With character creation and the intro dungeon over with, I can set out in the actual world. It's one of the best game worlds of all time, and was especially unparalleled circa 1993. How much will this game actually be able to flesh out Tamriel, given the limitations of the time? I'm going to find out.
Originally Posted May 2014, now remastered for 2025
The soundtrack up to this point has been an awful mess of not just "bleeps", but also "bloops". That all changes when you get outside for the first time. A tune plays that sounds quite a bit like the Final Fantasy VII overworld theme. Kinda fitting, since that tune also plays after a really long "dungeon" type intro.
Good luck finding an equipment shop. There are tons of them, but the towns are so massive that it's hard to find anything. Take a look:
Each of those red dots is a door to a building, usually someone's hovel. Some of them are buildings of note like churches or bars or shops. And this map only shows about 60% of the town, the rest is scrolled off. ....This is THE FIRST TOWN.
I stumble into a bar full of NPCs and flute music. I gotta say, the sheer scope of this game, while intimidating as heck, is really getting me into it. I haven't been this awed by a game's scope since Metroid Prime in 2002, and Ocarina of Time in 1999 before that. There's just a sense that anything can happen, and every time I turn a corner I'm somewhat wowed by something else. If the graphics weren't so awful, I'd probably be completely blown away.
I go around talking to everyone. Every NPC you speak to has something like a 20% chance of giving you some sort of guidance on where you need to go next. Which is pretty cool, you don't wander for an hour trying to find this one cat you're supposed to talk to like in so many other RPGs that I've played.
This lady is fairly sexy, but with the graphics as garbled and 1994 3D as they are, my nether-regions aren't sure how to react.
Took me a while to find an equipment shop, but once I did it got marked on the map. In any case, I offloaded all of the equipment I hoarded in the first dungeon, getting like 5-10 G for each item... until I sold a magical Longsword that I found and got 7500 for it. No idea what made that Longsword so valuable. The Dwarven Longsword that I'm using is much more powerful (and only worth 210). I wonder if magical weapons have a bonus against undead or magical foes or something along those lines. Or maybe it had an effect I didn't know about and needed to be appraised? I'll worry about it later... for now, I'm suddenly rich.
I take my 8,000 G and spend about 3,000 getting all the plate armor that I'm missing, and a few (enchanted?) plate armors with stat-boosts on them. A pauldron with 10 Endurance is pretty damn good, since Endurance directly affects your HP in a big way. Since 100 is the max for stats, a few enchanted items for my key stats should get me there quickly.
Here's the "overworld". Specifically, Morrowind province, which I detour to instead of looking for the first fragment dungeon in Hammerfell. You fast travel between locations and there's very little reason to ever go into the wilderness aside from looking for random dungeons.
Looking at it from this perspective, the game actually seems kind of small. Yes, all of these towns and forts are huge areas. However, from the several I looked at, it appears that a lot of them are copies of each other in content. Things like merchant inventories seem to be mostly the same everywhere.
Side note: Vvardenfell (the area with the volcano on it) is tiny compared to the Morrowind mainland, and it's where the entirety of Morrowind takes place. When are we getting a Morrowind 2 with the actual mainland of the province?
Morrowind looks interesting. It's a bit gloomy and rainy. You can see the massive Vvardenfell volcano in the background plane, but I'm not sure if you can go there. If this were ESIII, you'd be able to run towards it until you reached it.
I wander into some sort of graveyard in Morrowind. No enemies here, surprisingly. Found a small crypt dungeon, but there wasn't much there. Well, back to Hammerfell. Next goal is to find Fang Lair.
Okay, there was one thing in the crypt... the coffin of MORT. Who is MORT? I didn't try looting it, and now that I think about it I probably should have.
Coffin-looting... that's not very Paragon.
