The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – Обзор и особенности игры

2002 video game

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a 2002 action role playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the third installment in The Elder Scrolls series, following 1996's The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, and was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox. The main story takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the Dunmer (Dark Elf) province of Morrowind, part of the continent of Tamriel. The central quests concern the demigod Dagoth Ur, housed within the volcanic Red Mountain, who seeks to gain power and break Morrowind free from Imperial reign. Though primarily a fantasy game, with many gameplay elements and Western medieval and fantasy fiction tropes inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and previous role playing games, Morrowind also features some steampunk elements, and drew much inspiration from Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures. Morrowind was designed with an open ended, freeform style of gameplay in mind, with less of an emphasis on the main plot than its predecessors. This choice received mixed reactions, though such feelings were tempered by reviewers' appreciation of Morrowinds expansive, detailed game world. Morrowind achieved critical and commercial success, winning various awards including Game of the Year and selling over four million copies worldwide by 2005. It has since been considered one of the best video games ever made. The game spawned two expansion packs: Tribunal and Bloodmoon. Both were repackaged into a full set (along with several minor add ons) and titled Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition, which was released in October 2003.

The player character's proficiency with a skill is increased through practice, training, and study. Practice involves performing the specific actions associated with a given skill, which gradually raises the character's proficiency in that skill. Raising weapon skills requires striking an enemy with the appropriate weapon; raising armor skills requires being struck while wearing the appropriate type of armor; etc. Training involves paying money to non player characters (NPCs) in exchange for immediate proficiency increases in that skill. Study requires reading books found, some of which will immediately raise a skill when read. Weaponry skills affect the character's chance to hit. Armor skills affect the defensive strength of the armor. Other skills affect proficiency in other actions such as potion making, running, lockpicking, etc. Morrowind, like its predecessor Daggerfall, makes a distinction between attributes and skills; skills are individual proficiencies in particular schools of battle or with particular armor classes, and attributes are broader proficiencies, such as strength and endurance, which are either tied to important features unconnected to any skill, (health, evasion chance, etc.) or improve the efficiency of a wide variety of skills. Strength, for example, improves the damage of any physical blow dealt by the player character. Attributes, however, are improved only when the player levels up. The player levels up their character by gaining levels in ten pre determined skills, listed as major and minor skills. Each time the player levels up their character, they can select three attributes to augment as well. The player is better able to augment attributes related to their skill set, as each level gained in a particular skill adds to the multiplier by which the skill's governing attribute is augmented.

The simplest melee attack is a chop action. The slightly more complex slash and thrust attacks are performed by clicking in unison with tapping a directional key, Hidden arithmetic modifiers, applied to each combatant's skills, determines whether or not the attack hits. In the game's original release, the player was given no indication of the amount of health left in their enemies and no indication of the strength of the player's attacks. Reviewers took the absence badly, wishing for more visible feedback. Bethesda added enemy health bars in patch 1.1.0605, released one month after Morrowinds initial release.

Morrowind, following the tradition established by its predecessors in The Elder Scrolls series, is an open world, with few constricting boundaries on the player's actions. From the beginning of the game, players are put in a world where they are left to roam, steal, quest, and explore, without necessarily following the main quest. Lead designer Ken Rolston, when asked before Morrowinds release what he thought were the "core, untouchable design elements" of The Elder Scrolls series which "set them apart from other games", responded immediately: "Free form experience." "Every [The Elder Scrolls] game has to let you create the kind of character you want, and then do the things you want. We would never have a [The Elder Scrolls] role playing game force you to be a certain character or go down a certain path." To allow for this behavior, Morrowind, in addition to creating an extensive main quest, provides detailed discursive quests for a variety of factions, including various guilds, religious organizations, and aristocratic houses, in addition to side quests found by exploration. The main plot itself may be undertaken in many ways. There are, in the words of critic Craig Lindley, "a very specific set of central plot points within this main plot. But the plot points are partially ordered: seven high level tasks must be completed, but their constituent sub tasks can be accomplished in any order, and this is repeated for the sub tasks involved in those sub tasks." The choices the player makes in their performance of these tasks thus become methods of character interpretation; a set of dramatic tools establishing the player's newly created self identity. According to Gamasutra's Matt Barton, some have argued that these changes put Morrowind closer in spirit to the original Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game, where players take a more creative role in their play, and where players are left to decide for themselves the "right" action. This is a view paralleled by Rolston, who has stated that "The goal of every [The Elder Scrolls] game is to create something that resembles a pen and paper RPG on the computer."

