Video games - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

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	Video games - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

:Morrowind redirects here. For the in-game province, see Morrowind (province).

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (aka Morrowind) is a computer role-playing game by Bethesda Softworks, and the third in The Elder Scrolls series of games. Morrowind was released for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox.

Similar to previous installments of the series, the player begins as a just released criminal, a nobody with virtually no resources. The story takes place on Vvardenfell, an island in the province of Morrowind. Deep within the heart of the volcano at the center of the island, a menace seeks to gain power and break Morrowind free from imperial reign. The player may choose to fight this menace or ignore it and pursue glory elsewhere.

As of January 2006, it has sold over four million copies.
Gameplay
The game environment of Morrowind is huge and richly detailed, with real-time weather effects and a landscape in which most areas are accessible.

Gameplay is very open-ended, allowing the player to roam, steal, quest and explore. This includes, but is not limited to
Making or buying custom spells, potions, and weapons with unique effects.

Harming or killing major characters, even friendly characters (although it is possible to break the main plot of the game by doing so).

Breaking into and stealing from houses. Also, the ability to live in a house if the owner is not there, if the player kills the owner of that home, or if the player engages in a quest to construct a stronghold.

Finding random characters who assign mini-quests.

Completely ignoring the 'main story' of the game and playing free form.

This gameplay style (sometimes called sandbox style gameplay) is quite liberating. Shrewd players can find ways to unbalance the game and produce either weapons or abilities that can make the game's tasks extremely easy to complete, making the game fall out of balance.

The storyline progresses exclusively through the decisions of the character; it is non-linear and can be discontinued at will. This type of open-ended role-playing gameplay is a feature of all The Elder Scrolls series.

Along with graphical improvements, one of the most obvious differences between Morrowind and the older games is that Morrowind takes place only in the Vvardenfell district of Morrowind (a province in the land of Tamriel), whereas Arena
in particular had given the player the opportunity to visit any province, at the expense of much less detail. However, the mainland town of Mournhold is accessible as a separate area by teleportation, but only if the Tribunal
expansion is installed, and the separate island of Solstheim became available in The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon
.

Bethesda Softworks, the developer of Morrowind, offers gamers the ability to recreate the world with a variety of mod making tools, such as The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, which allows the modder to edit the game in an easy-to-use, nearly codeless environment.
Literature
The Elder Scrolls series, especially since Morrowind, is famous in part because of its unique setting. Since Daggerfall, The Elder Scrolls universe and cosmology have been developed both by a dedicated team of writers and contributions from all the developers. The Series' setting is not traditional for fantasy, as it is designed with believability and authenticity in mind, and aims for real world complexity and subtlety. There is nothing clear and definite in the world's state or history unlike most fantasy worlds, but rather there are many points of view, expressed in texts produced by various parties and interests, as in the real world. Morrowind has no fight between good and evil, but rather it's own philosophy of change and stability, of political and cultural transformation and evolution within the world and some ideas put forward being very interesting on their own. The game has over 300 books (not counting scrolls), which together contain over 1500 standard pages of text, more than any other game. Nearly all books are part of Morrowind, and Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions only add about 50 texts including scrolls. This doesn't include about 5000 pages of dialogue, many of which also contain information about the game world.

Together, in-game books and dialogues allow attentive players to feel a much more lively and detailed world than just what is seen on the screen. The mysteries of The Elder Scrolls universe have attracted many players, who have taken to jokingly calling themselves loremasters, to study its nature.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind ]

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