The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Moby ID: 6280
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Freed by the decree of Uriel Septim VII, the Emperor of Tamriel, a lone prisoner is transported to the province of Morrowind. It seems that the strange dreams this prisoner has been having lately may have a connection to equally strange events occurring there. The protagonist is given a simple assignment: join the Blades, a secret organization whose goal is to protect the safety of the Emperor. This leads to a discovery of an ancient prophecy and an evil scheme concocted by a powerful deity whom the protagonist alone is able to stop.

Conceived in the tradition of the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind is a fantasy role-playing game with a vast world open for exploration. After being released from a prison ship at the shores of the island Vvardenfell, the protagonist may do more or less what he or she wants: follow the main quest and solve the mystery of an ancient prophecy, join any of roughly a dozen guilds and rise in their hierarchy by performing duties, or simply explore the gigantic island with its stylistically diverse cities, hundreds of dungeons and tombs, ancient ruins and mighty fortresses.

Morrowind uses a two-stage skill system. The hero’s primary stats (strength etc.) increase with each level gained, while secondary abilities improve by use – for example, the more often the character jumps, the more proficient he or she becomes in the Acrobatics skill, etc. The action-oriented fights are simple exchanges of strikes or spells, until one combatant dies. The enemy's hit points and condition were not originally shown; however, at the request of customers a health bar was added for enemies as part of the first upgrade patch.

The protagonist's race and gender, but also his or her reputation influence the reactions of NPCs. If a character’s sympathy for the hero is low (rated on a scale from 1 to 100), he might refuse to answer questions; if it is high, the player will get more detailed information and better bargains in shops. Most quests involving other persons can be solved by persuasion, pick-pocketing, or simply by force.

The game's NDL 3D game engine is powerful in drawing wide, detailed outdoor landscapes as well as complex indoor environments. Transitions are not fluent; houses and dungeons must be loaded upon entering.

Spellings

  • 上古卷轴III:晨风 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 上古捲軸 III:魔捲晨風 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

118 People (80 developers, 38 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 83 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 283 ratings with 23 reviews)

Walk in a huge, lifeless, soulless theme park.

The Good
...and nothing more to it, really. Granted, a walk like that can be fairly interesting for a while, much like being in an enigmatic dream that may or may not just turn into a nightmare. Thus your walk may be intriguing up to the point that you visited all the highlights, set pieces like 'The Quiet Fishing Village', the 'Dark Foreboding Tomb', 'The City With The Weird Architecture' and so forth. But then you realize that this is a 'hands off' kind of theme park, there are no interactive elements; sure, you can enter the caves and houses but their residents are the dullest androids ever, each repeating the same lines. Sometimes radio-controlled creatures seem to attack you but they feel fake and out of place. You soon feel that you had enough; it's one lifeless, soulless park.

The Bad
Morrowind just doesn't work as a game. Without repeating all the agreeable criticism of the previous reviews I'll just emphasize what is possibly the ultimate cause of the title's failure: stock dialogues. NPC conversations are normally the life and soul of an RPG and these were removed due to a highly regrettable design choice. Either that or Bethesda's complete lack of writing skills and NPC-related imagination. Was Ultima7 the last game that got it all right?..

The Bottom Line
Here's hoping that Bethesda learns the error of their ways and Oblivion will actually be an enjoyable role-playing game with unique, believable NPCs.

Windows · by András Gregorik (59) · 2004

The best singly player RPG to-date.

The Good
The world is huge and beautiful. In fact its so big you often get lost, but to your pleasant surpise in the middle of nowhere you find ruins, tombs, or people. Speaking of the people there are over 1,000 NPCs you can interact with in the world. over 20 cities to go to, many books to find for pre-story and more story for those people who like RPG's a lot. Plus 13 factions to join and do missions for, 10 races to choose from, over 21 preset professions or create your own! The possibilities in this game are limitless and although you might feel like "what do I do now?" when you first start because there is no guided main mission. There does exist a main mission which happens to be the hardest in the game, as well as 1,300 other missions to do. So clearly you can see that the team has worked really hard on this game. Most impressively in all the text you come upon in the game, I haven't found one typo.

