Morrowind

[Tapewolf]

Yes, this is unfortunately the reason there was no Radio Project update on Sunday 

Anyroad, I'm happily running around as a long-haired Khajiit named 'Cat Dude', dressed solely in a robe and with no concern for what I'm supposed to be doing.  Actually I'm trying to figure out how to earn some hard cash, but I digress.

Having recently figured out how to cast 'Flame Bite' I have reached that happy state of affairs where I usually kill the rats and other bad things rather than vice-versa.

Thing is, I could really do with some ranged weapons - Cat Dude is supposed to major in marksmanship and not having a crossbow sucks.  Anyone know where I could score such a thing?

[Reese Tora]

OMG, I have played that game, and it is awesome.

now, if you're planning on getting some ranged gear...

You can start off with a chitin bow from the store in Seyda Neen (Arrile's trade house)

Crossbows are rare, and Bows are more common, though the crossbow has a better average damage than it's bow counterpart (OTOH, arrows tend to be much better than bolts for damage, if you can afford to use the high-level ones)

I believe that there are crossbows can be found for sale in the city of Balmora.

OOC, are you using the PC or XBox version of Morrowind? (Not that it makes a difference, if you're not interested in using palyer made content)

If you want, I can PM you a link to a guide on another site that can tell you how to lay your hands on the ultimate in marksman weapons. (or just PM you the relevant section frmot he guide)

[Tapewolf]

You can start off with a chitin bow from the store in Seyda Neen (Arrile's trade house)

Again it comes back down to money.  I guess I need to start poking around in the towns, see if I can run errands or something, as the first two little quests I've done - saving the botanist and giving the bandit wossname's glove - have not really panned out financially.
I knew I should have kept it ("what kind of a maniac roams around Vegas with one purple glove?")

OOC, are you using the PC or XBox version of Morrowind? (Not that it makes a difference, if you're not interested in using palyer made content)

It's the PC version, the Mastertronic edition which I found in the supermarket one day.  It also comes with Bloodmoon and Tribunal.  Man, I remember Mastertronic's budget games from 20 years ago... apparently they survived the death of the 8-bit era 

If you want, I can PM you a link to a guide on another site that can tell you how to lay your hands on the ultimate in marksman weapons. (or just PM you the relevant section frmot he guide)

I think a few subtle hints on money making are in order at this point.  I was hoping to earn some cash by the sword/bow, but alas, I lack the starting capital and I suspect the Ultima 5,6,7 and 9 technique of killing guards and selling their armour to the blacksmith will land me with a dead kitty in this game 

Stealing things and fencing them off is something I haven't yet explored as I still don't know if this game has any form of karma system.

[Turnsky]

You can start off with a chitin bow from the store in Seyda Neen (Arrile's trade house)

Again it comes back down to money.  I guess I need to start poking around in the towns, see if I can run errands or something, as the first two little quests I've done - saving the botanist and giving the bandit wossname's glove - have not really panned out financially.
I knew I should have kept it ("what kind of a maniac roams around Vegas with one purple glove?")

OOC, are you using the PC or XBox version of Morrowind? (Not that it makes a difference, if you're not interested in using palyer made content)

It's the PC version, the Mastertronic edition which I found in the supermarket one day.  It also comes with Bloodmoon and Tribunal.  Man, I remember Mastertronic's budget games from 20 years ago... apparently they survived the death of the 8-bit era 

If you want, I can PM you a link to a guide on another site that can tell you how to lay your hands on the ultimate in marksman weapons. (or just PM you the relevant section frmot he guide)

I think a few subtle hints on money making are in order at this point.  I was hoping to earn some cash by the sword/bow, but alas, I lack the starting capital and I suspect the Ultima 5,6,7 and 9 technique of killing guards and selling their armour to the blacksmith will land me with a dead kitty in this game 

Stealing things and fencing them off is something I haven't yet explored as I still don't know if this game has any form of karma system.

as long as you don't get caught, you're fine.

