The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Plot synopsis:
While Morrowind contains many quests and storylines, the central plot revolves around The Tribunal, a triumvirate of god-like beings ruling over Morrowind, and their struggle against a former ally, the deity Dagoth Ur and his "Sixth House" - a cult of followers stretching out from Red Mountain, the volcanic center of Vvardenfell, the island on which the game is set. Dagoth Ur has used the Heart of Lorkhan, an artifact of great power, to make himself immortal and now seeks to drive the Imperial Legion occupiers from Morrowind using his network of spies, as well as Akulakhan, an enormous mechanical golem powered by the Heart of Lorkhan.
After a storm and a strange dream vision, the player begins fresh off a boat from a mainland prison in a town called Seyda Neen, freed by the string-pulling of the current ruler of the Tamrielic Empire, Emperor Uriel Septim VII, with the task of meeting Caius Cosades, a member of the Blades, a secret group of spies and agents working for the Emperor and the Empire.
Cosades inducts the player into the Blades on the Emperor's orders, and sets the player on various quests to uncover the mysterious disappearances and revelations that the citizens of Vvardenfell have experienced, particularly the Sixth House and the Ashlander prophecies of the Nerevarine. It is later revealed that the induction under Cosades, and the player's release from prison, was due to the Emperor's suspicion that the player might be 'The Nerevarine' - a reincarnation of the legendary Dunmer hero Indoril Nerevar. The player is tasked with uncovering the prophecies regarding the Nerevarine, and to fulfil them in order to finally defeat Dagoth Ur and his Sixth House cult.
Prophecies from the nomadic people living in the Ashlands, The Ashlanders, predict that Nerevar's incarnate will fulfill a set of seven prophecies. The first two prophecies are that the Nerevarine will be born on a certain day to uncertain parents, and will be immune to Corprus disease, a Divine disease created by Dagoth Ur. The player has already fulfilled the first, hence he/she was chosen for the task; the player becomes immune to Corprus by contracting the disease and surviving an experimental cure. Fulfilling these, the player seeks to complete the third prophecy, a test to find the Moon-and-Star (also called One-Clan-Under-Moon-And-Star), the symbolic ring originally worn by Nerevar, which has the power to instantly kill anyone, apart from himself (and by extension, the Nerevarine), who tries to wear it. Upon finding and equipping the ring, the player receives a vision from Azura, the ancient Daedric Prince of the Dawn and Dusk, who confirms that the player is Nerevar's incarnate. The Nerevarine completes the fourth and fifth trials, which are to rally the Great Houses of the Dunmer and Ashlanders of Vvardenfell under one banner. After receiving the support and being declared "Hortator" by every Great House and "Nerevarine" by all nomadic Ashlander tribes, the player is officially, albeit reluctantly, called "Nerevarine" by the Tribunal Temple, who normally persecute anyone who claims to be the Nerevarine and sentences them to death.
The Nerevarine is invited to the palace of the poet god-king Vivec, one of the three deities that forms the basis of Morrowind's religion, known as the Tribunal, to discuss the assault on Dagoth Ur's stronghold in the heart of Red Mountain. Vivec presents the player with the gauntlet 'Wraithguard', an ancient Dwemer artifact that allows the use of the tools of 'Sunder' and 'Keening'. These ancient implements were created by the dwemer to tap into the power of the fabled Heart of Lorkhan, which they found beneath Red Mountain - and these same tools have been used by the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur to reach their god-like status. The tools can, however, also destroy the fabled Heart of Lorkhan, but without having the Wraithguard equipped, they will deal a fatal blow to whoever wields them.
The player travels into Red Mountain to Dagoth Ur's citadel. After talking with Dagoth Ur, who attempts to sway the player to his side with the claim that he is merely following Nerevar's final orders, the player and Dagoth Ur fight. Besting Dagoth Ur, the Nerevarine soon discovers that while the Heart of Lorkhan is still intact, Dagoth Ur remains immortal and he soon returns from death. Making his way to the very heart of the mountain, the Nerevarine finds the Heart of Lorkhan and destroys it, severing Dagoth Ur from his power and ultimately killing him. Akulakhan's Chamber, where Lorkhan's heart resided, is destroyed in the process as the cavern collapses, and in turn Red Mountain is cleared of blight and The Sixth House falls. Upon escaping from the chamber, the Nerevarine is congratulated by Azura, who comes to reward the player's efforts of fulfilling the prophecy.
