disable saving on rest and when entering a new area. That'll save a lot of your time.

Leveling is a key skill in this game. You'll have to look at the game to figure out exactly what I mean and I haven't done it in a few months so there may be a few small errors (although I'm trying to corroborate these as best I can), but it works like this.

When you start the game, you soon get three choices about how to determine what your character does. Take the option to fill out the forms for yourself; the preset character classes might be fun if you're looking for a challenge but they limit your ability to level efficiently.

SELECTING SKILLS: I personally would take a skill you will use all the time - short sword, long sword, destruction (magic), acrobatics (jumping), and also some skills you are confident you can use a lot - maybe boxing, for instance, and put these in Minor Skills. Sneak possibly should be a minor skill, but this depends on how you level it up. Put something you want to use that will be a pain to level as a Major Skill (blacksmith skills might be a good choice here).

You do NOT want to put things you can level quickly only in the major/minor skills list. Put some in the random/assorted skills list! Only put things in there that are convenient to put there. There is another reason for that, which I've marked with an asterisk * further down.

The first caveat on selecting skills that can be leveled easily I can explain easily right now - controlling how quickly some some of the skills I've listed level is hard (acrobatics and athletics are the big offenders). Acrobatics is leveled by jumping repeatedly, and especially by falling so far you take damage. Athletics is increased a little by running and more by swimming, but at high levels it increases very, very slowly. Even if you play the game for a very, very long time you might not max it out without getting it trained. Acrobatics can be controlled for leveling (by simply jumping all over the place, especially true when you're starting out as the levels come quickly), but athletics quickly tapers off.

There is a well-known exploit of the Sneak skill system. Right after selecting your major/minor skills, you exit into an open-air yard, and after that you enter into another room. In there is a Knight. The exploit is simply to get him to look at the wall close to him and away from you, and then back up to the opposite wall (right next to the door you entered) and Sneak (which looks like crouching). Sneaking skill is increased fitfully, but you can stay crouched for hours and hours and hours. When you come back to your Xbox or PC (easier on the Xbox because you just click the thumbstick to go into Sneak mode; on the PC weigh down a key with a C-cell battery), you'll be at level 100 for Sneak...

...BUT you will have just blown a lot of opportunities to level up the skill attached to sneak. It's better to just stay in sneak mode for an hour or so at a time, go get a sandwich, and then come back and play as normal if sneak has increased as many times as you want it to. Yeah, that's a pretty crappy way of playing the game, but Sneak is such a pain to use if you don't exploit it and get it to 100 eventually. [lol @ unintended upcoming segue with stuff I wrote a while ago]

The worst part of leveling skills, carefully or otherwise, is that it is monotonous, especially if you try to level something like hand-to-hand (fisticuffs) which I have done, going nearly the whole 100 levels on a single rat in the sewers, taking the trap door whenever the little feller started getting hurt in our friendly spar (so he could get his fatigue back).

But let's suppose you at least wanted to know how you can level up intelligently. Here's how it's done:

Look at what attribute (such as Strength) these world skills are tied to ("governed by"). You don't need to spread your skills so that all the different attributes are covered in the major/minor skills list, but you will still want to level up skills that perhaps don't have an attribute in your major/minor skills list.

The reason for this is that when leveling up you can give a bonus to your various attributes, of up to five per attribute (out of a regular max of 100, so that is pretty significant and will make you a force to be reckoned with in no time if you play your cards right). That's a very nice bonus when you're just starting out, but the problem is that you need to be careful about when you sleep and what you do, which might make an already tough introduction to the world harder. Once you feel able to move about the world without getting killed by mudcraps, though, you should probably follow these steps.

This possible max bonus of five points per attribute is called the "multiplier," and every time you level an attribute at least ten times you'll get the five at your next level up.

Example: You have a bunch of skills all with different attributes, and didn't level each of them up much, but in your random skills list you leveled up Acrobatics ten times. You can select bonuses of maybe 1, 2, or 3 points for the attributes tied to your major/minor skills, but for Speed (tied to Acrobatics) you can level up 10 times.