[Reese Tora]

let's see... I believe there are a number of 'wilderness stashes' in the area; look in stumps and odd places for hidden loot, especially near tall buildings.  Also, travel up[ the coast, and look for underwater grottoes.  They are safe enough if you move quickly to avoid drowning(and can fight off a couple slaughterfish), and can yield some valuable surprises (I recall finding most of a suit of chitin armor one time)

Then too, there are a few easy quests in the starter town, and anything outside is fair game to pick up.  I would suggest you talk to the fine gentlemen in the upper story of arrile's store as well; if memory serves, one of them has a quest worth some 100 gold (plus a bonus if you happened to perform a certain charitable act before this)

The tax collector quest can net you some quick cash off the bat.  There's little to no combat involved. (the one piece of combat that I think is involved allows you to use 'chinese door fighting' if you're having trouble with it, and is against an unarmed and unarmored opponent in any case.)

This is all asuming you are still buming around Seyda Neen, of course (the stashes and grottoes hold true all over the island, but there are a few nice ones near there for new players)

Just make sure to check the latest rumors with everyone; flesh out your keyword lists, talk about any topic that comes up highlighted as having new info.  Quests from random people can bring in a good deal of money(for a starting person)  Once you're confident in your combat abilities and equipment, I'd suggest hitting up a few bandit lairs, ancestral tombs, and dwemer ruins; you can find a lot of valuable stuff in them, though the dwemer loot tends to be rather heavy for it's value. (the weapons and armor tend to be pretty valuable, though)

--edit--

Oh, and if you have the Tribunal plugin active, be careful when you sleep!

[Tapewolf]

This is all asuming you are still buming around Seyda Neen, of course (the stashes and grottoes hold true all over the island, but there are a few nice ones near there for new players)

Good point - I'd better go back there.  Currently I'm wandering around some mountains investigating what looks like a crashed UFO and killing cliff racers in a genocidal spree of vengeance for all the times they've killed me.  (And to increase my skill with magic).

Oh, and if you have the Tribunal plugin active, be careful when you sleep!

It's not installed... I assumed it was an entire separate program.

as long as you don't get caught, you're fine.

It's probably not a renewable source of money, though.   And just because you're not seen doesn't mean that people wouldn't notice.  U5L had a 'reputation' system, and depending on how sophisticated the AI system is, people might suspect me of being a thief if items vanish while I'm in the area 

More importantly, U6 did keep track of your crimes - seen or otherwise - and you couldn't complete the game unless you were good enough to visit the Codex.  (Which I bungled in a single act of hoe-based slaughter to obtain the rune of compassion after weeks of angelic deeds.  Uh, forget I said that.)

[Turnsky]

This is all asuming you are still buming around Seyda Neen, of course (the stashes and grottoes hold true all over the island, but there are a few nice ones near there for new players)

Good point - I'd better go back there.  Currently I'm wandering around some mountains investigating what looks like a crashed UFO and killing cliff racers in a genocidal spree of vengeance for all the times they've killed me.  (And to increase my skill with magic).

Oh, and if you have the Tribunal plugin active, be careful when you sleep!

It's not installed... I assumed it was an entire separate program.

as long as you don't get caught, you're fine.

It's probably not a renewable source of money, though.   And just because you're not seen doesn't mean that people wouldn't notice.  U5L had a 'reputation' system, and depending on how sophisticated the AI system is, people might suspect me of being a thief if items vanish while I'm in the area 

More importantly, U6 did keep track of your crimes - seen or otherwise - and you couldn't complete the game unless you were good enough to visit the Codex.  (Which I bungled in a single act of hoe-based slaughter to obtain the rune of compassion after weeks of angelic deeds.  Uh, forget I said that.)

morrowind has a very basic thievery system, as long as nobody actually SEES you, can can filch what you want from somebody, and sell it elsewhere.
hell, you can get away with murder if you're the only one in a building.

[Tapewolf]

morrowind has a very basic thievery system, as long as nobody actually SEES you, can can filch what you want from somebody, and sell it elsewhere.
hell, you can get away with murder if you're the only one in a building.

I notice it has a 'dispose of corpse' option.  Do people notice bodies?  I left the mad old man who nearly fell on me just lying around to see if anyone would notice - having first looted his corpse of goodies and swapped my clothes for his.

"It's not a dress, it's a robe!"


It's a pity you don't seem to be able to carry bodies around - it's such fun to cause a stir in Thief 2 or Deus Ex by wandering through the crowd with some dead guy.

[Turnsky]

morrowind has a very basic thievery system, as long as nobody actually SEES you, can can filch what you want from somebody, and sell it elsewhere.
hell, you can get away with murder if you're the only one in a building.

I notice it has a 'dispose of corpse' option.  Do people notice bodies?  I left the mad old man who nearly fell on me just lying around to see if anyone would notice - having first looted his corpse of goodies and swapped my clothes for his.

