Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Feature

Eagerly awaited, Morrowind is set in the now familiar Elder Scrolls universe. If youâve played previous Elder Scrolls games some things will be familiar to you, but Morrowind is designed as a separate game that does not require experience with any of the previous Elder Scrolls games. Derek Dela Fuente got a direct link to Bethesda and spoke with Todd Vaughn, Head Of Product Development, to find out more about what seems like the best looking game yet in the series!

The main quest revolves around a plague, called The Blight, that is being spewed out of the large volcano located in the province of Morrowind. You will have to figure out who is behind it and put a stop to it. Itâs the biggest, most important quest in the game. But you arenât required to follow it to play the game. If youâd rather spend your time being an assassin, rising in rank in the assassinâs guild, and not try to solve the main questâ¦you can do that. Also, the game doesnât end when you finish the main quest. You can continue to live in this gigantic world the development team has created and experience all the other adventures that are out there waiting for you - intriguing!

Morrowind is full of life and is bustling with different classifications of creatures; from humans to elves, and each character is perceived differently by the non-player-controlled creatures (NPC\'s) in the game. This has an enormous effect on how each individual progresses through the game. For example...perhaps the Dark Elves donât like the Wood Elves, consequently you couldn\'t enlist within their ranks. Selections made at the start of the game effect where you can go, and who you can talk to. An Orc may be hospitable to an injured human, but may very well finish off a dying Aragonian. Choices, decisions, are all part of the opened-ended game that is on offer!

Todd, âThe hallmark of âElder Scrollsâ, an epic RPG, is that we let you go anywhere and do anything you want. Since the plague is affecting a lot of people in the game, youâll hear a lot about it. We make it possible for you to get into the main storyline at any time. If you want to start it right from the beginning, all you have to do is complete the first quest you are given when you start the game. You can leave the main quest and come back to it at any time.â

Of late many RPGâs now incorporate elements of RTS games, and vice versa, as well as being able to control combat on a personal level. Morrowind appears to be following that trail. Bethesda explained the mindset behind their creation. âOne reason to bring RTS elements into an RPG game is that players enjoy having characters (or units) that they can identify with. If you have an RTS with characters that you take from one mission to the next, you grow attached to them. You enjoy making them better and get more powerful. A great RPG, like ours, allows you to create a character and play it any way you want. Be a noble hero. Be a backstabbing thief. Whatever kind of imaginary life youâd like to live out, you can do it through your character. As long as the world around you reacts accordingly, then the experience will feel real, youâll become more and more immersed in the story, and your enjoyment of the game will continue to increase.â

Within Morrowind you create your own character and there are 21 predefined classes you can choose from - 7 mages, 7 thieves, 7 fighters. You can also make up your own class. Classes are defined by what skills they value most. So a mage will value magic skills more, while heavy armour skills will be unimportant. There are 27 skills in Morrowind, and every character has them. Which ones they define as most important determine what class they are, and improving these skills will allow you to rise in rank in that class.

However, you are not limited, so if you create a fighter class character, but decide at some point in the game to experiment with magic, you can. You wonât be very good at it, because you have low skill levels in magic, but you can try it (unlike most RPGs, where fighters canât use magic, or mages canât use swords). The more you use a skill, the better at it youâll become. But if youâre a fighter practising magic, itâs not making you a better fighter (itâs making you a better mage) so your rank as a fighter wonât go up. The game system rewards you for staying âin characterâ and using the skills that you deemed most important when you started the game.

You further define your character by your race. There are 10 races to choose from in the game, and each one has special abilities that will further enhance your gameplay experience.

Intelligence works the same for everyone - your character, NPCs in the gameâ¦everyone. It determines your ability in certain skills. If those skills are important to you, then having a high value for Intelligence is important. If it has nothing to do with the skills that are important to you, it doesnât really matter. To use an example, if you are playing as a Barbarian and wearing armour and swinging a big sword, it doesnât really matter what your Intelligence level is because itâs not affecting your type of character.