In other words: any time you want to level up an attribute, find skills (be they major, minor, or random, it doesn't matter) governed by that attribute, level 'em, make sure you have leveled skills in the major/minor skills category a total of ten times (i.e. ten once each, or one ten times), and now you'll have a bonus of five.

Complicating matters is the fact that you can do this for THREE attributes at once, and you see that since the maximum number of attribute bonus points is 15 - received after leveling stuff 30 times - you'll be leveling non-major or minor skills all the time; if you get the 15 bonus points this should mean 2/3 of the skills you've leveled up came from the random list.

* The flip side is that if you level your major/minor skills in a hurry but leave the assorted skills at lower levels, you won't be able to increase your attributes any further and that's bad.

I think that covers it pretty well.

[Zebra Airforce]

So, you can't steal everything in sight in the Xbox version? I took everything I could get my hands on. I have so much crap in my house that the game lags like crazy when I enter it

I know that in the xbox version your stuff is put into a little bag if there's too much in one room. My friend was trying to stack all of his money on a table but it kept disappearing.

script bugs (especially when using any user modifications, including Better Bodies and Better Heads, the only two main modifications I use; enabling and disabling mods is bad)

Yeah, I've had strangers running up to me and thanking me for completeing a quest I hadn't started.

[Ed Oscuro]

One word: Oblivion.

All the things wrong with Morrowind are at least better or all-out fixed in Oblivion. But I'm guessing you don't own a 360 or PS3.

And everything that made Morrowind great was taken out of Oblivion.

Oblivion "fixed" the combat by making everything level up with you - what's the damned point of leveling then, I wonder? All that's left are the fringe benefits. Those (like being able to backflip or zoom in your arrow) are cool ideas, but they're literally the only thing that makes leveling worthwhile.

The area is nowhere near as interesting.

There are some cool realms of Oblivion to enter, like the painter's, and the inside of the first oblivion gate I entered was cool. I also like the big bridge at Skingrad.

That's about it though.

One of the big "tweaks" in Oblivion that really had a major impact on the mood and level design and EVERYTHING was taking out flight and long hops (in Morrowind they drop some super jump scrolls on you right near the beginning of the game, for chrissakes). So no more crazy mage's towers that you have to levitate through, and no more floating moons to fly up to.

The plot isn't half as good.

A second's reflection confirms this is true. Better actors didn't make the game better.

Howver, the games are almost targeted to different audiences. I get the feeling that Morrowind, despite being my first Elder Scrolls game, is a lot more like the previous games: A lot of the story is presented through books, and I loved reading through them so that's awesome.

Oblivion tries to be more cinematic in presentation, and unfortunately I don't like cinema as much as I do literature (with the occasional break for skull-smashing). It actually accomplishes quite a lot here and certainly looks more impressive than words on a page, but a lot of people apparently felt that a story about something that happened a thousand years ago didn't have that feel of immediacy that a cinematic story did.

In Oblivion you can join the Thieves Guild, Fighter's Guild, Mage's Guild, or the Dark Brotherhood.

You can also join all of them - plus the factions - and while it's slightly broken you can do some cool shit to balance your actions in one faction with your membership with another (i.e. being a Mage's Guild member and wanting to join the Telvanni, when that idiot wants you to kill some of them, or when you're a Fighter's Guild member and a Thief as well and are asked to kill some Thieves).

Meanwhile in Morrowind, you learn very early on how to walk AROUND the map, since walking across the map is assured death due to the Ashlands. And even when you're around level 40 and you come across some eldritch tomb, you can walk in and get devestated by something that crawled right out of an H.P. Lovecraft story.

That's another thing I didn't completely care for.

At times in Morrowind I felt like I wanted quick travel because I'd go plodding to yet another godforsaken remote place (for example, Azura's quest, or the Fork of Horripilation quest, arrrgh) on the literal other side of the game world.

But they had ways of getting around - in Vivec, you could spend a few gold traveling to a gondola. Not completely convenient, but it was there.