When you first get outside, it's night-time. Also, every time you fast-travel anywhere, it's night-time when you arrive. You can't do anything at night since all the NPCs are locked up inside, and monsters are much more common (even in towns). Not even sure why night-time exists in this game except to constantly annoy you. Just means you have to rest for a few rounds every time you fast travel to get daylight back.
In other news, Harar Haraiksen wants everyone to know he's a thug.
.png)
More fun with townspeople. This one makes sure to let our hero know that she's an idiot.
I find a weapon shop with some equipment that I haven't seen before. Nothing is an upgrade over my Dwarven Longsword, though. I really lucked out finding that one.
Valenwood doesn't look that much different from the grasslands in Hammerfell. At first I was pretty excited to see the provinces that don't have games attributable to them, but it very quickly became clear that most of the areas in this game are fairly nondescript from one another.
Wonder what province we'll get for Elder Scrolls VI.
(Editor's Note in 2025: STILL WONDERING)
Speaking of provinces that don't have games yet, here's Black Marsh. Land of the lizardmen.
West of that is Elsweyr, land of the cat people. In the north it's mostly grasslands, while the south gives way to some desert.
West of that is Valenwood, home of the wood elves. As the name implies it's mostly forests, and it's known for its heavy and consistent rainfall. This has my vote for the next game. Sounds like it'd be quite nice to look at in HD. A tree city would be awesome.
West of that is Summerset Isle, another place that would look amazing in HD. Home of the high elves, who need to stop toking doobies all the time.
So basically, the options for VI are a marsh, a desert, a forest, and an island. Of course, these places are so big that they can have a variety of environments, but those are likely the prevailing themes.
Note: I forgot about Hammerfell and High Rock, which are only partially covered in Daggerfall. Either of those (or both!) could be Elder Scrolls VI. They're your more traditional medieval Europe type zones, though Hammerfell is noteworthy for having a substantial desert in it (like Elsweyr).
The center province, the Imperial lands, are completely empty aside from the main city. That's a huge hub town with a lot of good equipment, and the palace at the center is the final dungeon of the game. Weird how the rest of this province is empty space in this game, but at least it gets fleshed-out in Oblivion.
The Imperial city itself isn't the bastion of evil I was expecting, and looks just like a regular town.
For now in Arena, I'm still toiling in Hammerfell. Most of eastern Hammerfell is actually unaccounted for in the series; the western side is combined with High Rock to be the setting for the second game.
Next stop is the sandy town of Rihad. I should have named the hero Bob Marley.
I stumble into the Mage's Guild and find the mighty Generic Old Mage. All this time I didn't bother going into one of these places because I thought they were spell shops (which, being a Knight, I'd get no use out of). Turns out these are shops where you can buy magical items. I'll need to keep an eye on this.
Potions are particularly noteworthy. For the most part, resting after every fight has been enough healing, but not for much longer. Potions of Healing and Heal True are going to be extremely important from here on out. Particularly Heal True, which restores about 3x as much on average and renders Potions of Healing a bit obsolete out of the gate.
Free Action is a super-important potion if you're not a High Elf or a Knight. It cures paralysis. Cure Disease is another important potion to keep a couple of on hand, and Resist Fire is something I'll be needing for the first major dungeon, Fang Lair.
The Mage's Guild loves to completely gouge you on prices just to appraise items that you find. Since items sell for the same amount whether they're appraised or not (a Blessed Longsword of Sex Panther will sell for as much as it would if it were just "Longsword" in the inventory), I sorta cheat with this. I save the game, appraise everything, then once I know the stats/enchantments on all of my items I reload and get back all the money I spent on appraisals. I re-appraise the items I want to equip or use, so that their magical effects become usable... and sell the rest unappraised.
Next I go after the first major dungeon, Fang Lair. This is a pretty simple game when it comes down to it: Find the eight (or so) dungeons and finish each one to get a piece of the staff you need to fight the final boss. Also track down the side-dungeons with Artifacts, the game's most potent items. The rest of the areas are pretty much just window dressing.
No comments:
Post a Comment