The Elder Scrolls XIII: Born Under a Certain Sign

[DigoDragon]

I'll have to be on guard. Any sign that my cover is compromised, I'm out.

Nah, you'll be fine. As long as you know the recipe and don't randomly throw stuff together on a whim...

That is hilarious. XD

It's all in the timing. :D

[LibraryOgre]

Aah, CHIM.

Am I the only one who has to avoid singing when they see that word?

[Winter_Wolf]

Am I the only one who has to avoid singing when they see that word?

I always end up thinking of the chimpanzee from Speed Racer when I see it (actually I think it was Chim-Chim) and my mind rebels so hard I deny the possibility of the word being pronounced any other way than "Kaim" and grit my teeth a little at the spelling CHIM.

[Balmas]

So, quick mod-talk for Morrowind. You may recall that during the most recent episode, I spent a lot of time bitching about how Morrowind's economy makes no friggin' sense. You have all these daedra and orcs running around with items worth tens of thousands of gold, but the only people who have any amount of money are a mudcrab, a creeper, and some dude in the middle of nowhere.

Accordingly, I've installed Arthmoor's Morrowind Merchants, which adds three merchants, one each in Vivec, Mournhold, and Balmora. Each has fifty thousand gold, although normal barter rules apply. What I've noticed is that this game becomes so much simpler when you have a ready supply of cash behind you. It becomes less a matter of "Can I afford this training" and more a matter of "Who would know how to train me more?

I've also installed Cast-On-Use-B-Gone, which takes most of the cast-on-use rings, amulets, and clothing, and gives them constant effects that are roughly half as powerful. I found that I just never used cast-on-use items, so I'd be walking around with thirty pounds of useless jewelry. This makes it so that instead of having an amulet in my pocket that I can toss on for a quick Restore Fatigue +10-30, I can instead wear the amulet that gives Restore Fatigue +2 as a constant effect.

That's your "replay value " you're dissing!

That's the thing. This doesn't feel so much like adding replay value.

I can't help but compare it to Morrowind; thus far, Chord has been working mainly with the Mage's Guild, along with a smattering of Fighter's Guild and Tribunal Temple. If I were a different person--someone who didn't start out as a street urchin and therefore didn't have such problems with the law--I could go join the Imperial Legion and have dozens of quests open up to me, or join the Morag Tong and again, have a good twenty-five quests open up depending on where I go and who I talk to. And these quests depend on who and what I'm playing; if I stomp around in heavy armor and tote a warhammer, I'm not a good fit for a guild that specializes in stealthy heists.

In comparison, Skyrim seems dedicated to making sure that you can do everything with one character. You can join the Mage's Guild with nothing more than a spell you can buy at the gate. You can join the Companions by being the most dishonorable sneak-thief imaginable. Your tests for joining the Dark Brotherhood are "Kill this woman with 1 HP," "Kill one of these tied-up, helpless people," and "Go kill this beggar who's standing outside of town in an area where he's the only one who can see you." The skill system means that given enough time, you're either going to stop leveling or you're going to turn to secondary and tertiary skills and become a master of everything. Three to four hours in each faction is enough to finish their main quest, and from then you can either do that faction's radiant quests ad-nauseum, or move on to the next faction.

I can understand making it so that certain shouts are locked behind the main quest. That makes sense to me. However, making it so that you can't unlock all the shouts without doing quests for every faction in Skyrim just reeks of "Do it all on one character."

But yeah, shouts tend to have some irritating conditions. You can't get the full storm call shout unless you actually grind the hell out of the main quest to at least Sovngarde. A pity, because it's hilarious disintegrating dragons in flight when they're struck by lightning in a storm. Mostly I just do without, because playing a random guy or lass that isn't dragonborn has been my preferred type of character for a good long while. Skyrim Unbound makes it possible, and gives you non-dragonborn shouts, and if you're inclined, auto-unlocked shouts without needing dragon souls.

