Please, not another 300 hours of my life

I played Oblivion for 300 hours, am familiar with the mod process and absolutely loved the entire experince. Then I heard that a sequel was in the mix, Skyrim and had a stroke. While I was looking into Skyrim, I ran across all these Oblivion vs Morrowind posts on the Interwebs. Morrowind had never crossed my mind because of the age and graphics, but the arguments for the game itself are compelling, so I purchased said Morrowind game (GOTY). I figured I owed it to myself to play it before Skyrim released.

I started to search for mods and other advice on play and stumbled across THIS abomination. You guys are a special kind of crazy. I love this kind of crazy though. Before I start the game, I was hoping for some advice and help. I've done my best to read everything that was suggested, but I'm still missing something and hoping someone from the community could help me out.

1) The way I play RPG games (do every side-quest, look at every flower, kill every enemy, take every silver spoon, etc.. ), I probably only have one playthrough of Morrowind in me. Should I try to install the mods, meshes, patches, etc and play Morroblivion or would it be better for me to play Morrowind proper. To those who have played both, what do you think? I am very patient and don't mind tinkering.

2) From what I've read, Morroblivion is basically a mod for Oblivion. How does that work? I swear I've read everything I could, but I couldn't find anything that tells me if I can carry a character from Oblivion into Morrowind or vice versa (yes I do know you can travel from one world to the next, but does that mean the same character or do you have a separate, new character when that happens with the rules for the particular game?). Do you just run back and forth between the two with the same character and do all quests, in both games? If you can keep a character, do XP points and levels maintain? For instance can I take my level 10 elf-mage-rage-warrior with hemorrhoids from Oblivion and plop him into Morrowind does he start the game with the same attributes, equipment, abilities and (unfortunate) ailments?

I'm not really sure I'm asking the right question, but interested in how it works, if anyone can point me to web pages I've missed or clue me in, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Last edited by dyermull on 26 Apr 2011 - 21:26.

I personally am in the boat

I personally am in the boat of playing Morrowind proper, but some people can't deal with the graphics. Even when installing graphic mods to the game, it still looks outdated. Hence the beauty of Morroblivion. You can keep your Oblivion character and keep the graphics too! Well mostly. Some models are still outdated unless you download the graphics mods for Morroblivion.

This should actually address your second question by stating that the quests from each world are independent. You can have your level 80 Oblivion character in Vvanderfell and you are back at level 1 needing to fight your way up. Or like me, you can make a new character in Vvanderfell and go into Cyrodiil and do the main quest. Which is why the teleport NPC asks if you want to warp to the imperial city with or without the amulet of kings.

So in summation, you can keep your oblivion characters and play them in Morroblivion just fine. Though keep in mind that some of the items in Morrowind may unbalance the game a bit. Especially the constant effect rings of restore health. I have armor, plus a ring, and an amulet that make me indestructible. I heal faster than anything can hurt me. And that's just something to consider. Frankly I prefer that since it saves time/weight for having to heal, but meh. Another thing that unbalances the game is a restoration spell I picked up that gives me acrobatics +400. Fantastic spell that pretty much lets me go anywhere I want. Using that in Oblivion means I can even jump outside of the cities.

I've played Morrowind when it

I've played Morrowind when it was new, and I'm currently playing both Morrowind and Morroblivion at the same time, that I think is the best solution. And Morroblivion works like Shivering isles I think, haven't played shivering isles. It's a brand new gamespace, with it's own map, and you can travel from oblivion to morrowind and vice versa with any character. I think the travel npc in Cyrodil is in Anvil.

[edit] and I really should have read the second post...

Check out Thermador's mod:

Check out Thermador's mod: http://morroblivion.com/forums/morroblivion/mods/1340

If you want the full 300 hour

If you want the full 300 hour experience definitely play the original morrowind if you are that kind of OCD gamer... or wait untill morroblivion is 100% complete so you can play bloodmoon and tribunal. If you play the original make sure to get the official and unofficial patches and the morrowind graphics overhaul http://morrowindoverhaul.net/blog/

Thanks for all the responses.

Thanks for all the responses. I think I get it now. The light came on for me with illspecko's comment that morroblivion is it's own gamespace with it's own map.

Given madmanmostafa's comments I've decided to start with Morrowind before Morroblivion. Once I have conquered both worlds, I will sit back in my throne (or nearest office chair) and weep for there are no more wolds to conquer, but then I will remember the Morroblivion project, install it and do the entire thing again (600 hours???).

Thanks for the link to thermador's mod. That sounds like a great mod for traveling between worlds. I like the dead knight... wonder if I can loot him...

Also, I definitely have gaming OCD, probably gaming ADD if that is possible too.

