Thunderball

I read www.gamefaqs.com things, i just don't understand a lot of the opening parts to this game.

Please give me some advice, as to what not to do so I don't get killed my ruthless civilians for looking thru their cabinets.

Breakfast with Girls

Having never played the game, I would suggest not breaking into people's houses and looking through their cabinets

Hope that helps.

The Bus

- Don't steal from civilians in their house while they are looking for you unless you can fight the guards (you can't as a newbie). In general, don't do anything you wouldn't do in real life in crowded towns or within visibility of a guard.

- Talk to everyone!!! Speechcraft is a great way to gain levels and it's easy - you can piss most people off if you have to, later on you'll have the skills to bring 'em back. Use persuade and the occasional 10 gold bribe if they fall below 40/100.

- Are you a hardcore RPG player (FF = not hardcore, UO = hardcore)? If you're not this might be the one for you

rabbit77

I also learned the hard way not to take anything that I haven't rightfully slaughtered. You can get away with taking things if no one's watching you.

Thunderball

am I hardcore RPGer...

I always considered myself one. I played thru all the FFs from Part 1 to Part 9, Not finishing 8 b/c I didn't like it, and not even bothering with X.

I've beaten all the Square RPGs out there, etc.

This one is totally a new deal for me...

BigDave

http://www.m0use.net/~uesp/morrow/espmor.shtml

This site is very helpful in all that is Morrowind.

Also, this RPG is nothing like the Final Fantasy RPGs which are very linear.

It takes some time to build up your character before you can pounding on anyone. I'd suggest joining either the Fighters or the Mages guilds and do some of their quests before really getting into the main story, ie. the Blades.

You can really lose focus on what you're doing because there's so much stuff you can do. Try to focus on one area for awhile and then move onto another. Right now, I'm doing pretty much all the Fighters guild quests and then maybe I'll do the Mages guild quests before I really get into the main story.

Tuan Jim

Yeah, basically if you're alone in a room with nobody else, you should be safe looting it, but if you try and sell it to the person you bought it from -- if he's a merchant you'll be toast -- he'll recognize his stuff. In general no matter who the person is, if there someone in the same area (even outside in towns), they'll see you "stealing" stuff unless you use an invisibility spell -- pretty common, but not for low levels.

If you want to gain some quick cash early on, ask around about the murdered tax collector, look in some of the swampy pits near the town outskirts, and once you find him and talk to some people, take care of his murderer, etc. you'll be able to pick up a hefty reward. Great for low level folks. Also check out the smugglers cave near the Silt Striders station.

Tuan Jim

ten41

Buy the strategy guide.

Thunderball

I'm going to work now. Hopefully when I come hoem there will be countless pages of info here for me

AgtFox

You're talking about two totally different realms of RPGs here. FF is what I like to call Console RPGs, while games like Baldur's Gate and Morrowind are PC RPGs at heart. PC ones take a long time to beat and is far more hardcore in style than something like FF is.

I am in the same boat as you...I love the FF-type games and console RPGs in general over PC RPGs, although I have liked a good number of PC RPGs as well.

But you need to keep in mind you are talking about two different worlds of RPGs. FF is mostly linear and draws you in quickly while most PC RPGs are non-linear in nature and draw you in slowly.

darkside

This game is so different from the standard Japanese console RPGs that I was totally unable to play it. Not saying its a bad game, but it really wasn't my cup of tea and I could generate no interest in it.

If there ever was a game you need a strategy guide for though, I'm betting its this game.

Brian Shannon

The Bus

You need to put in at least 8 hours. Until you're progressing into different levels and can at least fight some hounds and stuff it's not very fun.

Here's a major tip in an RPG like this: TALK TO EVERYONE. There's no goals for you unless you talk to people. You don't need a strategy guide, you just need a strategy for what you want to accomplish as a character.

BigDave

I wonder if there's any way to tell how many hours you've played? I remember playing FFX and it showing how many ours you've dedicated to it.

It's probably good that I don't see how many hours I've played Morrowind so far.

Cuman

I'd have to agree, comparing the ff series to morrowind (or most computer rpgs in general) is like comparing day to night. I too learned this the hard way. It took a little while (and a lot of dying) before I realized I couldn't kill anything tougher than a rat.

But yeah, there really is no particular order or way to do stuff in this game. Only advice i can really give is just to talk to everyone and explore the surrounding country side of seyda neen (the first town you get dumped in). Enemies around there are fairly weak and after a few hours and a couple levels things should get better. Regarding stealing, yeah you can steal, just make sure no ones looking in your general direction. Helps a great deal to steal stuff especially in the beginning when cash is hard to come by. Takes a while to get used to but pretty fun once things get going.

Joshic

Here's the lowdown on stealing:

The invisibility spell or ability will not help with stealing at all. The invisibility stops working the moment you steal something. So don't bother with it.