"It's not a dress, it's a robe!"


It's a pity you don't seem to be able to carry bodies around - it's such fun to cause a stir in Thief 2 or Deus Ex by wandering through the crowd with some dead guy.

not really, they don't really notice dead bodies around in oblivion, either, which has a more complex stealth system....

gotta love breaking into people's stores, robbing them blind, then stealing their keys for later amusement.

[Tapewolf]

gotta love breaking into people's stores, robbing them blind, then stealing their keys for later amusement.

Royal mint.  Is there one of those?  Or a bank?  That was the way to go in U7.  I can't remember how you got hold of the key now, but it was fairly easy and once you had it, you could come in at night, take the entire treasury and then exchange all the gold bars you 'found' for hard cash in the morning (...how?).

But yeah, selling people's own goods back to them is always fun...

[Turnsky]

gotta love breaking into people's stores, robbing them blind, then stealing their keys for later amusement.

Royal mint.  Is there one of those?  Or a bank?  That was the way to go in U7.  I can't remember how you got hold of the key now, but it was fairly easy and once you had it, you could come in at night, take the entire treasury and then exchange all the gold bars you 'found' for hard cash in the morning (...how?).

But yeah, selling people's own goods back to them is always fun...

there's a few places that have loads of valuables, but if you wanna steal stuff in oblivion, you haveta join the thieves guild to get access to their fences in oblivion..
Palaces are the proverbial goldmine, no matter which game..   and yes i have stolen stuff from palaces.. risky as it might be.

[Ryudo Lee]

And if you're a high enough level, and a quite a decent thief (and it helps to finish out the thieve's guild and get the skeleton key), you can rob the vaults in Vivec and get all kinds of goodies.  It also helps to have the invisibility and chameleon (as high a percentage as you can get) spells.  The problem is that the goodies are level dependant.  If you're low level, you get cheap junk.  If you're a higher level, like say 40, you get some really nice stuff.  The vaults are in the house cantons.  It's usually one of the last things I do when I decide to lose a few weeks in Morrowind.

[Tapewolf]

The problem is that the goodies are level dependant.  If you're low level, you get cheap junk.  If you're a higher level, like say 40, you get some really nice stuff.  The vaults are in the house cantons.  It's usually one of the last things I do when I decide to lose a few weeks in Morrowind.

First I'll have to work out how to work out what level I am.  I don't recall seeing it in the stats menu, but there again I was more interested in individual skill ratings.  Damn PDF manuals...

[Ryudo Lee]

I think it is somewhere in the stats menu.  It's been awhile since I sat down and played it.

[Reese Tora]

If you havn't slept and leveled up yet, you're still level 1.

A good source ofn income, if you ahve decent stealth and decent strength would be to raid some imperial ebony mines.  Ebony is worth, I think, 200g a piece, and there's usually 12-15 pieces throughout a mine (in openable nodes) they weigh 10 pounds each, though, and if you are in an active mine, you must avoid being seen by guards because they will consider it to be stealing.  There are a number of abandoned mines that still have ebony and glass to find, though.

You can also harvest ingredients and sell them (for very little money)

On Tribunal and Bloodmoon: they are plugins that work with the original Morrowind installation, just like player made content.  If you install them, you have the option of enabling or disabling them.  if you install Tribunal and turn it on after you are up to a decent level, you will be attacked by an assassin the next time you rest (this is the plot hook for the content available in Tribunal)

My largest source of income in morrowind/tribunal(never got bloodmoon) was to kill off the assassins and sell thier armor, as it was pretty valuable armor. They aren't pushovers, though.

[Tapewolf]

If you havn't slept and leveled up yet, you're still level 1.

Not any more...

I've been exploring some of the caves/dungeons.  I actually managed to stomp the entire dungeon's evil occupants except for some really nasty bugger at the end.  She had this big book which I nicked and fled.  After taking everything else which I could carry, I sold the lot (minus the interesting book) for about 40 gold coins.  She put some strange spell on me which reduced my strength, though.  Can that be fixed?

While trying to find my way home I came across some farmhouse with a slave cat-brother in it.  Can't seem to find the key, though.  It was rather interesting though, because I turned the place upside-down trying to find it and the slave kept saying things like "no! thief!" without actually trying to prevent me in any way.  I might keep that one if the game doesn't support karma, because if the slave won't stop me and the farmer never comes into the house - he seems to wander the fields 24x7 as was done in Ultima 9 - then no-one will ever object.