Oooh, Skyrim Unbound looks interesting. I might consider using that instead of Live Another Life for my Chase playthrough.

Ah, a Wil E. Coyote moment. One moment, everything is fine, the next, the law of Gravity reasserts it self.

*shakes an impotent fist at Gravity* On the one hand, I now have the Boots of the Apostle, and Cast-on-Use-B-Gone makes it so that most Cast-on-Use items become slightly-weaker constant effect items. On the other hand, constant levitation seems like a recipe for frustration, given my attempts to navigate Vivec with the spell active...

It's not that "it was a jungle then it wasn't", it's "it was a jungle and then it NEVER WAS."

Additionally, the fan disappointment that we could have gotten a cool jungle session with demon-infested aztec-ish ruins hidden deep in dangerous jungles, the roads normally patrolled now only dangerous paths in a time of crisis, but instead we got a boring generi-medieval setting of trees and more trees.

Part of it is the retcon. Part of it was looking at Morrowind and expecting something similar for Cyrodil. Vvardenfell was this magical, otherworldly location; could you imagine Cyrodil, this fantastic jungle, heart of the empire, land of Tiber Septim and the empire, approached with that same level of fantasy?

Instead we got four square miles of New Zealand country-side copy-pasted ad nauseum. Don't get me wrong, Oblivion was a beautiful game, and it still stands up pretty well even without graphical mods. However, by the time Carltmer was done, I was tired of the same basic oblivion gates, the same near-identical Ayleid ruin designs, copy-paste castles, and an overworld that felt samey no matter how different the physical features of the landscape became.

That is hilarious. XD

It's all in the timing. :D

I aim to entertain. It wasn't even intentional. I just fell, and decided, "Yeah, I'm not gonna get a better transition for the episode than that."

Am I the only one who has to avoid singing when they see that word?

Well played and also I hate this. I have an image of Talos of Atmora singing and dancing in front of his armies.

[Aeson]

That's the thing. This doesn't feel so much like adding replay value.

I can't help but compare it to Morrowind; thus far, Chord has been working mainly with the Mage's Guild, along with a smattering of Fighter's Guild and Tribunal Temple. If I were a different person--someone who didn't start out as a street urchin and therefore didn't have such problems with the law--I could go join the Imperial Legion and have dozens of quests open up to me, or join the Morag Tong and again, have a good twenty-five quests open up depending on where I go and who I talk to. And these quests depend on who and what I'm playing; if I stomp around in heavy armor and tote a warhammer, I'm not a good fit for a guild that specializes in stealthy heists.

In comparison, Skyrim seems dedicated to making sure that you can do everything with one character. You can join the Mage's Guild with nothing more than a spell you can buy at the gate. You can join the Companions by being the most dishonorable sneak-thief imaginable. Your tests for joining the Dark Brotherhood are "Kill this woman with 1 HP," "Kill one of these tied-up, helpless people," and "Go kill this beggar who's standing outside of town in an area where he's the only one who can see you." The skill system means that given enough time, you're either going to stop leveling or you're going to turn to secondary and tertiary skills and become a master of everything. Three to four hours in each faction is enough to finish their main quest, and from then you can either do that faction's radiant quests ad-nauseum, or move on to the next faction.

I can understand making it so that certain shouts are locked behind the main quest. That makes sense to me. However, making it so that you can't unlock all the shouts without doing quests for every faction in Skyrim just reeks of "Do it all on one character."

Another difference between Morrowind and Oblivion/Skyrim is that for the most part there aren't any locations, services, or abilities which are quest- or faction-locked in Morrowind, whereas quest- or faction-locked locations are almost the norm and a number of services (spellmaking, enchanting, fencing) are largely unavailable if not a member of an associated faction in Oblivion and Skyrim. Quests in Morrowind seem mostly set up to give you a reason to go to a location and will also affect, to some extent, how you interact with the location and the NPCs in it when you get there, whereas quests in Oblivion and Skyrim are often the only way to get into an area in the first place.