Things that will help you with stealing:
1.) Sneak skill.
2.) Chameleon spell.
3.) Telekiness spell.

You only get caught stealing if people see you. When you are sneaking, nobody can see you. Unlike the invisibility spell, sneak does not cancel the moment you take an action (ie stealing, attacking, etc.)

Chameleon spell enhances your sneak ability. If you have 100% chameleon cumulative with a number of spells or items, you will be completely invisible - no one will see you steal, attack, etc. Note that you won't be able to talk to anyone either since they can't see you.

The best way to see whether it is "safe" to steal or unlock a locked door (you'll get caught for unlocking or stealing, but not for looking inside an unlocked chest) is to set yourself up next to what you want to steal and press the sneak button. If the sneak icon is active, you can safely take the item. If not, you will get caught. Sometimes it helps to move around a bit to get the sneak icon to show up; sometimes standing on a different xy-plane from the guards will also help; sometimes hiding behind a pillar will help.

Telekinesis will effectively let you "steal from a distance." If you can't get too close to the item without your sneak icon going off, try keeping your distance and use telekinesis.

Early on, it's difficult to steal items when there is anyone around at all. Later as your chameleon goes up and your sneak skill gets around 60, you'll literally be able to steal from under people's noses.

So to recap:
if your character is magic oriented - work on getting telekinesis and chameleon to high levels in order to steal. if your character is thieving oriented - work on getting that sneak skill up. or do both if you can.

The Bus

Sneaking is unnecessary unless you are in line of sight of a guard or townsperson... I've stolen from shops before by hiding behind corners, curving around and getting to the box while the keeper doesn't look.

Thunderball

Maybe I'll invest some more time in this game tomorrow night, when I have some free time

BigDave

Plan on making lots of free time for Morrowind if you get into this game.

Thunderball

I'm going to try one last time before I give up.

I was walking around, and some ****ing worm killed me. It looked like a ****ing slug. It was like 2 inches big but it killed me.

slop101

Start over from the begining:

Lets start with character creation. I won't bother to tell you which race or gender to choose as I'm sure you'll have your own preference there. Lets skip ahead to classes. My recomendation is that you take some time to think about it and make a custom class. The reason for this being, in the long run you will have infinitely more control in how and when your character levels up. Leveling up is not always a good thing as everything also gets a lot harder everytime you level up.
Some customization tips: every skill is governed by one of your basic character stats(strength, intelligence, willpower, agility, speed, endurance). At first glance this means nothing and to anyone other than an insanely detail oriented observer it doesn't. Couldn't be further from the truth. This is the single most important thing to learn before creating your character as it will be the difference between creating Jimmy Olsen and Superman. When dolling out your skills, I'd advise to not start by picking major or minor skills but rather by selecting one miscellaneous skill associated with each attribute (if you press the Y button while a skill is selected it pulls up a description that will tell you which attribute it is with). You should have one miscellaneous skill for each attribute that can be cheesed. By cheesed I mean something that can be built up quickly or with minimum effort. My personal recomendations are: long blade-strength, spear-endurance, acrobatics-agility, security-intelligence, destruction-willpower, athletics-speed, illusion-personality. Why do you want to set your character up this way? Simple. To level up your character you must raise any combination or your major and minor skills by a total of ten points. However, when you actually level up the game counts how many total points have been built up for each skill as it relates to its attribute. To better explain, for every ten points you raise skills for one attribute you get a modifier of x5 for that stat when you level up. It actually breaks down in pairs, for every two skill points you raise for one attribute you get an extra point for that attribute when you level.
After you have set aside these skills for miscellaneous, select the five remaining skills you think you will use the most and make them your major skills (I would note to make sure there is variety in those five). Then for your minor skills fill them up with the most important remaining skills that can be cheesed(raised easily). Athletics is a terrible choice for major or minor skills because it will raise itself quickly enough on its own just from moving around.

About your sign. Do not choose a sign like Shadow or Tower, as they are ultimately waisted choices. The reason being, you can acquire spells or equipment fairly early in the game to accomplish both invisibility and unlocking. My personal favorite is the Lady. +25 permanent bonus (spell effects not withstanding) to personality and endurance. Personality is not so important early on for some things, but that endurance boost can be a lifesaver early on if you are the adventurous type. It will drastically improve your starting fatigue and give a moderate bonus to your starting HP. You don't get any special skills but all of the skills given by the signs can be accomplished via regular spells and equipment. I admit having invisibility was nice a little earlier so I could get to some of those farther out islands, unmolested by Slaughterfish, but ultimately the +25 to endurance is worth far more and will save you a lot of time and worry as you level up. If you wanna be a wizard you could consider choosing the Mage for the useful magicka bonus. Or if you plan to do more running away than fighting the steed for a +25 speed bonus. I recomend the Lady overall though as it ultimately has the greatest benefits throuhout the game.