The game does not end upon the main quest's completion, but the game world Vvardenfell is affected in many different ways. The Blight Storms cease to plague the land, and the weak minded followers of the Sixth House are re-awakened, remembering nothing of their ordeal. The Dreamers who harassed the Nerevarine fall silent, and the Nerevarine becomes widely known as the savior of Vvardenfell. The quintessential consequence of defeating Dagoth Ur was the destruction of the Heart of Lorkhan. Due to their immortality linked to the heart, Vivec and the Tribunal become mortal again, leaving Vivec's future in question and up to the player to determine his fate. The loss of divinity among the Tribunal is the main plot point of the game's first expansion, Tribunal.

Tags: cult, murder

Review:
Do not miss this RPG experience.
I played this several years ago and for some reason stopped.
Three years later and 6 years after its release, I've become an addict again.Morrowind is a unique RPG experience that I have enjoyed more than any other.
The story takes place on a human empire's furthest and most recent conquest - the island of Vvardenfell.
The island is populated by Dark Elves, or Dunmer as they refer to themselves, as well as many original and unusual natural and unnatural flora and fauna.The world seems enormous due to the rich layers of detail and the breadth of quests available.
I have only played Daggerfall, and it was enjoyable to an extent, but it was just too cookie-cutter for my tastes.
Every building and town looked the same, and the dungeons were a mess of weaving, 3D corridors that were extremely tedious to navigate, even with the minimap.Although Morrowind scales the size of the world down a bit, that is the only thing about the game that is smaller.
There are a number of "guilds" or other organizations that can be joined, each with their own ranking system and multitude of quests that take the character to the far corners of the island world.
The environs are richly detailed, with varied terrain, numerous towns that are all unique in layout and architecture, fantastic environmental effects like sandstorms and rainfall, and a dramatic night sky filled with stars.The best part of the game is that it is almost entirely open ended.
You can play any type of character you wish, from a virtuous crusader to a dastardly villain.
You like to steal things?
There are valuables everywhere for the taking (but not without consequence).
There are a number of guilds and quests to suit your sense of right.
Maybe a mafia-like hit-man?
Or maybe you are more of a pacifist that would prefer not to fight at all unless it's absolutely necessary?
Or just maybe - you'd like to be all of these rolled into one?
But with a little caution (and resorting back to saved games), you can be a very successful career criminal in this world.
In fact, there are a number of illicit trades that you can become involved with, including slave trading, narcotics, murder for hire, and of course theft.
This is not Grand Theft Auto, but the criminal underworld is just below the surface with many opportunities for those who are so inclined.I stressed the criminal element here merely to demonstrate the game's depth.
There is also much political intrigue that the character can become involved with.
This makes for some very interesting game play with numerous side stories to be told.
Now to solve the game, you must eventually become involved in the "main" quest.
But there is so much else to do that you may very well forget about this for a long, long time.
In fact, you can come back to it whenever you wish without penalty.The game relies on a skills-based system for character advancement.
You start with a set of skills, ranging from weapons and armors to speechcraft and mercantile.
There are no "experience points" for killing monsters.
If it takes you two swings to kill a monster, then the skill for the weapon you used increases by two swings.
With the skills trainers and opportunities to use these skills, they are increased fairly rapidly, resulting in level increases.With all the glowing praise I have for the game, there is still room for some criticism.
Although increasing one's skills and wealth early in the game is a challenge, as it progresses this becomes easy to the point of tedium.
And the character eventually gets so much outstanding equipment that he/she becomes nigh invincible.
Many would not consider this much of a flaw, but when the game fails to challenge it becomes less appealing.
There is still an incredibly interesting story and quests to follow, but I feel that some of the game aspects should have been redesigned.
The combat is rather straight forward and simplistic, but this is not the main focus of the game as it is with so many others - in nearly all other RPG game titles the character must wade through and kill hordes of things just to level up and advance along in the game.
You could technically advance to a high level in this game without killing a single thing (although that might become a bit tedious and boring).
The only other problem, in a way, is that the game is of the "sandbox" variety, meaning that it never really ends.
When all is said and done, however, this tops my list of the best RPG experiences of all time.
Immersive, entertaining, with a phenomenal breadth of things to do, places to go, and people to see, this is an experience that any RPG fan would be loathe to miss out on.
Do yourself a big favor and go get the Morrowind Game of the Year Edition as soon as you can.
I have not played Oblivion yet, so it may even be better.
But Morrowind must even then be highly enjoyable..
Best RPG.