Much more effective are the Mage's Guild Guides - teleportation!
And the Propylon Chambers! Amazing, especially after you have the PC version and the expansion that lets you trade in the indices.

To its credit, Oblivion doesn't let you fast travel somewhere until you've already been there, but in Morrowind you often find things you missed on earlier trips (not so much after a few years playing the game, but it took a while to get to this point!)

Oblivion has no sense of exploration or adventure. It got watered down heavily so that the mainstream kiddies would like it. Morrowind is where its at for Elder Scrolls, at least, if you want to get immersed in an awesome world anyways. If you just want to walk around some pretty landscape and hit things with swords and suffer through one of the most repititious main quests ever, then by all means, check out Oblivion.

Oh, and Oblivion has absolutely NO counter for Dwemer Ruins. None. Nothing in the game can even begin to compare.

I liked the Dwemer Ruin hidden out in the sea - same for the temple hidden under a sea to the west of Balmora (eerie swimming above a giant submerged temple though).

Honestly, though, the Dwemer ruins weren't THAT much better than the areas inside an Oblivion gate the first time you find them; it just seems they were able to change up the Dwemer interior layouts more than in the Oblivion gates where you often find literally the exact same things you found before.

Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles are great expansions for Oblivion, and they keep up the quality of the original game better than Tribunal did for Morrowind. The other expansion for Morrowind - forget the name - is pretty astonishing, though, if a bit bleak looking.

[Ed Oscuro]

So, you can't steal everything in sight in the Xbox version? I took everything I could get my hands on. I have so much crap in my house that the game lags like crazy when I enter it

You can, but it's officially advised against by Bethesda. Personally, I first leveled up alchemy by eating all the random ingredients I found in bags lying everywhere, which is also terrible for the game's memory structure.

Also, using teleports to move gigantic amounts of loot which you really don't need the gold from - there'd always be a gigantic pile of swords as tall as my character outside the main temple in Vivec

script bugs (especially when using any user modifications, including Better Bodies and Better Heads, the only two main modifications I use; enabling and disabling mods is bad)

Yeah, I've had strangers running up to me and thanking me for completeing a quest I hadn't started.

Lucky you; I'd do some shenanigans and suddenly a guard or two outside Fort Buckmoth start attacking me, or random people on the street start calling me an N'Wah or whatever.

[Zebra Airforce]

Here's something nerdy: Your most exciting experience playing morrowind?

Mine-

After slaying a few innocents and filling my pockets with junk I head out of town. I can hear guards chasing me, but I outrun them easily and start heading into the wilderness. I kill a few stray crabs, when all of the sudden I am unable to move.

This is my first encounter with blight. My strength is so low that I have to drop just about everything I've got. I drink one of the jumping potions found at the beginning of the game and use my minimap to aim myself at the town I just escaped from. I make a leap of faith, soar through the air, and after a short while I see the town rising up beneath me. I land on the roof of the fortress inside the city and immediately hear gaurds pulling their swords. I manage to run inside, pray at the altar to cure myself, and run back out of the city before the gaurds kill me.

It took me ages to find all of that junk I dropped.

Also, using teleports to move gigantic amounts of loot which you really don't need the gold from - there'd always be a gigantic pile of swords as tall as my character outside the main temple in Vivec

You know, despite all of my riches, I don't think I ever once bought something in all of my time playing. Gold makes a great trophy for your mantle, though.

edit: man, I'm tired

[subcons]

It got watered down heavily so that the mainstream kiddies would like it.

ME! (I guess).

Honestly, I tried playing Morrowind after I had already played some of Oblivion (which, BTW, was the main reason, along with CoD2's online, that I even bought a 360 in the first place) and I just couldn't get into it. Also, I'm not too big into RPGs, which is kind of why I liked Oblivion I guess. You could make yourself less involved in the story and the game was still highly playable. Put in over 100 hours before doing pretty much everything there was to do.

So yeah, don't listen to me any ways.

Oh, and this is not an insult (honest), but you guys are uber Elder Scroll nerds.

