Four Fat Chicks -- Morrowind Review

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Review by Steerpike
May 2002

Shameless Plug

We've also posted an Elder Scrolls retrospective that discusses the earlier games in the series and the impact they've had on the CRPG world, so I don't want to waste too much time hashing over the history of the franchise. With the big release of Morrowind, this series is officially an elder statesman of CRPGs—it is nine years old, with five titles under its belt: the Elder Scrolls "series," consisting of Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind; and the Elder Scrolls "Legends," a Worlds of Ultima-style extension of the universe, of which the loathsome Battlespire and the thoroughly mediocre Redguard are part. If you sense in me some ambivalence toward the Elder Scrolls, you're not far off base—though I own every single one and rushed out to buy Morrowind the day it hit shelves, the franchise has brought me more disappointment than pleasure. But you'll experience all of that story in the retrospective feature. This column focuses on Morrowind for the PC. Console jockeys, be sure to check out Skinny Minnie's upcoming sister review of Morrowind for the Xbox console.

Originally (and more aptly) titled "The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion," Morrowind will submerge you in a xenophobic culture obsessed with death, a land more remote and alien than any other in the sprawling Empire of Tamriel where the games take place. The nation of Morrowind, dragged kicking and screaming into the Tamrielic Empire, is the mysterious kingdom of the Dark Elves—the "Dunmer," as they call themselves. Misunderstood and perceived as corpse-worshiping necrophiles by the rest of the world, the Dunmer keep to themselves, doing little to discourage such rumor-mongering: it keeps strangers out.

And strangers are most unwelcome in Morrowind, especially on the bleak island of Vvardenfell where the game takes place. Even Dunmer born elsewhere are treated as despised outsiders. A visitor to this gloomy realm is well advised to finish his or her business and leave, lest he/she be drawn into a dark web of political intrigue that has been spun over thousands of years of internecine rivalry. It makes life difficult indeed for your character, a former prisoner in the distant imperial dungeons (at the outset, the specifics of your crime are neither given nor necessary)—for you are a stranger to Morrowind who is not only unwelcome, but who has no idea what your role in the nation's destiny may be.

Time to Spend Your $300 Gift from George W.

For those considering a purchase of Morrowind, you'd better take a hard look at what your computer has under the hood before you whip out your credit card. The system requirements for Morrowind are nothing short of insane—Bethesda Softworks suggests a minimum of 800 MHz and 256 megabytes of RAM if you're running Windows XP; I recommend more. It will gobble a gigabyte of hard drive space and consume your Windows swapfile so voraciously that some newsgroups are suggesting you set your minimum paging size to another gigabyte. Though the game only requires a graphic card with DirectX 8.1 support and 32 megabytes of onboard memory, Morrowind is really made to shine with the newest generation of cards only—GeForce 3 and 4 (but not GeForce 4 MX), Radeon 7500 and 8500, and the upcoming offerings from Matrox and Creative—that is, video cards that support programmable pixel shaders.

If you have the system to run it, though, Morrowind is worth the horsepower it requires: it's the most beautiful CRPG I've ever seen, and all those megahertz it demands go to very good use. A brand-new engine brings the bleak world of Vvardenfell into jaw-dropping, pixel-shaded glory. I was floored by the breathtaking vistas that open up before you in the spectacle that is Morrowind's graphics engine. The water, especially, is miles ahead of the usual effects we see in today's accelerated games. Even the most I-don't-care-about-graphics gamers will be drooling when they see raindrops pattering into fully reflective, bump-mapped, pixel-shaded rivers and lakes. If you've got the computage to run full-screen antialiasing to go with the pixel shading, you're in for a visual treat you won't soon forget. Add to this the fact that nothing—not one thing—in the game is a sprite, but rather every object, from the apples on the tables to the blades of grass in the ground, is a 3D model, and you'll appreciate it further.

I've heard from both friends and online communities that Morrowind is not a game that will settle well for minimum requirements. The minimums for Morrowind under Windows 98/ME are a 500 MHz processor and 128 megabytes of RAM; given the reports I've had from the front lines, my recommendation is that you don't bother if that's the best your computer can muster. I'm sorry for all those Elder Scrolls fans who don't have the cash to burn on a $1,500 upgrade to their systems, but Morrowind demands the best and appears to run pretty much as a slide show unless you can supply the kind of power it needs. On the other hand, if you have the cash and have been looking for a reason to upgrade, you're not going to find a better one any time soon. Because though it's a harsh taskmaster, Morrowind has all the ingredients to be a lasting classic.