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 demigod 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 character begins in a town called Seyda Neen, fresh off a boat from a mainland prison, freed by the string pulling of the current ruler of the Tamrielic Empire, Emperor Uriel Septim VII. The player is given 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 – or at least someone who would make a convincing impostor to use for political gain. The player is tasked with uncovering the prophecies regarding the Nerevarine and to fulfill them to finally defeat Dagoth Ur and his Sixth House cult. Prophecies from the nomadic Dunmer 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, and hence 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 persecutes 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 form 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 Sunder and Keening. These ancient weapons 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 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 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 completion of the main quest, 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 reawakened, 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.

Morrowind takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the Dunmer dominated province of Morrowind, far from the typically European inspired lands to the west and south depicted in Daggerfall and Arena. Along with graphical improvements, one of the most apparent differences between Morrowind and the earlier games in the series is that Morrowind takes place in a much smaller area than the previous games. While Arena featured the entirety of Tamriel as an explorable area, and Daggerfall featured sizeable portions of two provinces of Tamriel, Hammerfell and High Rock, Morrowind includes only the "relatively small" island of Vvardenfell within the province of Morrowind. The change was a result of a conscious choice on the part of the developers to feature more detail and variety in the game. Whereas Daggerfall and Arenas dungeons were randomly generated, each area in Morrowind was specifically detailed, and each item was individually placed. As a result, reviewers were generally impressed with the game world's variety, as this maintained the perception of an "enormous" game world. The development team also gave particular credit to the Ridley Scott film Gladiator, high fantasy, The Dark Crystal, and Conan the Barbarian as influences. The game has over 300 books (not counting spell scrolls). One particular compilation of the text was 1,241 sheets of 8.25 × 11 inch paper. PC Gamer weighted the in game text as equal to six typical size novels. Such themes are echoed in other responses to the game, such as that of RPGamer's Joseph Witham, who found the story "discreet" in its progression, with a dungeon crawling feel, standing alongside a "whole world of unique history" with books forming the greater part of the player's interaction with that world. Most of the books were reused in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game has a great deal of geographic variation in climate, flora, and, to some extent, fauna as well. Besides that, there is also some variety in politics and culture among the in game populations, the combination of which adds to the uniqueness of different parts of the island. On top of that, there is an archaeological aspect to the game, which gives a certain degree of depth to the story as well as the option for further exploration. Additionally, there are various kinds of limits in visibility such as fog and dust, which are countered with "clear day/night" effects that also enhance visibility to some extent. The in game exploration is chiefly based on walking and running; however, there are instances when swimming and sometimes levitation is involved. Transportation of other kinds, such as teleportation, and traveling by boat or on the back of giant flea like creatures called silt striders, is available for a fee when moving between the various settlements on Vvardenfell as a method of fast travel.

A third title in The Elder Scrolls series was conceived during the development of Daggerfall, though it was initially to be set in the Summerset Isles and called Tribunal. Following the release of Daggerfall, it was set up around an SVGA version of XnGine, which Bethesda later used in Battlespire, and set in the province of Morrowind. The game was "much closer to Daggerfall in scope", encompassing the whole province of Morrowind, rather than the isle of Vvardenfell, and allowing the player to join all five Dunmer Great Houses. The blight was conceived as a dynamic force, progressively expanding and destroying cities in its wake. It was finally decided that the scope of the original design was too grand given the technology current at the time. According to Ken Rolston, something was said approximating "We're not ready for it, we don't want to jump into this and fail". The project was put on hold in 1997, as Bethesda went on to develop Redguard and Battlespire, The XnGine was scrapped and replaced with a licensed copy of NetImmerse, a Direct3D powered engine, with transform and lighting capacity,