[gavin19]

Oblivion "fixed" the combat by making everything level up with you - what's the damned point of leveling then, I wonder? All that's left are the fringe benefits. Those (like being able to backflip or zoom in your arrow) are cool ideas, but they're literally the only thing that makes leveling worthwhile.

If you level efficiently you will then be considerably stronger than most enemies. Also a lot of items are upgraded as you level, like Sigil Stones, Armour, Random Loot etc. Some quests are only available at higher levels too.

Yeah that UESP Wiki is an obscenely rich source of info. Unfortunately it is also where I learned of 100% Chameleon, and now I can't resist it!

[Ganelon]

Nah, forget these latest 2 TES games; it's all about Daggerfall.

[CStarFlare]

I was reall close to buying Daggerfall, but I didn't feel like jumping through hoops to play it. Instead, I bought my own copy of Oblivion instead of bumming off my brothers all the time.

If I had room for a second computer I'd probably just grab one of our old towers out of my parents' basement.

[Ghegs]

I've spent 100+ hours with Oblivion and it's probably the most fun I've ever had with a PC game....I still haven't done Shivering Isles, though. Maybe next time, just few days ago I was thinkng I should install the game again and play a battlemage or something. Anyhoo like subcons, I bought Morrowind only after Oblivion, and I really couldn't get into it. Tried a few times, but just couldn't immerse myself in it the same way. A shame, really.

Also since Oblivion's scaled levelling can easily be replaced with a mod it's not much of an issue. I do agree that closing the Oblivion gates was nothing but boring after the first one.

[Ed Oscuro]

Here's something nerdy: Your most exciting experience playing morrowind?

Lol, I don't usually think in these terms, but I thought I had one standout moment, playing when the game was new.

This one also used Tarhiel's three scrolls of jump (not potions actually) and, well...

I decided I wanted to get into the Ghostgate really bad.

I'm terribly underpowered, don't know a thing about leveling, possibly have a Summon Skeleton Warrior spell, and not much else (probably still wearing Tarhiel's stupid robe and Colovian Fur Helm, in fact).

I ran up to the north and somewhat to the east, following the map to the center, and I'm being pursued by a Cliff Racer (as per the norm). Suddenly, freedom! There's the Ghostgate. Activate one of the scrolls and then I jumped over the gate. Inside I see that there's not a lot I can do in there, so I probably ran back out through the regular gate...

Tarhiel had enough scrolls to jump over the Ghostgate twice, but after he activated his first scroll he completely lost it and forgot to activate another before impact. As a result you end up with enough scrolls for one and a half hops.

Nice present from Bethesda all the same.

[Bootaaay]

I think the one aspect of Morrowind I miss the most in Oblivion is exploration. In Oblivion there is ZERO need for the player to even engage their brain when trying to get somewhere for a quest - you look at the map, you find the magic marker that tells you your destinations exact location and begin walking towards it; but don't worry, you won't miss it as theres a magic little compass that informs you of all the places of interest, and once you've been there you can teleport back instantly (whatever happened to Mark & Recall?). In Morrowind I really liked the fact that I had to, not only follow precise directions, but also look out for landmarks to guide me. I swear the game improved my map reading skills ten-fold

Also, levelled enemies and levelled items for Oblivion was a totally retarded decision. In Morrowind I liked the fact that some areas were inhabited by high-level monsters or that entering an ancestral tomb was always a risk, no matter the level. It added a sense of realism to the game, as well as a level of challenge that was never present in Oblivion. Levelling the items was the single worst decision Bethesda could've made for Oblivion - firstly, because there were so few unique items, everyone who plays it ends up with the same crap, secondly because it's totally un-realistic that the gameworld becomes populated with high-level items instantly as you reach the level that unlocks them - then you start seeing bandits is Daedric armor, and i'm thinking to myself once again "why is this better than Morrowind?".

[Damocles]

Morrowind. 100+ hours of my life spent before I even took on the main quest. Goddamn that was a lot of fun. Then again, it's also the reason I havn't picked up Oblivion. I know that if it's as good as MW, I'll cease to have a life once again.