Elder Scrolls vets will discover a new floating menu interface system that's going to take some getting used to. I didn't like the Adobe Photoshop-inspired interface at first, but it has since grown on me. Nonetheless I did prefer the layout and controls in Daggerfall and would rather that some other interface options had been made available. Robust key-mapping and joystick support is available (the latter a layover from the Xbox port, no doubt), and generally speaking the interface is crisp and easy to use. It's just not as elegant as I'd have liked it to be. Otherwise, the game is mechanically invisible, allowing us to focus entirely on play.

Scenic Vvardenfell on $20 a Day

As mentioned before, your character is a prisoner who has been released from the Imperial dungeons and sent to Morrowind on the direct orders of Emperor Uriel Septim VII of Tamriel. Bethesda has asked that reviewers not describe the character generation process in too much detail, so I won't describe it at all; suffice to say that it's mechanically similar to the chargen process in Daggerfall, and Elder Scrolls veterans will be on their way pretty quickly.

Daggerfall, Morrowind's immediate predecessor in the Elder Scrolls series, is in many ways the opposite of this newcomer from a creative perspective. While both feature fiendishly complex storylines that will keep gamers entranced, Daggerfall lays out the plot and goals right from the beginning. Morrowind is a giant question mark—you're fed tidbits of the story and overall arc of the game as you go along. Frankly I find that somewhat off-putting, if for no other reason than it gives you as a character no real motivation to follow the storyline. You can feel free to do exactly that if you just want to play but have no real interest in finishing the game, but the nebulous aspect of Morrowind's overall story can mean a lot of note-taking and hard memory work in order to piece it all together. This is an issue of personal taste and not a judgment call, but I, for one, prefer RPGs that lay out at least the basic skeleton of a story before setting you free in a vast alien landscape. In Morrowind, you start knowing nothing.

And Morrowind, like its predecessors before it, is vast indeed. A full-color, 19" × 21" map of Vvardenfell understates the immensity of the world through which you will travel. This island is enormous, the cities within it are equally huge, and the sprawling underworld adds yet another level of exploratory joy for those spelunkers who get a thrill from spending time underground.

Bethesda learned harsh lessons from Daggerfall, though, and they're not the type of studio that repeats mistakes (they make new ones). Gone is the randomly generated over- and underworld of Daggerfall. Gone are the catacombs that were so impossibly huge you could literally spend months of game time lost in them. In Morrowind, the world is colossal, yes—but it's tight and logical. Dungeons have a clear beginning, middle, and end, even if some of them are enormous. The automap feature is tremendously improved. Outdoor travel won't leave you feeling like you're wandering in an empty wilderness—Vvardenfell sports a nice set of roads, and some conscientious Island Planner stuck plenty of signs in the ground so you'll always have an idea of where you're going. This is especially nice since the "quick travel" feature that both Arena and Daggerfall depended on has been removed. Though you can choose to travel magically or book transport in other ways, thrifty players will probably walk from place to place. Such a thing was simply unheard of in Morrowind's predecessors.

The problem with walking is that it's slow. Your actual walk rate is determined by your speed attribute; the higher it is, the faster you move when you're walking. Most players will run a great deal, not only to cover distances in a shorter period of time but also to improve their athletics score. Running, however, causes fatigue, and the more exhausted you are, the harder it is to be successful in combat. So what all this boils down to is that it's a pity you can't buy a horse in this game. That feature was available in Daggerfall, though there were plenty of problems with it. Given modern technology and game physics, I think going horseback would have been much more realistic in Morrowind, and I'm bitterly disappointed that you don't have the option to do it—because walking is slow enough that it gets damned annoying.

Aside from the fact that it's occasionally slow, world travel in Morrowind is no problem at all. The graphics are such a treat that I found myself stopping to admire a sunrise over water more than once (the day and night cycles in Morrowind rival even the beauty of sunrises and sunsets in Black & White). Terrifying thunderstorms and other inclement weather keep you on your toes, and since the entire world is handmade, you will certainly feel like you're traveling through a real place, not one that was randomly generated by a game engine. The game stops to load sections now and then, resulting in a pause of a few seconds here and there (think Half Life), but the load times are short enough on a fast system that they're not particularly jarring.