The scale of the game was much reduced from the earlier concept, focusing primarily on Dagoth Ur and a smaller area of land. It was decided that the game world would be populated using the methods the team had developed in Redguard; that is, the game objects would be crafted by hand, rather than generated using the random algorithmic methods of Arena and Daggerfall. By 2000, Morrowind was to be unequivocally a single player game, with no chance of multiplayer extension. In the words of Pete Hines, Bethesda's Director of Marketing and PR: "No. Not on release, not three months after, no no no." Despite the additional staff, designer Ken Rolston would later state that, compared to Oblivion, Morrowind had a small design team. In May 2000, Bethesda set the first expected PC release date in late 2001. On May 5, 2001, Bethesda announced an additional Morrowind release for Microsoft's Xbox. The project was, according to the same release, something that Bethesda had been working on with Microsoft since they had first known of the console. Morrowind had an impressive showing at E3 2001, demonstrating a beta build to the public. The same beta build was demonstrated to the staff of PC Gamer for another preview and was kept around the office as late as June 19 as the subject of later previews, while another test build was developed alongside. Later order forms, such as those by Electronics Boutique, set the date in November. On October 10, 2001, GameSpot reported that Morrowinds release date had been set back to March 2002. On October 12, a press release from Bethesda gave the date of "Spring 2002", confirming GameSpot's supposition of delay without agreeing on the more specific date of "March". Though no rationale behind the delay was given at the time, developer Pete Hines later attributed the delay to a need for game testing and balancing. Although the PC version of Morrowind had gone gold by April 23, 2002, and was released on May 1 in North America, the Xbox release was delayed further. On April 15, GameSpot suggested an Xbox release date sometime in May and a scheduled "going gold" date for the Xbox version in the first week of the same month. In contradiction of GameSpot's supposition, a June 4 Bethesda press release set June 7 as the Xbox release date. On January 3, 2002, Bethesda announced that game publisher Ubisoft would take control of the European distribution of Morrowind and eight other Bethesda games. Under Ubisoft's supervision, Morrowinds European release took place in two stages. A "semi localized" version of the game was released in May, containing a translated manual but leaving the game's text in untranslated English. A fully localized version of the game, with translated versions of both, was released in August. Ubisoft group brand manager Thomas Petersen described the difficulties of translating a "universe featuring more than a million words" as "quite a task". In a break from standard industry practice, Bethesda decided to publish its strategy guide in house, rather than contracting it out to a third party publisher like BradyGames or Prima Games. The decision resulted from a belief among Bethesda staff that they believed in and understood Morrowind more than any external agency and deserved more royalties than were commonly rewarded. Bethesda hired Peter Olafson, a noted game journalist and friend of the company, and they began work on the guide in January 2002, four months before release. The resulting product, Morrowind Prophecies Strategy Guide, sold over 200,000 copies as of September 24, 2003. Although the royalties from most third party game publishers approach 25% to 30% only infrequently, Bethesda managed a 70% profit margin on their own.

The editors of Computer Games Magazine named Morrowind the third best computer game of 2002, and wrote, "Unlike its ambitious but ultimately flawed predecessors, this is Herculean role playing that works." It was a nominee for PC Gamer USs "2002 Best Roleplaying Game" award, which ultimately went to Neverwinter Nights. Morrowind won GameSpys PC RPG of the Year Award, though it lost to Neverwinter Nights in reader polls, ranking 24% against Neverwinters 34.9% popular support. It won IGN's RPG Vault's Game of the Year Award, RPG Vaults Game of the Year Award 2002, and was IGNs reader's choice for Best Story. Morrowind lost GameSpots best PC RPG of 2002 award to Neverwinter Nights, but won best Xbox RPG, and was nominated in the "Best Story on Xbox" and "Best Graphics (Artistic) on Xbox" categories. Morrowind, in addition to its nomination for "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition", was also nominated in the category of "Computer Role Playing Game of the Year" at the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, but ultimately lost to Neverwinter Nights. In 2010, IGN ranked Dagoth Ur 90th in "Top 100 Videogame Villains".

The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal, announced on September 2, 2002, and scheduled for a PC only release, went gold on November 1 and was released, with little fanfare, on November 6. Tribunal puts the player in the self contained, walled city of Mournhold, the capital of the province of Morrowind; the new city is not connected to Morrowinds landmass, Vvardenfell, and the player must teleport to it. The storyline continues the story of the Tribunal deities. Development on the game began immediately after Morrowind shipped, giving the developers a mere five month development cycle to release the game—a very fast cycle for the industry. The prior existence of the Construction Set, however, meant that the team "already had the tools in place to add content and features very quickly." Interface improvements—specifically, an overhaul of Morrowinds journal system—were among the key goals for Tribunals release. The new journal allowed the player to sort quests individually and by completion, reducing the confusion caused by the original's jumbling together of every quest into a single chronological stream. The game's reviewers took well to the change, although some criticized the incomplete implementation of the system, and others found the system continued to be "a bit unwieldy." Reviews of Tribunal were generally positive, though to lesser amounts than was the case for Morrowind. Aggregate scoring sites gave the game generally favorable scores: Metacritic, a score of 80; GameRankings, a score of 82. Most critics commented on the higher linearity of the experience, combined with a reduction in the total size of the play area, giving the changes mixed reviews. GameSpot reported sullenly on the change: "it's somewhat surprising that the Tribunal expansion confines your adventures to the relatively small setting of the municipality Mournhold,"