So, quick mod-talk for Morrowind. You may recall that during the most recent episode, I spent a lot of time bitching about how Morrowind's economy makes no friggin' sense. You have all these daedra and orcs running around with items worth tens of thousands of gold, but the only people who have any amount of money are a mudcrab, a creeper, and some dude in the middle of nowhere.

I'll grant that selling everything to a single merchant for gold coins which can then be used anywhere to get whatever you actually want is simpler, but I don't agree that Morrowind's economy makes no sense, certainly not by comparison to Oblivion's where the merchants can't exchange goods for anything except money despite being willing to both buy and sell goods in specific categories. Morrowind's economy is meant to be in large part - and more or less works as - a barter economy. You found a Daedric dagger worth 9000 gold but don't want it? Great. Take it to Meldor and exchange it for 1500 gold coins and 7000 gold in armor and weapons, then go over to Ra'virr and Dralasa Nithryon and exchange the weapons and armor that you got from Meldor but don't want for miscellaneous goods and more coins, and keep it up until you've exchanged that Daedric dagger you didn't want for a pile of coins or a bunch of goods you actually do want.

On the other hand, constant levitation seems like a recipe for frustration, given my attempts to navigate Vivec with the spell active.

Yeah, CE levitation effects aren't great in enclosed spaces.

[Triaxx]

Unless a mod is changing things, as I watch various LP's, it looks like quite a few services in Morrowind are faction locked, such as trainers and merchants refusing to deal with you unless you're a member of the faction. Spells and Barter services included. Though in most cases, having your 'I joined' button seems to be enough for the task.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Am I the only one who has to avoid singing when they see that word?

I pronounce it 'CHEEM' so I don't have that problem...or at least I didn't until you posted that.

I can understand making it so that certain shouts are locked behind the main quest. That makes sense to me. However, making it so that you can't unlock all the shouts without doing quests for every faction in Skyrim just reeks of "Do it all on one character."

^This. It's annoying. I get bored easily; when there's nothing new to discover as far as plot or locations I have a hard time justifying rolling up a new character.

However, by the time Carltmer was done, I was tired of the same basic oblivion gates, the same near-identical Ayleid ruin designs, copy-paste castles, and an overworld that felt samey no matter how different the physical features of the landscape became.

The copy and paste feel is probably the worst part of Oblivion. They could have left in the low-level Imps and rats when they added the Minotaurs and Dreugh, but they decided they wanted fights to be challenging instead of keeping some variety - so all a high level character will run across is Minotaurs and Dreugh. The Oblivion gate dungeons could have used some minor background plot like the Skyrim delves have - not a quest as such, but some notes on desks and differences in the monsters to establish things like 'this is the fortress of one of Dagon's greatest Dremora generals' 'this is where they train their troops' 'this is where they torture prisoners' - they don't have any of that, they're just dungeon crawls, occasionally with a quest attached.

[Balmas]

I'll grant that selling everything to a single merchant for gold coins which can then be used anywhere to get whatever you actually want is simpler, but I don't agree that Morrowind's economy makes no sense, certainly not by comparison to Oblivion's where the merchants can't exchange goods for anything except money despite being willing to both buy and sell goods in specific categories. Morrowind's economy is meant to be in large part - and more or less works as - a barter economy. You found a Daedric dagger worth 9000 gold but don't want it? Great. Take it to Meldor and exchange it for 1500 gold coins and 7000 gold in armor and weapons, then go over to Ra'virr and Dralasa Nithryon and exchange the weapons and armor that you got from Meldor but don't want for miscellaneous goods and more coins, and keep it up until you've exchanged that Daedric dagger you didn't want for a pile of coins or a bunch of goods you actually do want.

That doesn't work in game terms or in economic terms. When I go to sell my gear, it's usually because I'm overencumbered, and want to come out of there with less weight and more gold. Selling items for more items results in both wasted gold and me accumulating even more weight, and then has me waste my time running around to all the other merchants.