âPersonalityâ and âLuck âare features in the game and personality plays a big role in this game, it affects how everyone feels about you. So people just like you more if you have a higher score. Luck affects everything a small amount. Every action you do, from picking a lock to attacking, uses luck. There are limits to how good you can become in a skill. Itâs limited by which skills you choose as Major and Minor.

In Daggerfall (their previous game) you could increase your magic skills simply by casting spells in one place for no particular reason, which seemed like cheating, and you can still do that to some extent, but itâs harder to make your own cheap spells. But if you have fun by casting spells all day, sleeping, then casting all day, well, thatâs up to you!

If you are au fait with previous Elder Scrolls games there is a strong cross over but perfection comes at a cost so a lot will not be familiar. âWe tried to use things from previous games, like Daggerfall, that worked well. Obviously since the game is set in the province of Morrowind, you wonât recognise any landscapes from Daggerfallâ¦since thatâs a different province. Weâve changed a number of things to make gameplay more interesting and involved. Morrowind is the combination of a number of things that we did very well in the past, with a lot of new and cool things that we hadnât done before. Graphically, Morrowind is light years ahead of Daggerfall and is the best-looking RPG ever created, and is on a par with games that usually get all the attention for graphics (i.e., first-person shooters).â

The balance of the game has been well planned and handled through a variety of ways, to ensure that no one class has an advantage at the beginning of the game, or, indeed, as you play through. In combat, one of the ways the team has balanced a thief class versus a fighter class is through weapon types and combat options. In combat, you have three types of attack: slash, chop, thrust. In addition, the longer you hold down the mouse button to attack, the harder you will âswingâ. So a quick click will result in a quick attack, whereas holding it down will result in a longer swing. Each weapon has a different min and max damage for each kind of attack.

The NPCs (non-playing characters) are an integral part of the game and will change the way they treat you based on your actions, so in some ways it is possible to change your ways and alter how NPCs view you. However, as in life, people donât tend to forget things and if you were evil and did bad things for a while, it can be pretty tough to get people to like you again, but it is possible.

The attention to detail in Morrowind is awesome. The buildings, the landscapes, the cast, are possibly some of the finest we have seen. With 30 people working on the game, you can see the outcome of such a huge resource. The poly count is high, and use of colours and animations is nigh on perfect. Day/night cycling, lush backdrops, and that is the cosmetic side, all blend and work beautifully in the game This is real quality. All the towns and cities have their own feel and there are 10 races and over 200 weapons which makes this a challenge and a half. One of the races, for instance, is the Telvanni, a magical creature, and seeing what they do is amazing. The battle system in Morrowind embraces an expanded form and is much more detailed than various other RPGs. It allows you the chance to decide how you want to fight a melee attack. Although not many choices, there are enough! You have the availability of weapon attacks, as well as magic, and as everything is played from a first person view, enemies are easily in sight. There are numerous weapons available to players, and each will of course handle differently from the last. For those of you who played Daggerfall, the magic system in Morrowind is pretty much the same. Spells are learned, but can be combined to give birth to new adaptations. This allows for a lot of nifty customisation, as well as experimentation. Every facet within the game has lots of details and options. You could not ask for more!

A Construction Set ships with the game and allows you to change just about anything in the game. You can add to the game with new characters, towns, dungeons, weapons, creatures, quests, etc. Included is a group of weapons that ensure that the game is balanced. If players want to dream up new weapons to include in the game that has vast or mysterious abilities, they can. The weapons provided are the right combination to make sure the game isnât too hard or too easy.

Morrowind is a single-player only game. The only online component is the ability to trade/download new plug-ins to play, such as new dungeons, towns, etc.

With ten lands in Morrowind, it appears that Bethesda has lots of plans for the Elder Scrolls series to expand on after this. âThere are always lots of ideas and features that we want to do in a game, but donât always make it into the game weâre currently working on. So, we save those ideas for future projects. Having the game take place in different parts of Tamriel opens up different opportunities to introduce new elements of gameplay that werenât a part of previous games. Plus, we listen to our fans as to what kinds of things theyâre interested in and want to see. Morrowind opens up a new experience and we are sure the gamer will find this the best game to date.â