Greetings and welcome to the wonderful, amazing, 
confusing world of 

MORROWIND

This page is not intended as a complete guide to all there is 
to discover about Vvardenfell and it's inhabitants; it only 
endeavours to answer some common questions and to give 
the new player some insight into what the heck is going on in what 
is hopefully a simple, friendly and non-preachy fashion!

Nor is it a guide for those whose game strategy involves 
slaughtering everything and anyone who takes their fancy.
It's for someone who wants to play the game, 
I hesitate to use the word 'properly', instead I shall say 'differently' or 
for those who have tried the 'slaughter' option and who have since 
come to their senses.  :-)
 
 

Morrowind is, as the box suggests, a game 
about freedom and consequences.
You may do what you like, be who you want to be 
and go where you please. 
But you have to remain aware that, as in real life, 
everything you do and say has repercussions of some kind.
Mostly, these are not obvious at the time, 
so caution is advised.
Later, when you've played around for a while, you'll know
that scribs bite if you annoy them, that robbing 
shopkeepers means you'll get a price on your head
and that killing that lone orc for her 
pretty armour now means that you can't complete 
a task you'll been set later. 
But for now, be careful what you do.

GETTING OFF THE BOAT.

So, who are you going to be?
 

What's the best race?  Best starsign? etc. etc. etc.

The truth is, it doesn't matter. The plain truth is, you're 
going to get addicted to this game and play it again 
and again as many different characters, so don't 
agonize over that first choice.
A mage?  A fighter?  An alchemist? 
Whatever you choose to be will reflect in the kind of 
gameplay you have so, even if you do the same 
quests again, it will be different each time.
 
 

Learning the gameplay? 

Simple.  You do it by talking.  Talk to everyone. 
Ask questions, get advice, learn secrets and Morrowind 
opens up like a flower.  (Yetch!  That's baaaad.)  But true.

You've arrived in Sedya Neen, wearing only the clothes on your back, 
having been encouraged by those handy little pop-up boxes to steal 
everything that's not nailed down, to open locked chests; to be curious. 
Don't forget this lesson.

If you stole from the barrel, you got a magic ring. 
That ring belongs to someone. 
Find them and take their grateful advice. 
Now you're in the tradehouse; talk to everyone, sell that loot, 
discover that the guy upstairs has 'business' with 
the ring's owner and make your decision.

***
The one thing I do recommend you do is, once you get to 
Balmora, look up the guy to whom the package is addressed. 
You might have guessed that this has something to do with 
the game's main quest. 
But, even if you don't want to do that right now it's a really,
really good idea to drop that package off!

First piece of major advice here. . . 
too many times I've seen cries for help on various forums 
from folk who've lost that package! 
Don't be one of them; hand it over.

***
Now you can go learn all about this new land you've been dropped into.
Practise the skills you chose, learn how to grease palms, do deals 
and which of the local fauna are likely to try and eat you.
Make your journal your best friend. 
It keeps track of what you've done, are supposed to be
doing and, quite often, gives you accurate directions.
But not always.

Second piece of major advice. 
When given a quest or task, check your journal. 
If the directions are vague, ask before you leave.
Check the topics of the person giving the quest and write down 
any directions they give you because they may not 
make it into your journal every time. 
(Quite often, destinations are marked in blue in the speech options column)
If it's not, chances are, you're gonna get lost.

***

As you develop skills, you'll 'level-up'. 
Which means you go from being a horrible little slow turtle of a person (Level 1) 
to being a horrible little-bit-faster turtle of a person. (Level 2) etc.
You accomplish this feat by sleeping when the little pop-up tells you to.

Most towns have bars, pubs, clubs; whatever you want to call them.
Find one, find the owner and rent a bed (Not barter, bed!) for the night. 
If you're in the wilderness, try and find a safe spot to sleep.  Bingo!  Level-up.

***

And, third piece of major advice, save, save, save!
Save before you try something. 
Save before a long trip and save again when you get there. 
There's nothing more frustrating than having the game freeze when 
you've just crossed from one side of Morrowind to the other!
And, if you're trying to intimidate that fella and you fail, you can re-load 
your game and try a new tactic.  Bribery?  Charm?  Lop his head off?
There's a solution to every problem; you just have to find it.

****
 

NOW WHERE?

Well, that's the basics, enough to get you started and to lessen 
a little of the confusion, I hope.
 

Now we move on to the next pages, filled with general advice, some
small modicum of wit and humour and a list of links that you 
might find useful.

Before we do that, I might mention that I myself play this game 
on the XBox, but that both games are essentially the same.

XBox does not (yet) have the expansion packs of Tribunal
and Bloodmoon (coming in Oct. 2003) so when it comes to 
console commands and mods for the PC version I confine 
myself to links .

But the advice on this site is applicable to both platforms as 
far as gameplay is concerned.

****