In economic terms, the question becomes: "And what then?" You've sold your daedric war-thingummy to this rich merchant. What does he do with it? Who can he sell it on to? Are there that many people desperately in need of a daedric weapon? I mean, they're good, yes, but unless you have a ton of adventurers around buying things, it'd be almost impossible for a merchant to sell that weapon, and therefore they'd have almost no reason to buy it.

Eh, it's mostly nitpicking. A niggling annoyance.

Unless a mod is changing things, as I watch various LP's, it looks like quite a few services in Morrowind are faction locked, such as trainers and merchants refusing to deal with you unless you're a member of the faction. Spells and Barter services included. Though in most cases, having your 'I joined' button seems to be enough for the task.

Maybe so, but there's other places and people to get stuff from. You can buy spells from lots of sources. You can pay enchanters and spellmakers to do your work for you without being part of any faction. Most of the dungeons can be visited at any time, even story dungeons.

Compare that to Oblivion and Skyrim. In Oblivion, the only way to get spell-making or enchanting is to either shell out for a Mage House DLC or to go through the process of getting all the Mage's Guild recommendations. There are a ton of areas that can't be visited until you've progressed far enough in a questline, or that can be visited but without access to the whole map. You can't fully explore Skuldafn, or the Soul Cairn, or Ustengrav, or High Snow Veil Sanctum, or Ysgramor's Tomb, or Korvanjund, or Labyrinthian, or Blackreach, and the list goes on, until you advance quest lines enough to say "And now doors magically unlock for you."

[Spore]

Daedric weapons and other high priced loot items are basically this games' artifacts anyway. A Daedric infused item is not a Daedra artifact but to the eyes of anyone but the most experienced scholars they are basically the same. It's a demon infused item for the Love of the Nine. Of course people cannot afford to pay you in full for it.

This is the gaming equivalent of trying to sell the Holy Avenger that was given to your Paladin because your party could get so much more armor for its price. You either use it, or not. There is no way to properly display or gift these to anyone useful. But I make a point in either housing such items in a high security location (basically my house) or give them to the follower that could use them. Serana is not a Nightingale? Doesn't matter, she gets the Armor and the Blade of Woe/Mehrune's Razor. J'Zargo can use the Nightingale Blade and a Daedric Armor set (as Sorcerer he is proficient with Heavy Armor).

[Lord Raziere]

I pronounce it 'CHEEM' so I don't have that problem...or at least I didn't until you posted that.

I go with KAIM myself, as in "My time to chim." I know, all wrong but I'm not changing it. My pronunciation sounds cooler in my opinion.

[Triaxx]

Me the only one to play X3? With the battles against the Kha'ak?

Yeah, spellmaking in Oblivion was a big nuisance. Thankfully, mods for that. In particular I enjoyed the slightly cheaty Sunken Lighthouse. Mostly because of the Grand Master Alchemy, but it also had both enchanting and spellmaking.

Also, I think the unofficial patch fixed the Ring of Destruction, so it can't roll away. I love it.

[Winter_Wolf]

That's the thing. This doesn't feel so much like adding replay value.

That was the joke.

My comedic stylings have failed again, it seems.

[factotum]

Me the only one to play X3? With the battles against the Kha'ak?

No, but not sure of the relevance?

[veti]

I quite enjoy the fact that merchants in Morrowind can't afford to buy the top-level gear. Seems reasonable to me. I end up with a house, or several, full of unsold and unsellable gear, and I'm fine with that. Fortunately, when I leave stuff just lying about, e.g. on the bed in the Mage's Guild - nobody steals it, and nobody tells me off for littering. So I'm good.

In the vanilla game, it's also perfectly possible to sell an item to (your choice of merchant), then buy it back for a lower price than you just sold it. Rinse and repeat until you've got as much gold as you want. Now that is broken.