A problem I've never once experienced myself but have heard complaints about are terrain and texture clipping. Several gamers have complained that they get stuck on objects in the landscape and cannot move. This is serious, and it had better be fixed in the patch if it's as big a deal as some players say that it is. I, for one, have never gotten stuck on anything—but I'm one player and I've heard this complaint a lot. So be sure to save the game often and stay away from cramped spots if you think you might have trouble.

Moving from interiors to exteriors also means a short load time—again, short enough that it's inconsequential. It's almost like you're switching engines during this loading, however, as interior worlds are encapsulated and unaffected by events outside. You cannot, for example, see what's going on outside through a window; the engine shuts down the outside world as soon as you move inside, and vice versa. A more significant complaint about this system is the manner in which you can and cannot enter buildings—specifically, doors are the only way in. Since an entire group of character classes are focused on breaking and entering, a few additional options of entrance and egress would have been nice. Also, though Morrowind is already immersive in the extreme, I find myself wistfully picturing what it would be like to hear thunder rumble outside while I browsed the shelves at a bookstore or to watch the city guard on night patrol from my hotel room window.

Also removed from Morrowind is the ability to climb sheer surfaces. It worked so badly in Daggerfall that I can imagine why designers chose not to bother with it, but it would have been a nice feature. You can't even "mantle" up onto a low surface like a table, either, which means that Acrobats will feel foolish sometimes when they discover that they can't clamber up onto a waist-high ledge. It also leads to problems when you're in the water and having a hard time getting out. Back in Daggerfall, your ability to climb onto things was dependent on your acrobatics skill, and though the skill remains, it is sadly emasculated in Morrowind.

Everything you do is based on skills. Each character class sports major and minor skills appropriate to that class, and all the other skills are in the miscellaneous group. Naturally enough, skills improve as you use them, so it behooves you to use them often. In a paradigm pioneered by the Elder Scrolls, there are no "experience points" in Morrowind—you go up levels when you have improved any combination of major and minor skills by ten points. Based on the skills you've used, you are then granted points you can add to their governing attributes. It's a wonderful system, and improved over Daggerfall's, when it was easy to cook up a custom-made character that went up levels constantly simply because the major and minor skills in that class were used all the time.

Additionally, other logical improvements have been made. If you are highly trained in the use of light armor, you can expect to get better protection from it than from even the most solid heavy armors. If you're trained in unarmed fighting, you're going to do more damage with your fists than with a claymore. I love this improvement and applaud the decision to set the game up in this manner. In fact the only complaint I have is that "medium" armor is unusually hard to find, so you'd be better off specializing in light, heavy, or unarmored skill. If designers are going to implement a system like this, the system must be fully balanced. On the plus side, however, it's easier to enchant your own items, and there are now magical and special items of all kinds lying around—back in Daggerfall, it was a nightmare for an expert in, say, the spear to find a cool enchanted spear.

"Go Away" and Other Useful Phrases in Dunmeric

Morrowind NPCs are largely not voice acted—you'll get a vocal cue when someone acknowledges your presence or when an important NPC has something to say—and for the most part that's just fine with me. A clickable conversation tree, much improved over Daggerfall's, allows you to query NPCs about specific and general topics, barter for services, and note their general opinion of you. While the world may be handcrafted, the NPCs are, for the most part, not—people say the exact same thing nine times out of ten. Ask everyone in town about local rumors, for example, and you'll receive an identical paragraph each time. This is somewhat jarring, but also understandable considering how many people there are in each of the towns you'll visit; the mudhole that is Seyda Neen, the village where the game begins, sports at least twenty speaking roles and is one of the smallest towns in the game.

Most people are unfriendly until you do something to change their opinion. Strangers are unwelcome in Morrowind and they're not going to make an exception for you. A number of options exist to improve individuals' opinions of you, from threats to compliments to cash to magical solutions. More than once I was quite impressed by the depth and strength of the game logic; it's a truly persistent world, where actions you take are remembered and affect the rest of the game. If you're hired to discreetly liberate a key from a rich man's pocket, for example, but instead you simply kill the man and take his key, expect the person who hired you to know and be upset about it. You'd never have found such a thing in Daggerfall—however you chose to return the key would have been fine with your employer.