[jp]

Morrowind. 100+ hours of my life spent before I even took on the main quest. Goddamn that was a lot of fun. Then again, it's also the reason I havn't picked up Oblivion. I know that if it's as good as MW, I'll cease to have a life once again.

Don't worry, you'll probably get tired of Oblivion halfway through the main quest, and there isn't enough stuff to do outside of that to occupy your time prior to it.

[it290]

Actually, althought I agree that Morrowind is a far better game than Oblivion, I do have to say that the combat balance issues are even worse (especially when Oblivion has been modded). After playing through maybe 1/5 of the sidequests in Morrowind, my character was completely unstoppable by anything on the island and really, really good at everything.

They remedied this somewhat in the expansions, but due to the way they balanced it it felt even more ridiculous than Oblivion, because a sewer goblin became a far deadlier threat than Dagoth Ur.

[SuperGrafx]

I loved the Morrowind games on the Xbox. I ended up buying both the standard and GOTY editions. For the era the game was phenomenal with its go anywhere, do anything open ended gameplay.

Of course, there were some issues like insanely long load/save times, paper-doll physics and occassional freezes (anyone remember the suggestions that the developers chimed in about with regards to closing all doors as you passed through them and leaving insignificant objects like dinner plates, etc in place to improve performance?), but considering what Bethesda was doing on the humble Xbox hardware I had no problems working around these issues and glitches.

Oblivion addressed many of the issues but the game felt a bit more linear than I would have liked it to be.

[CStarFlare]

Don't worry, you'll probably get tired of Oblivion halfway through the main quest, and there isn't enough stuff to do outside of that to occupy your time prior to it.

There's plenty to do outside the main quest. Of my original file, I'd say over 80% of my playtime was side quests and exploration, and I've still got a few dozen active quests to complete. I don't know how their quality/quantity stacks up against Morrowind, but I've done well over a hundred of them and am still not bored.

As an aside, am I the only one who was unimpressed with the Shivering Isles? Maybe I'm just fond of a more medival setting, but the settings and the quests didn't have the same pull as the original game (and Knights of the Nine) did.

[SuperGrafx]

Don't worry, you'll probably get tired of Oblivion halfway through the main quest, and there isn't enough stuff to do outside of that to occupy your time prior to it.

There's plenty to do outside the main quest. Of my original file, I'd say over 80% of my playtime was side quests and exploration, and I've still got a few dozen active quests to complete. I don't know how their quality/quantity stacks up against Morrowind, but I've done well over a hundred of them and am still not bored.

As an aside, am I the only one who was unimpressed with the Shivering Isles? Maybe I'm just fond of a more medival setting, but the settings and the quests didn't have the same pull as the original game (and Knights of the Nine) did.

The side quests are actually better IMO in Oblivion. I think part of this is due to the fact that it's easier to navigate and travel to and from destinations as opposed to the hassle of the stilt strider travel system of Morrowind.

As far as the main quest goes, I think this is where Morrowind and Oblivion both suffer greatly. When side quests and faction quests are more fun/engaging than the main quest, you know something's wrong. Things get mired on the boring/repetitive side on both games that it's easy to lose interest (how many of those samey Oblivion gate towers can you possibly go through before it stops becoming fun?) and focus on the other stuff.

[The Coop]

I've never liked Morrowind. Not being able to hit or kill anything no matter how you fight, got real old, real fast. Nothing I did would hit even the weakest enemy, and I grew tried of having to run away whenever I tried to explore a little... or walked down a road... or left a village for two seconds. The code bugs didn't help the experience either. Yes, I know there are a lot of mods out there for it that increases chances to hit or walking speed and whatnot, but that just comes across as cheating, and if you have to cheat to make the game fun, then something's very wrong.

Here's something nerdy: Your most exciting experience playing morrowind?

Turning it off and uninstalling it.

[Damocles]

So...my big question concerning Oblivion: Did they make the damn quest log less of a mess?