The replayability of Skyrim, for me, arises from the fact that by the time I've completed three major questlines, or sometimes just two plus a couple of mods - I'm level 40, and I start to feel that nothing in the game is a challenge any more. I've beaten it. My character is ready to take "saving the world" as read, and retire to Lakeview Manor to live happily ever after. Time to start over with another character, and choose a different combination of questlines this time. Heck, I haven't joined the Companions in about five characters now - and none of them has ever started to hanker for more content.

[Triaxx]

@factotum, mis-pronounce it and it sounds like you're in the middle of porn.

I tend to play hyper focused characters, who don't do everything, so I don't usually mind not getting all the stuff done with each character.

[Ogremindes]

---

Whiterun, Morning Star 27
Astrid... she...
The mission went as planned, up until it was time to make my escape. Maro was waiting for me with his men. He revealed I the man I killed was a decoy, and I was sold out: my life for the safety of the Family, but he wasn't planning to honour that, even, and that the Sanctuary was being destroyed as we spoke. I remember the rage, bringing forth the Beast. With tooth and claw I tore apart Maro's men, then I barrelled through Solitude and through the main gate. By that point I was riddled with arrows and could do naught but flee into the wilderness. As I recollected myself, Shadowmere caught up with me, and together we travelled to Falkreath as fast as we could. Maro's men were loading the Sanctuary up with flammable oils, having fought their way through the Brotherhood. In the end only Nazir and Babette survived after my intervention.

The Night Mother spoke to me, notifying me that Astrid was still somewhere in the Sanctuary. We found her, badly burned and barely alive. She had performed the Black Sacrament with her own body. She confessed she had sold me out, and in doing so brought the Imperials to the Sanctuary. With the Sacrament performed a life had to be taken. That would be hers.

The Motierre contract is still on. I've ridden out to Whiterun to meet with him again. The Emperor is on his personal ship, docked near Solitude still. He wont be staying for long. First thing tomorrow: I ride. And if I see Maro again, I'll make sure he knows he failed before I kill him. Nazir and Babette will be heading for the Dawnstar Sanctuary

---

---

Morthal, Morning Star 28
It's finally done. The Emperor is dead. I sneaked aboard the Katariah by climbing the anchor chain, and set to work. They were unprepared, off guard, believing the Brotherhood destroyed. I killed each guard and sailor in turn with my dagger, none lived long enough to raise the alarm. When I met the Emperor, he accepted his fate. He tried to convince me to kill Motierre "as a favor". I told him we don't do favors. I left the Katariah a ghost ship behind me.

I crossed paths with Maro as I left the ship. He babbled something about me being dead and then attacked me madly. I separated his head from his shoulders in short order. A pity. I wanted to taunt him for a while before he died.

I was able to smooth things over with local authorities with surprising ease. I guess Maro didn't bother passing on information, since he thought I was dead. The bounty still stood, sadly, but I payed it off with no further incident. I started heading back to Whiterun and Motierre, stopping at Morthal for the night.

---

---

Dawnstar Sanctuary, Morning Star 29
I reported to Motierre. He had left payment in a dead drop, back in Volunruud. Twenty thousand septims. I brought this back to Dawnstar. Nazir and Babette had arrived ahead of me, and had somehow brought the Night Mother with them. Nazir thinks Delvin Mallory can get this Sanctuary properly fitted out, I'll pay him a visit soon. The Night Mother has told me of a new contract. The contact was staying in Dawnstar, and wants a hunter in Falkreath dead. Simple enough.

Cicero showed up at our door as I left. Just as well I let him live, we need all the brothers we have.

---

[Triaxx]

Totally forgot Windshear. Oh well.

[Ogremindes]

Totally forgot Windshear. Oh well.

Dammit, I did find it, but forgot to note it. I'll blame that on being sick.

[Triaxx]

Ah, no worries. Most people even forget it exists. I just happen to know because I found it while running from the guards one time.

[Balmas]

In Morrowind Part 17, We Rescue God.