On the subject of crime, it's handled similarly to Daggerfall and also to real life: you're not going to get arrested unless someone sees you doing something wrong and reports you. Normally this is fine, as it encourages thieves and cutthroats to be subtle in their approach to the craft, but there are bugs in the system, often couched inside wise decisions that were poorly thought out or implemented: you cannot, for example, steal an object from a shopkeeper and sell it right back to the same shopkeeper. That makes sense. However, the system isn't smart enough to catalogue exactly what you stole. If you take a diamond from an alchemist's shop, then come back weeks later with an entirely different diamond—even one you didn't steal—and try to sell it to her, you're going to get arrested. That's annoying since you need to keep track of what you've stolen, and from whom. It's especially annoying when you get nailed for selling legitimately acquired property that matches an item stolen earlier.

Further, if you're stopped for any crime—even if you're exonerated—the city guard will take away any stolen property on your person. Some sort of limit needs to be put on this, since thieves make their living by stealing. I myself was wearing stolen armor, lifted so long ago I'd completely forgotten it was stolen, when I was stopped for a murder in a town far away from the one where I'd gotten my armor. After presenting a signed release that indicated my actions to be legal, the guard let me go, but I found myself in my underwear. This infuriated me, because it was cool armor that I later found to be nearly irreplaceable; the shopkeeper and guards had not seen me stealing it; and I'd had many dealings with the victimized armorer since the theft and never been accused. The minute you're accused of any crime, any stolen property on your person is irrevocably lost, regardless of the circumstances. I hope the Patching Monkeys at Bethesda plan to fix this problem—either guards should be interested only in the criminal activities for which they stop you, or they shouldn't take ill-gotten objects that were stolen in another town, or they shouldn't take items that were stolen but which no one saw you steal, or they should ignore items that were stolen more than, say, a month ago.

If you're stopped by guards you can choose to pay a fine, resist arrest, or go to the slammer. Daggerfall vets may think that jail's not so bad, but they'd be wrong—savvy Daggerfallers could do whatever they wanted, spend years in jail, and go on as though nothing had happened. If you spend time in prison in Morrowind, however, your skills decrease, and that can be disastrous. It's excellent that they set it up this way, since there should be a penalty for getting caught being a bad boy. Sadly, the "plead your case" feature of law enforcement that we found in Daggerfall is gone here; city guards see to everything right there on the street. I did find it amusing, however, that cold-blooded murder will net you a whopping ten days in the pokey—talk about lenient judges.

As you talk to people and experience things, the story of Morrowind will begin to unfold. Like any in-depth RPG, it's going to be overwhelming at first. There are a lot of names and places to remember, a lot of things to carry around, and a lot to do before you can even think about nearing the end of this epic adventure. Luckily Morrowind promises to remain so exciting and eventful that I doubt many players will drift away before they finish the game. Even better, the included Elder Scrolls Construction Kit allows fans to create downloadable plug-in modules that can be added to the experience.

Today's Forecast: Rain, Fog, and Scattered Political Intrigue

Vvardenfell is a bleak place, as the screen captures on the right will attest. I normally like a splash of color here and there, which you're not going to find in Morrowind, but here it all fits into the mood that the designers of the game worked so hard to evoke. Giant bugs, skyscraper-sized mushrooms, grim and humorless people—all this fits right in with the constant rain and fog, the Swamps of Sadness landscape, and the general feeling of loneliness and despair that pervades the game. Your character isn't there to have fun, after all; no one in his/her right mind would go to Morrowind to have fun anyway.

Instead, you're there to get caught up in a centuries-old resistance plot against the Occupation, a grass-roots effort to restore the practice of necromancy in the Morrowind heartland, the (literal) resurrection of an ancient and extinct noble house, and even grimmer events. No one has ever faulted Bethesda for its creativity, and Morrowind lives up to expectations, producing a political drama of staggering proportions. Mix The Manchurian Candidate with Night of the Living Dead and a little Lord of the Rings and you'll have an idea of the flavor this game will leave with you.