The Bad
Travelling in the game can get kind of cumbersome because the means of transport are limited (silt riders, mages guild, spells, game addons) unless you want to walk. Because the world is so huge, you kinda wish you had a horse but that would mess up the whole game for many reasons. The huge city of Vivec is too huge in my opinion, I've gotten sick of walking up and around the huge buildings, but the rewards of what's inside the buildings almost outweigh the walking distances. The journal and map could be better, but that is fixed in the expansion packs.

The Bottom Line
This is a great RPG, if you like RPG's you'll love this. If you don't "like" RPG's you'll like this game. It's worth just to look at even the sky is beautiful.

Windows · by Thiago Oliveira (85) · 2003

An incredibly addictive and fun(and huge!) RPG

The Good
I have never played either of the previous Elder Scrolls games so I didn't know what to expect when I loaded up Morrowind but I have to admit I was definitely impressed. Right from the character creation screen its hard not to be amazed with how huge the game is. You create your character based on 10 different species and over a dozen character classes and from there you're free to do what you want. If you've read any reviews about this game, either negative or positive, the one thing you've probably picked up on is that Morrowind has a huge world to explore. You are free to basically wander around do whatever you want. There are several dozen villages to explore and an even larger number of crypts, caverns and tombs which are loaded with valuable and rare items.The game also contains many guilds and groups to join which will provide you with quests on top of the main story line, some which are quite creative and fun. The story is involving and dark and will draw you right in. My favorite feature would have to be the leveling system which allows you to level up individual skills such as lock picking or an individual magic or weapon class.

The Bad
Morrowind's open-ended gameplay and vast world can be a bit overwhelming to some. The fighting system is lame, you basically press you're left mouse button repeatedly until a dice roll decides that you hit you're opponent.

The Bottom Line
For every person that loves Morrowind there seems to be another that hates the game so know what you're getting into before buy the game. That said, most RPG fans will love Morrowind, its one of the best RPGs in recent memory.

Windows · by devils102 (18) · 2004

[ View all 23 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Add Game Group karnak1 (22) Dec 24, 2012
Morrowind vs. Oblivion Unicorn Lynx (181788) Jul 26, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Content

Morrowind is told to include 3244 NPCs, 316.042 hand placed objects, 480 billion possible characters to create and play, 150 billion spells by using spellmaking in the game, and six full sized novels worth of text.

Creature differences

Some monsters and creatures went through drastic visual changes from Daggerfall and Battlespire to Morrowind. First, the type of khajiit are the same as those presented in Redguard, while the Dremora were turned from fair-skinned, horned demons to black and red-skinned demons. Harpies were replaced with (visually at least) Winged Twilights, and other monsters such as the slaughterfish, orcs and others remain much the same, though much better looking in true 3D.

Graphics

Ever wonder why Morrowind can run at such a slow FPS sometimes and why the game is notorious for making even expensive, fast systems (as of 2004) seem slow? The answer is simple; polygons. While playing the game you'll encounter vast areas full of people, objects and architecture. All these are made from polygons and require the videocard to process them. Morrowind has possibly the heaviest counts of polygons in a single video game, most likely surpassing every game before it and still with a vast number more than contemporary games.

References

There is a single daedric crescent from Battlespire hidden in Morrowind, but getting to it requires some work and initiative (it isn't a part of any main or faction quest), or access to a hint guide.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2002 – #9 Best PC Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2003 (Issue #148) - #3 overall in the "10 Best Games of 2002" list
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – RPG of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2002 - PC RPG of the Year
    • 2011 – #14 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • RPG Vault
    • 2002 - Game of the Year
    • 2002 - Role-Playing Game of the Year

Information also contributed by calavera, Jason Musgrave, ShadowStrike and WildKard

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by NeoMoose.

Xbox One added by Kennyannydenny. Xbox Cloud Gaming added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, -Chris, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, OFoglada, Shoddyan, Sciere, Aubustou, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Kennyannydenny.

Game added May 10, 2002. Last modified March 7, 2024.