Offing the farmer has also occurred to me, but I once destroyed Ultima 6 by killing a critical NPC so I'm going to hold off of that until I have a better idea of who's important and who's fodder.  (I tried it as an experiment - he doesn't have the key either)

And I've found a ranged weapon, but I won't be able to take possession of it until I can establish a way to kill the outlaw who it belongs to...

[Ryudo Lee]

There's only two farmers that are of any real importance to the game.  Both have to do with the various quests that you get from the Temple, but those are sidequests and have no bearing on the main quest.

[Reese Tora]

generally speaking, there is only one person you can kill that seriously messes up the main quest in Morrowind... and it's still possibly to complete even then, though much more difficult (and potentially impossible for one with low HP)

Most slaves that are releasable have a key nearby, and there's someone who keeps track of slaves released (and, I believe, may give you a quest or a reward if you release enough slaves, though it's been a while since I played.)
Some slaves can't be released, though.

[Ryudo Lee]

I believe that if you release 20 slaves, there's a person in Vivec that will tell you about her underground organization that's been set up to abolish slavery in the world.

[Tapewolf]

Excellent.  I wonder if I can use that 'detect key' thingamabob I got?

I should have called him "Moses Minor" or something.  (Tries to say "Let my people go!" in a cat voice)

[Ryudo Lee]

The various detect spells put colored dots on your minimap.  I forget what color corresponds to what.

[Reese Tora]

I think keys are a yellow-brown color... if all he casts is detect key then it should be pretty obvious.

If you want, I could dig up the console command that opens the character creation screens; then you can use that to change your name.

(console commands, you hit tilde (~) type the command, hit enter, and hit tilde again to turn off command mode; they're there for the purpose of testing plugins that you make, and can be used to do just about anything if you know the commands to input.)

[Saist]

trying to not hijack this too much...

http://www.mepisguides.com/Mepis-6/Cedega/Morrowind/morrowind-install.html

For those who don't run Windows or have an Xbox but would like to play Morrowind.

[Tapewolf]

For those who don't run Windows or have an Xbox but would like to play Morrowind.

They say it almost works in Wine, but for now I'm just going to dual-boot.

No keys yet.  Probably picked some of the farms which don't have any.  I'll have to see if I can somehow get in touch with this Abolitionist movement, but for now I think I'll abolish the farmer.

Meanwhile in Suran, the Spellmaking feature is fun - I've created an attack spell which kills me, and robbed the basement in the guard-tower, fencing all their bowls and junk at the pawnbroker.  My attempts at hitting on the cat-girl in the brothel only took me so far, though...

[Malakin]

If your still looking for some quick money, you can go pearl diving off the north shore of lake Amaya..
They respawn and if you are lucky you can get a thousand or so gold in one go!

[Tapewolf]

If your still looking for some quick money, you can go pearl diving off the north shore of lake Amaya..

I'll have to find it, but thanks for the tip.  It sounds like a better bet than my current strategy.

(And damn, it isn't working in wine 0.9.34)

[Turnsky]

for a thief, i suggest investing heavily in security, sneak, and lockpicks...

[Malakin]

Unless of course you want to go the mage/thief route, in that case you want to go for ilusion and alteration I think, which will give you things like Invisibility, Chameleon, Telekinesis, open, and a few others...

[Tapewolf]

Unless of course you want to go the mage/thief route, in that case you want to go for ilusion and alteration I think, which will give you things like Invisibility, Chameleon, Telekinesis, open, and a few others...

I'm definitely going for magic, although I am into lockpicks as well, I'll admit.
I'm pondering joining the Mage guild at Vivec, but I'm still keeping my options open regarding that.  Is it possible to join multiple guilds?

[Dammit, he blinked in the best screenshot]

[Turnsky]

Unless of course you want to go the mage/thief route, in that case you want to go for ilusion and alteration I think, which will give you things like Invisibility, Chameleon, Telekinesis, open, and a few others...

I'm definitely going for magic, although I am into lockpicks as well, I'll admit.
I'm pondering joining the Mage guild at Vivec, but I'm still keeping my options open regarding that.  Is it possible to join multiple guilds?

[Dammit, he blinked in the best screenshot]

yeah, it's quite possible, 'cept with the thieves and fighter guilds, some quests intersect with eachother.