Guild and political affiliations are back with a vengeance in Morrowind. In addition to the Fighters, Thieves, and Mages guilds, your character will have the opportunity to join up with one of the three noble houses of Morrowind, along with various imperial factions, local assassins' guilds, criminal syndicates, drug smugglers, temples of the Dunmeric and Imperial variety, and more. The seedy underworld of Vvardenfell island is so great that you may wonder whether there are any law-abiding citizens at all. Everyone is in on something, and as you form your own affiliations and enmities, people on the island will either gravitate toward you, treat you neutrally, or view you as a despised foe.

Bethesda claims more than 400 unique quests pepper the game. It felt like I'd done a lot more than that, and all are interesting and well-conceived. You will find the occasional "Deliver Object A to Person B" FedEx quests, but for the most part your assignments are complex and exciting. Even better, there are usually several ways to succeed. If you're sent to shake down an antiquities dealer for some valuable Dwarven artifacts, for example, you could follow the letter of the quest, or rob the store, or loot some Dwarven ruins yourself, or hire someone else to do it, or any number of other possible alternatives. For the first time we're beginning to see games with the kind of technology required to support multiple creative solutions to problems. Bethesda has once again taken a grand leap forward as it blurs the line between computer and tabletop roleplaying. Playing Morrowind is still not like sitting at a table with a GM, but it's a big step closer.

Things to Do in Vvardenfell When You're Dead

Though it's a character- and story-focused roleplaying game, you'll find plenty of action in Morrowind to satisfy your bloodlust. Daggerfall, you may remember, was a game that Senator Lieberman once attacked as the "electronic equivalent of coal in the stocking" for its violence and grim themes; Morrowind is, if anything, more gritty and dark than its predecessor.

The bestiary of Vvardenfell fits in with the overall clime of the place—there are plenty of repulsive insects and slime-dribbling creepy crawlies that occupy the sometimes marshy, sometimes dust-choked geography of the island. Combat is real time and works almost exactly like the earlier Elder Scrolls titles—hold a button and move the mouse, then release. The direction you moved determines how you operate the weapon (slash, stab, etc.). You can also choose to always use that weapon's most potent attack (a bash with a hammer, for example, is more devastating than a poke), in which case combat becomes kind of a clickfest. However, since your perspective moves when you move the mouse to swing (very stupid mistake, Bethesda), most gamers are going to elect to always use the most powerful attack. It's incredibly annoying to click, slide the mouse to the left to "slash," and find yourself turning even as you execute the move.

I'd like to have seen a few more creatures roaming the island; I don't have an official count but suspect that the actual fauna of Vvardenfell (not including humanoids) is limited to about thirty species. Though slim, the available monsters have been well thought-out indeed—horrifying beasts such as Clannfear and Hunger are creatures straight out of nightmare. Even the clanking, steam-powered living relics of the Dwarven era light fire in the imagination and further impress upon a gamer how much work went into evoking the world of Morrowind before a single line of code was written.

But the really dangerous creatures in Vvardenfell are those that walk on two legs and have brains as smart as your own. The ruthless Camonna Tong, a criminal syndicate devoted to the expulsion of the Imperials, and Yang to their Yin, the brutal Imperial Legion, intent on crushing the opposition forces in Morrowind, represent only two of the sinister factions of bloodthirsty gangs you'll encounter during your travels. Rabble ranging from thieves and cutthroats to high-class white collar criminals, false messiahs, and wicked religious zealots vie for power and attention in a realm where logic is turned on its ear and out of control xenophobia is the rule rather than the exception. In a land where the insane are in the majority, the sane find themselves very lonely indeed.

The infernal Daedroth lords also reappear in this Elder Scrolls sequel. The foul Daedra, the demons of Tamrielic myth, are much more fully fleshed out and explored in this chapter of the series. Vvardenfell's religion is based on worship of living gods who themselves are tangible manifestations of Daedric concepts. A religious war as well as a political one is brewing in poor Vvardenfell, and as you might imagine, your ignorant character is going to get caught up right in the middle of it.

Who Are You, and What Have You Done with Bethesda Softworks?