The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon, announced on February 14, 2003, and scheduled for release in May of the same year, went gold by May 23, and was released on June 6. Bethesda began work on the expansion immediately following the release of Tribunal in November 2002. Bloodmoon is a larger expansion than Tribunal, in terms of area covered and content created; it expands the game's main map to include the untamed island of Solstheim located to the northwest of Vvardenfell, a frigid northern tundra sprinkled with forests, and many new varieties of creatures, such as the short but tough rieklings. These additions marked a return to the "open ended gameplay" and "free form exploration" of the original, in contrast to the linearity and confinement of Tribunal. Reviews for Bloodmoon were, again, generally positive. Aggregate scoring sites gave the game generally favorable scores: Metacritic, a score of 85; GameRankings, a score of 83. One of the key selling points of Bloodmoon was its reintegration of werewolves, a feature that had been included in Daggerfall, but was absent in Morrowind, despite being a feature prominently advertised in previews before the game's release. Players become werewolves by catching the lycanthropic disease "Sanies Lupinus" and letting three days pass without getting it cured. Once the disease has been fully integrated, the player transforms every night, regardless of the lunar cycle. Being a werewolf provides ability increases, though their strength was reduced relative to the major bonuses offered by lycanthropy in Daggerfall. but others thought it frustrating and poorly implemented.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition was announced May 12, 2003, and released October 31 of the same year. It compiled both the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions, along with patches available only for the PC release, plus a variety of minor quest and item add ons, and offered them up in one single package for both PC and Xbox platforms. This provided Xbox players with most of the game content they had not previously had access to. Absent, however, from the Xbox version was the improved journal included in Bethesda's Bloodmoon and Tribunal releases, as well as the later patched editions of Morrowinds original release. Reviewers responded to the absence negatively. Nonetheless, reviews for the GotY set were generally positive – more so than for all previous releases of the game. Metacritic gave the edition an aggregate score of 89; GameRankings, an 88. PC Gamer redistributed this version under their "PC Gamer Presents" line.

Bethesda Softworks, the developer of Morrowind, offers the ability to change the game via plugins (often referred to as modifications, or mods for short) using The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which comes with the PC version of the game. The Construction Set, and a variety of third party mod making tools, allow the modder to create and edit different objects, places, characters, dialogues, races, birthsigns, abilities, and skills. Characters can be made as strong or as fast as the user wants, and allows the player to experience the game in a way that would not normally be possible within the game's mechanics. These plugins are usually easy to install and can change almost everything in the game. Plugins can add or modify existing mechanics, creatures, weapons, armor, quests, people, playable species, Easter eggs, stores, player owned houses, cities, plotlines, and entire landmasses with some or all of the above.

Many major player modifications for Morrowind introduce new areas or quests, and several organized projects have attempted to recreate the provinces of Tamriel consistent with their presentation in earlier or later Elder Scrolls titles. The Tamriel Rebuilt project, founded in 2001 and still active, is a fan made expansion to the game with the aim of recreating the entire mainland province of Morrowind, with the first release in 2006, and new areas added continually since that time. Similar projects include the Project: Tamriel series, which aims to recreate Cyrodiil (shown in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and Skyrim (shown in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) with portrayals more consistent with their descriptions in Morrowind. The total conversion mod, Arktwend, developed by SureAI (the same developers behind Nehrim: At Fate's Edge and Enderal: The Shards of Order) was developed on Morrowinds engine and requires Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon to play. Many other mods change or enhance the graphical aspects of the game, such as lighting, 3D models, colors, and textures. Others attempt to optimise demanding meshes (e. g. by reducing draw calls or texture atlasing) or fix unpatched bugs left in the game with unofficial patches. Additionally, Bethesda has produced official mods, such as Siege at Firemoth, which may be found on the official site. All official plugins are included in the GOG. com release of the Game of the Year Edition.

OpenMW is an open source, free software replacement game engine that supports playing the original and add on Morrowind content natively (without emulation or a virtual machine) on Linux, macOS, Windows, and certain Android devices. It supports higher resolution graphics (installed as mods) than the original Bethesda engine, but requires a copy of the original game, in any edition, for its data files. Most third party mods that are not dependent on any MS Windows executables and which are free of serious scripting syntax errors are also compatible with OpenMW. Since 2016, all of the quests, classes, races, and other character choices of Morrowind and its official expansions and add ons are fully playable in OpenMW, though it remains in extended beta testing as of 2020. OpenMW is also the basis for TES3MP, an attempt to develop a networked, multiplayer version of the game, in early alpha testing as of 2017.

Another fan labor effort, The Elder Scrolls Renewal Project, has been working on remastering Morrowind to run as add ons for later games in The Elder Scrolls franchise (as Morroblivion for Oblivion, and Skywind for Skyrim). The project is also working on a remaster of Oblivion to run within Skyrim (Under the name Skyblivion).