It's hard to name any RPGs that have even come close to Morrowind's immersiveness and expansiveness, save Daggerfall, the previous game in the Elder Scrolls series.
Tom Hall's Anachronox comes close, but that game is really a mix of genres and hard to directly compare to Morrowind.Like Anachronox, it's clear that a lot of love went into Morrowind.
You can truly become lost in this game for hours and hours and even forget to eat or sleep.
Hopefully Morrowind will achieve the sales it deserves, and we will see further continuations of the series.
Looking back on Daggerfall, it's really amazing how far the game industry has come in 5 years..
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is, quite simply, the best RPG ever!
The story is so broad and the world is so open.
I wish that Bethesda would release an expansion of the entire province of Morrowind, or even better, the entire continent of Tamriel.
All that aside, this is still the best RPG ever!
You have been a prisoner of the Imperials, but the Emperor has set you free, though you don't know why.
There is a main quest, but there is no pressure to get started on it.
You can join one or more of various factions and guilds.
If you have the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansion packs, there is even more for you to do.
It is possible to play this game for weeks at a time and never run out of things to do.
The newest and best thing in RPG's.
"The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind" is, in my mind, the best RPG that's been produced to date.
It is the only completely open-ended RPG that I've seen.
With virtually no limitations placed on where you can go or what you can do, it propels itself into a whole new level of RPG.
In fact, this game allows almost too much freedom.
At times it can be overwhelming and exhausting, but those things are also what make it refreshing.
There are numerous factions and outfits that you can join completely at your own discretion.
The game also has a unique system of remembering what you've done.
Like I said, you're free to do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it.
You can kill anyone, rob anyone, fight anyone, etc., and there are several ways that you can do each.
There is a thin storyline that drives the game forward, which you are free to pursue or not at your leisure..
More than a game..
Never before has anyone been able to craft an RPG of such exquisiteness and depth.
I picked it up 3 years ago, and after first playing it, I was not the same person, and it continues to waste weeks of my life time and time again.
No wonder I haven't been laid.The game is completely open-ended.
You could avoid the main quest entirely if you wanted, racking up wealth and treasures in the countless sidequests featured.
When creating your character, you can pick your gender, pick out of 10 races to play as, your class, and your birthsign.
Their are dozens of skills to choose, all representing either Combat, Magic, or Stealth.
But the way you level up is especially interesting.
Instead of gaining experience points, you develop your character by actually developing their skills, similar to Final Fantasy II.
If your fight with a Long Sword, your Long Sword skill will increase.
When enough skills have increased, you level up, and raise attributes.
It makes the most sense out of any role-playing system I've ever experienced, and it allows you to create any type of character you want.While playing, you can really become immersed into the game world and your character.
I often make up backstories in my head and play out scenarios and ramble dialog to myself, truly playing the role of my character.But enough about character development.
I haven't even gotten started on the game world itself.
It is 8 square miles big, and so richly detailed you can feel like your in it.
According to many sources, the developers would hire "clutter monkeys" to decorate the interior spaces with useless junk, like plates, cups, bottles, torches, vases, and thousands of other different types of clutter, all of which can be freely manipulated.
The terrain is varied, with mountains, rocks, trees, and towns with unique architecture dotting the landscape, all rendered in beautiful graphics.
The towns are populated with NPCs, most of them uninteresting, but sometimes you come across unique characters and unique oddities.
Weapons range from basic weaponry like Spears and Steel Daggers, to exotic weaponry like Glass Longswords and Ebony Warhammers, all free to use at any level you wish (good luck finding stuff like that at level 1 though).There are several different factions and guilds to join, including the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieve's Guild, 3 vampire factions, and 3 great houses, House Hlaalu, House Redoran, or House Telvanni (you can only join one house at a time).But what really makes Morrowind have endless replay value is it's customizability.
Shipped with Morrowind is the Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which lets you modify just about any aspect of the game you wish.
Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to use.
The mods are THE reason to buy the PC version and not the Xbox version.The game is not perfect.
The combat can sometimes be boring, and unless you have the Tribunal expansion, your journal will become an unorganized mess.
Some reviewers noted that the graphics can slow the game down, but I never had a problem, so I cant complain.
These errors are in general overshadowed by all the positive aspects of the game itself.As I'm sure you'll understand by now, Morrowind is possibly the greatest game in recent memory.