So I do have a couple more questions before I start. Given that I'm going to play Morrowind proper to start, how do I play that with the best possible graphics? Thermador, does your link answer my question about the best graphics for Morrowind outside of Morroblivion?

Also, what about Eloth's Visual Overhaul package? Does that only work for Oblivion / Morroblvion or also Morrowind as well?

Thanks for the advice.

"Morrowind" = the original

"Morrowind" = the original TES III game that came out in 2001-ish

"Oblivion" = the original TES IV game that came out in 2006-ish

"Morroblivion" = a mod for Oblivion that allows you to enter the world of Morrowind while playing the Oblivion game

IF you are going to play the original Morrowind (which everyone should), currently, I would say that the Morrowind Graphics Overhaul that I linked to is the 'best' graphics replacer for Morrowind, in that it is very easy to install and looks quite good.

The other essentials are the two expansion packs (which are included in Morrowind Game of the Year Edition), the official patches (if you get the expansions separately and don't buy GOTY), and the unoffical patches (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Morrowind_Patch_Project)

Don't forget to play Fallout

Don't forget to play Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas as well. :)

Thanks, for helping clear things up.

Thanks Thermador... I'm on it. Things are making a lot more sense to me now. I'm downloading the graphics overhaul right now and plan to start playing tomorrow to ensure that I'm pasty-white for the rest of the summer.

I played Fallout 3 last year, put about 250 hours into that... I'm currently playing FO: New Vegas on PS3 and have 100 into it.... I really like the open-world gameplay of Bethesda games.

I sincerely hope that some day I don't stumble across some Internet site that extols the virtues of Fallout 2 and has created some monstrosity of a mod for Fallout 3 that allows you to play the Fallout 2 story line. I really hope I didn't give anyone any ideas...

Thanks again!

Actually, some Fallout fans

Actually, some Fallout fans are trying to recreate the first two Fallout games in the New Vegas engine. Although, they have to do it by scratch unlike Morroblivion (where this was initially converted by a program).

Here's the link to it:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fallout-2161

If you are serious about

If you are serious about playing Morrowind you will also want to get Morrowind Graphics Extender (MGE) and the Morrowind Code Patch (MCP).

The first makes distant land, shaders and number of other things possible. There is also a further development of it in the works MGEXE that adds terrain shadows, sun beam rays (actaually possible with base MGE too) and a few other things.

MCP patches the game executable to make it more stable and also adds a bunch of useful fixes and features like an expanded map. All of which can be selected to suit how you want to play the game.

The other thing about MW is because it's been around for a long time, like OB, there are hundreds of mods to add logevity to the game.

I prefer MW to OB and still play it fairly regularly. I've tried on and off to get into OB a few times and first gave MWOB a go awhile ago when you ran the conversion process yourself. It's amusing that it's playing MW in OB that inspired me to re-install Oblivion on this PC.

Anyway, have fun. MW can take a bit to get used to but it's a very engaging game once you do get into it.

-kaos

ps - and of course Wyre Mash, the precursor to Bash ;)

Morroind Overhaul has MGE and

Morroind Overhaul has MGE and MCP included. Though there are updated beta versions you may wish to use instead of the more stable version included in the overhaul. I use the Overhaul then "upgraded" to MCP 2.0,MGE XL(adds shadows to buildings,trees,etc) and overwrote some textures via Connary texture packs.

Definitely play the original

Definitely play the original first with the already metioned morrowind graphics and sound overhaul. It's an awesome game and the overhaul makes it tolerable to look at! When this project is finished it should be better than the original, providing that a few critical issues are addressed. But the original cost me a large chunk of my life is still definitely worth a playthrough!

Incredible

This will be my last post on this, but I wanted to thank everyone for the advice. It took me about two weeks and 7 clean game installs and a lot of troubleshooting before I finally got MGSO to work properly. It definitely works on Windows 7 (64 bit), but it takes some time to get familiar with all the tools that it comes with to optimize, tweak and (at times) repair the game.

The difference in graphics between the original Morrowind and the overhauled version is astounding and well worth the trouble. Morrowind is a great (and HUGE) game and when I'm done, I plan to install Morroblivion and do it all again while waiting for a stable version of Skyrim by 2013... I'm prett sure I didn't get EVERY dungeon and cave in Oblivion after all and will probably miss some things in Morrowind as well.

Thanks again. Hope this helps anyone with the same question.

Greetings. When i first saw

Greetings. When i first saw morrowind, i was about 14-15 years old. Me being a kid i failed to see what a great game morrowind was. So now after 7 years id like to play it again. Now i now(or at least most people say) that morrowind is one of the best RPG's ever, however while im not a graphics whore, the graphics, and especially the npc's just scare me.

So the question is, is morroblivion enough to taste the greatness of morrowind to 100%? Or is it just for old fans who want to relive it in better graphics and i should install morrowind instead?

thanks for the answers