At this point they’re quite old (though the graphics are still more than adequate, there’s no feeling of compromise like you get with a lot of older games because it’s sprite and tile based rather than primitive 3D) so it’ll run on pretty much any computer you have these days, so that’s a bonus.
Well, a long, long time ago, someone invented a box which projected moving images and sound. People watched it for entertainment. They called it “television” from the greek word tele meaning “far away” and “vision” meaning that you can see it.
One of the most popular shows on this primitive device was called “I Love Lucy.” In the show, Lucy was married to a Cuban band leader named Ricky Ricardo. “'Splain me, Lucy” was one of his common lines, said when he didn’t understand her wacky antics.
(That was fun. 
)
I just bought Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel for PS2. The reviews are mixed, but at least I’ll be able to play this one and get somewhat of a feel for it.
And I found it used at the store for only $12. Woo hoo!
If all you’ve played is Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, go to your local video game recycler and pop out the cash for the Game of The Year Edition on X-Box. This way you get the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions, which aren’t nearly the size and complexity of the main theme, but they’re still nice when you want to dig your character out of retirement for a few more sword fueled exploits.
“Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel” is an action game, and doesn’t play anything like the other Fallouts. Not to be confused with “Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel” which does play like the first two Fallouts, but with almost all combat.
Yeah, they could have named it better.
Yeah, it’s a totally different style of game. Same world, but one is action while the others are role playing.
I just bought the GTY edition for the Xbox on Morrowind. I played the original some time ago (rented from blockbuster). I liked it, but I was confused some. I never could figure out what was the “main” quest. Can anyone enlighten me? I know the point of this game is to not have a point, but aside from doing the hundreds of side quests and plotlines, I would like to strive toward the main one.
If you go to the first real town and hook up with your boss, the spymaster, he gives you a series of quests (mostly involving gathering information), plus he says to get in good with one or two of the guilds so you can get some levels. This puts you onto the main quest line.
Basically, Satan is locked up inside a magically-warded area at the center of the continent called Red Mountain. He starts sending you bad dreams and you eventually go to Red Mountain to kill him.
Thanks Ethilrist! Thats probably why I “missed” it, I kept looking for some big invlolved plotline…seems pretty straightforward!
Any tips for new Morrowind players??
Build your own character rather than answering the questions.
Don’t take any weapons or armor as major skills that you’re not going to use.
Buy up cheap levels in skills you don’t have so that when you make a level, you get a x5 multiplier on the characteristic increases.
When you get to the Mages Guild in Balmora, join the guild, do the first couple of quests, and when you get the one to go swap out the soul gem, steal all the soul gems (save before you do this; some people are touchy about what you steal), then get t-ported to Caldera and sell them a few at a time per day to Creeper (?) on the 2nd floor of the Orc’s estate (he buys everything at face value, without taking off a percentage, and can buy 5,000 gp of stuff at a time). You should have enough money then to buy whatever equipment you need in Caldera and Balmora. Oh, and don’t hang onto those soul gems. If you ever try to have the lady in Balmora make an item for you with one of them, she gets kind of pissy, in an “oh god, oh god, I’m about to die” kind of way.
If you join the mage’s guild, you don’t have to try to sneak to steal them. Join, (you can always get yourself expelled later if you really don’t want to be a mage) and get tasks from Ajira, the tiger lady in the teleport room of the Caldera mage’s guild.
She’ll ask you to go get her some mushrooms, which grow right outside of Sayada Neen. (That’s the town the game begins in.) When you come back and give them to her, she’ll ask you to put a fake soul gem in the desk where all the real gems are. The woman who always stands by the desk will walk downstairs. Catch her on the stairs and say something to her. It should freeze her in place until your dirty deed is done. Go up there and steal them all.
The creeper is on the second floor of Ghorak Manor. You can also steal all of the weapons in the third room-- the guy standing there will just yell “Stop, theif!” but he won’t report your crime.
Stealing is extremely profitable in this game. The first thing I do when I get enough money is have an “open” spell made.
Buy any opening spell from a spellmaker in the mage’s guild. Then select “make spell” and give it a magnitude of 100 to 100 on touch. IIRC, it was 30,000 or so to make this spell, but is mucho worth it.
Join the theives’ guild in the bar in Balmora and then go to at Aid Ruhn. The first task he’ll give you is to steal a certain sword from the mage’s guild. Everyone will leave except for one easily-killable guy in the first room. Take your time and rob the place blind. They won’t come back until you give the guy his sword. (Make sure you have that 100 magnitude Open spell 'cause there’s a lot of high-level locks in there.)
Get mark and recall spells, and set the recall point right in front of The Creeper. Sometimes, you’ll steal a crap-load of weapons and be unable to walk for the weight. If you teleport back, you can take all of it with you.
Sometimes, if someone is in a room, and you want to lure them out so you can go in there to steal, you can close the door, go out into the hall and steal something, then re-open the door, and they’ll come running out. You go in the room and close the door behind you and stress-free theivery ensues.
There is a great cache of weapons in Ghostgate (Which is east of Balmora, IIRC, at the base of the Red Mountain. Just follow the Ghostfence, and you’ll come to it sooner or later.) There’s a small room downstairs in one of the towers which has crates of glass armor and enchanted glass swords. (High damage and low weight.) You’ll have to close the door and kill the guy in the room to be able to steal it, and then teleport back to The Creeper. Some of it you’ll be able to sell to him, but most of it is too expensive for him to buy without a lot of tiring purchasing back and forth to raise his money level.