Mechanically, the game is more than sound. We've already discussed the beautiful graphics, which screenshots simply cannot do justice—Morrowind has to be seen to be believed. The sound is equally compelling, with rich orchestrations and powerful effects rattling your subwoofer. Though you don't need a set of Klipsch speakers or an Audigy to appreciate the aural glory of Morrowind, they can't hurt. The nicest thing about the game, though, is that it brings a lot more to the table than eye and ear candy.

One thing it doesn't bring to the table is serious instability or bugginess. Considering the hell that gamers went through with Daggerfall (see the retrospective for details on that misery), I was shocked at how stable Morrowind really is. It's not boxed perfection, of course; the game has some minor bugs—the clipping and logic problems, occasional crashes out to Windows, etc.—but for the most part it's incredibly stable. Unlike many games on shelves today, Morrowind was ready to ship when it went gold. That's not to say that it wouldn't benefit from a patch, but the title shipped unbroken, which is a rare treat nowadays and practically unimaginable for Bethesda.

I'm sure a patch is in the works, but so far there's no word on what it will do or when we can expect it. I assume Bethesda is smart enough to make sure that it won't mess with saved games. I think we can probably expect a general performance and compatibility patch within the next two weeks. If you've had a significantly different experience with the stability of Morrowind, I'd like to hear about it either at the Henhouse or at steerpike@fourfatchicks.com.

And while Morrowind is a little less sprawling than Daggerfall was, you can certainly take your time and do whatever you like. The last CRPG I played in great depth was Wizardry 8, and comparing the two I realize how generous the Elder Scrolls games really are with self-determination. You can choose to follow the story or not, you can choose to be a good or bad guy, you can get turned into a vampire, you can sell drugs or hunt undead, you can be nice or mean; your adventures will be of your own determination, not the game's.

Fifth Time's the Charm

I rambled in the retrospective about the true definition of nonlinearity. The fact is game studios have successfully convinced too many gamers to accept something less than the best when they seek out that quality. The ability to simply accomplish goals out of order should not be seen as the end all and be all of nonlinear gameplay. A nonlinear game is one of absolute freedom, where only logical bounds and the imagination of the gamer should be restrictions. Since 1993 Bethesda Softworks has committed itself to producing a true nonlinear roleplaying experience: a game with a story you can choose to follow or ignore, a world so persistent and believable that whenever you visit it, you'll have no problem believing that such a place could really exist.

The point of roleplaying is to invite us to unlock the potential of our own imaginations. Tabletop roleplaying allows greater flexibility for both the player and the GM because the human brain is infinitely more qualified to allow for and to create a "nonlinear" gaming experience. Computer programs, limited as they are to their zeroes and ones, may never be powerful enough to grant us the same freedom. But I for one have always been interested in seeing how close developers can come, because computer games can fill gaps that tabletop games never have—just like going to the movies is different than hearing a tale passed along in the oral tradition. In the case of Morrowind, Bethesda has finally achieved what it tried and tried to do with the other four Elder Scrolls games. Here we have the ultimate Goldilocks comparison in gaming: Arena didn't have the technology. Daggerfall had too much of everything. Battlespire lacked too many qualities that serious gamers would look for. Redguard focused too much on exploring other genres. But Morrowind ... Morrowind is just right.

The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind completely and totally redeems Bethesda for its past inadequacies. It is one thing to identify mistakes in earlier products and fix them; it's quite another to repair all the mistakes and also provide an experience that is both creatively and technologically miles ahead of anything else available, and a quantum leap beyond its own immediate predecessor. My thrill with this game should be apparent in the fact that the complaints I have about it focus mostly on very minor play issues; there is nothing, not one thing, in Morrowind that comes close to being a deal-breaker.

It is a beautiful, exciting, rich, and well-written game. It is everything that a great CRPG hopes to be. I certainly hope that other gamers are enjoying it as much as I am, because we've suffered through a long RPG dry spell where titles that hit the shelves brought very little creativity or newness to the table. Now at last we have something to tide us over. And since every game of Morrowind will be fundamentally different depending on the path you choose to take through the story, gamers who finish Morrowind will probably turn around and start right over again as thieves. Or knights. Or witch hunters. Or battlemages. Or bards. Or pilgrims. Or sorcerers. Or alchemists. Or barbarians. Or monks. Or ...