Even if you don't like games like this, Morrowind will draw you win like a black hole and never let you out..
if you are bored of those shooter ups like halo and Doom.
this is perhaps the best game ever that i have played!
although sometimes it can get a bit boring, but the plot is excellent and there's always something exciting happening in Morrowind!
you could become a bounty hunter and hunt outlaws!
or hunt the local and dangerous wildlife and demons!
or even become an outlaw yourself!
game play 10/10 plot 10/10 graphics 9.9/10!
this is better than Halo and all of those.
i've always thought that halo was a bit boring because you do the same thing over and over again.
but in Morrowind you can do the main plot thousands of times and never get bored!
get the game of the year version though it's better!.
This game for me is one of the most addicting singleplayer-games I have played.
This installment of The Elder Scrolls has a particular fantasy-realm setting that will immediately draw you into the world from the minute you hear the epic theme-song.
And the best part is: you can do whatever the hell you want.
Want to explore dungeons and raid them for gold and treasures?
Want to increase your magicka by learning new spells?
Or do you want to follow quests in the main story line?
The possibilities in this game even to this day are astounding, and the large environment is always fun to explore.Unfortunately, this game does have a few flaws though, and a few of them have been addressed a lot by critics over the years.
The game is hard to get into if you are not familiar with Roleplaying games (especially since the first-person perspective can fool you into thinking its a hack & slash type of game at first), but once you spent some time figuring out the game you will have everything under control.
The fighting in this game is weird, although you get used to it.
Depending on your character's progress, you will either hit or miss the enemy with your weapon even when you are standing right in front of him/her.
Obviously "behind the scenes" the game 'rolls the dice' to see if you hit or miss, but its still weird.
When you level up you will obviously hit much more though.
Some people also complained about having to read so much, but I never had any problem with that.The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind is a game that shows how epic RPG's should be.
If you can look past the glitches and bugs then you have a classic game that can easily entertain you for weeks, months even..
A very impressive game for the X-box, I just could not get into it..
The X-box is a strange entry into the video gaming world.
When released it was easily the most powerful of the three systems released at the time (the Gamecube and Playstation 2 being the other two main ones), it however had such a short lifespan.
So they had this one which was super powerful and had virtually no flaws, to a system that periodically breaks down every now and then.
I never had any trouble with my X-box, I have had three 360's.
This system would have been nothing if not for the two Halo games released on it, Fable, two decent Star Wars games and this one.
I saw a trailer for this game, and it along with Knights of the Old Republic were two of the reasons I got an X-box.
However, this game was not for me, I know one gets lambasted here if one does not go with the flow, but I have to review as it pertains to me and my enjoyment, not how everyone else feels.I will start by saying when I first started playing this game I was instantly hooked!
You get to make your character and have so much input into what your character looks like and his or her abilities.
Then the game starts and it is sort of fun, but why did I just get thrown in jail for stealing an ashtray in a random house with nobody present to see said crime?
Oh well, let me start over not sure I like the character I made one hundred percent.
Let me walk down the path here, oh look a cave.
Let me enter it, and oh my, just got my behind handed to me.
Perhaps I did not make this character all that good.
Let's try again.
I got through the cave, now walking fighting random things, man this town is huge!
I have to pick a guild, I got to do this?
Thus, the main problem for me...I was overwhelmed.
If you are the type of gamer that has the compulsion to talk to every NPC, do every mission, and hates to miss even the smallest thing this game is not for you!
I reset the game so much, fearing I had missed this or done that wrong that I literally could not enjoy the game!
This is why the game did not work for me, it was not a bad game, but it was not a game I could enjoy.Like I said, this game was not something made for me.
I still, however, appreciate the expansive world created for your character to explore.
The graphics were stunning, showcasing the X-box's power.
So much effort went into the game and I applaud the game makers for this, as they crafted a beautiful world for you to traverse.
The fighting is not the greatest in the world, but it is at least it is easy to pick up and not overly complicated.
Part of me would like to play this game again, but I know what would happen if I did.
I would get flustered and end up repeatedly starting the game over.So this game is a good game, it just does not work for a person like me.
While it does not work for me, I can still see that it is a very good that one can immerse oneself in and play for hours upon hours...that is unless you are like me and you find yourself playing the same thing a bunch of times.
This game in that regards is like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
That one I found myself completely overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had to do too.
This one is a gem of the short lived, but very impressive X-box run.
The system that was beyond its years that gave way to the system that breaks beyond its warranty..
The most overrated RPG ever!.
I don't understand why people like this game.
But the combat, gaming, and graphics are just horrible!
I've seen 1990s/2001 games with better graphics than this!
You can't block when you wish.
The Dark Brootherhood outfit looks like the gimpsuit from GTA II.