Actually, I’ve never needed to kill him. You can steal from most places if you combine stealth mode, a high level low duration chameleon spell ( or the Amulet of Shadows, found in the NW ), and a telekinesis spell. Wait until he’s facing away and use chameleon ( or use the spell and sneak behind him ), then telekinisis what you want to steal while in sneak mode. Save before trying.
You can often steal with telekinisis and sneak alone; just make sure you’re out of the line of sight.
Man, I just don’t know how to feel about that. I love the Fallout games, but the Elder Scrolls games have never quite managed to make it past barely adequate. Morrowind was really the only one in the series that was any good, and that was only because it had such a massive and intricately detailed gameworld. The gameplay itself was bad, and the story dull, and it did better in both those areas than any of its predecessors. I’m not sure if I want a new Fallout if it’s going to be as meandering, repetitive and poorly plotted as, say, Daggerfall.
In an odd twist of fate, many console rpg’s tend to have heavy strategy elements. Maybe you can buy him a copy of Disgaea to keep him occupied on the PS2 while you play Fallout on the PC. 
A friend of mine was recently raving to me about Chronotrigger, which is one of the Final Fantasy games. He doesn’t like the later FF games but he couldn’t say enough good things about CT. In fact, he compared it to Fallout very favorably, saying that CT was the first game to really embrace multiple endings and freeform gameplay. Chrono Trigger is available on the PS2 as a set with Final Fantasy IV for $30. link to amazon
Back on the PC, you might also consider Arcanum, a game designed by some of the guys who made Fallout. link to Arcanum webpage
Arcanum’s premise is a high fantasy setting just entering the industrial era and how the world reacts to this. There’s an enormous and fascinating world right on the cusp of moving from a magic based society to a technological one. The storyline is more linear than Morrowind’s but there’s enormous freedom to explore the land and recruit a party of companions. The game is not without flaws but it’s a must-see, imo, for any rpg fan.
No it isn’t. They are both Square games, and possibly a lot of the same people worked on both, but Chronotrigger and Chrono Cross are separate from the FF line.
Two other good Morrowind tricks are to have a enchanted shirt made that damages health, and then sell it to a merchant who has wares you don’t feel like paying for. Make it an “Exquisite Shirt” or what have you and the merchant will put it on when you sell it to them, and then die. Then all the stuff in the merchants place is yours for the taking. Ra’Vir in Balmora is a good one to pull this one, as he has lots of nifty enchanted swords.
The other trick isn’t one you should do right away, but you can sell your gold (money) to Creeper at face value. He holds all items sold to him for, as far as I went, 90 days. Keep selling it to him at one to one value, go rest for 24 hours so he gets his money back, and sell again. After however long you like, go and kill Creeper, and you can take all the gold you sold him back, in fact doubling your money.
As for a roleplaying fantasy game with pretty open-ended gameplay, there’s always World of Warcraft. You can spend a huge amount of time exploring the world, and by the time you get to level 15 or so, there are several dozen quests that you qualify for, scattered over two massive continents. Some of the quests are chained, but you don’t have to pay attention to the chain quests if you’d rather not.
Daniel
I know the OP mentioned that a PC game might not work out for her, but I’m playing Fable: The Lost Chapters right now and it’s lots of fun. The guys in the game store were all excited about it too. Even though it’s new, there are a fair amount of hints, walkthroughs available too.
I recommend that you take control of the PC! There are better RPG options for the PC. There are still a few for the consoles, but they tend to favor ‘action RPGs’. Read: RPG lite for people with slower wits and quicker fingers.
Gothic II, as already suggested, is most like Morrowind. The story is a little bit stronger, though more linear, but there is open area enough for hours of exploring.
Baldur’s Gate II is a party based RPG, not first person like Morrowind, but it too has a vast world that you can explore. I seem to remember it including 30 or 40 hours of side quests unrelated to the main story line.
Some people would say that some of the tips you are getting here would “ruin” the game by making it too easy to get too much gold. I’m not one of them because I personally don’t care how someone plays a game. However, Morrowind does not have to be exclusively about the acquisition of wealth, and ultimately you will have more ebony, glass and Nordic gear than you’ll know what to do with, and just selling it to merchants for whatever they’ll give you will provide plenty of money. Also, it is not that hard to make weapons that are so powerful that the game becomes boring.
So, if you’re just getting into the game, I’d suggest that you don’t worry too much about immediately finding the best weapons or armor, and just go out and practice your primary weapon on whatever easy local fauna you can find. Stay away from the slaughterfish would be my primary warning.
If you want more help, check out the forums section at the official site http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.htm. I’m not going to link directly to the forums, because I think that’s frowned upon, but they’re right there.
Of course, don’t expect to stay at the forums too long. It looks like they are still having the same arguments they were having a year ago when I was last there (“Powergaming RULZ!!!II111 No, Roleplaying is the only proper way to play!!!”)
It’s an awesome game and I CAN NOT WAIT FOR OBLIVION!!!
Hurry up and release it! But not with bugs! So take your time and do it right Bethesda! Just do it now!!!