As I lay groaning on the ground, two thoughts ran through my head. First, if you're gonna be a smarta**, make sure that you're standing somewhere the universe can't smite you down for it. Second, I was actually glad that I'd landed on rock, given the amount of open lava pits in the area. Convection didn't appear to be a thing, but the rocks were still uncomfortably warm.

So, I needed to find a scroll of divine intervention for the Breton on the ledge. The closest legion fort was probably Fort Darius, but since I had just about hit my limit on how many expensive weapons I could carry, I decided to teleport back to Balmora instead and just pick a scroll out of the guild chests.

Turns out, all those shiny weapons that the dremora had "gifted" me were fantastically valuable. To the tune of ten to fifty thousand gold each. What followed was probably a month of training as I ran around to everyone who could train me in Balmora and paid them as much as they wanted to help me learn more. I even paid for Block training! You never know, maybe one day I'll stop using a pointy metal stick and start using a bashy metal stick instead.

However, when I warped back to Ama Nin, she didn't comment on the long delay. Instead, she just gave a mysterious smile, thanked me for my help, handed over a spare set of clothes, and disappeared. As in, she didn't use the scroll, there weren't any sparks, no gestures or words, just one second here and gone the next. When I examined the clothes, I found a note stitched on the inside of both the skirt and blouse: "Love, Mara." I'm not sure whether that means I rescued a beloved of Mara, or Mara herself. Either way gives me the shivers.

I figured that that was sign enough from the universe that I should stop screwing around and head towards what Caius had brought me to do. He wanted me to go to Vivec, talk to some informants, and ask them what they knew about the Sixth House and the Nerevarine.

I could have taken the silt strider, but I wanted to explore a bit more on the way there. I was... well, let's just say less than thrilled to soar over the lake and discover that right outside the provincial Imperial town of Pelagiad, there was also a slave plantation farming saltrice. I resolved something, as I stared at the "warning" of a crucified, beheaded, and impaled slaves outside the gate: someday, I'm going to come back and just set this place on fire.

[Triaxx]

Anyone tried Bruma yet? I'm waiting for the early patching to finish, but it looks awesome.

[Illven]

Well I beat Morrowind for the first time in years.

Was a tad dissapointed to note that killing Dagoth Ur only removes the blight storms, not the ash storms.

[ArlEammon]

Ah, no worries. Most people even forget it exists. I just happen to know because I found it while running from the guards one time.

I want someone to make a mod where you can get Windshear without the DarkBrotherhood quest.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

---

He tried to convince me to kill Motierre "as a favor". I told him we don't do favors. I left the Katariah a ghost ship behind me.

---

You totally should have done that favor; Motierre is loaded with gems IIRC. Admittedly you're probably past the point where money is an issue by now, but still.

I was... well, let's just say less than thrilled to soar over the lake and discover that right outside the provincial Imperial town of Pelagiad, there was also a slave plantation farming saltrice. I resolved something, as I stared at the "warning" of a crucified, beheaded, and impaled slaves outside the gate: someday, I'm going to come back and just set this place on fire.

*excited* I'll bring popcorn! Although burning Dunmeri slavers might be ill-advised; aren't they fire resistant in Morrowind?

[Triaxx]

That just means it requires additional fire.

[veti]

You totally should have done that favor; Motierre is loaded with gems IIRC.

Totally not the point. If you kill him just to loot him, you're not an assassin, you're a mugger. A bad one.

The mere request to off someone "for free" is just... offensive to a professional's pride.

[factotum]

Was a tad dissapointed to note that killing Dagoth Ur only removes the blight storms, not the ash storms.

The ash storms come from living on the slopes of an active volcano, so it's not too surprising that Dagoth Ur's presence or otherwise don't affect them. It's only 11 years after the events of Morrowind that the Red Year happens and Vvardenfell is devastated, after all.

[Winter_Wolf]

Totally not the point. If you kill him just to loot him, you're not an assassin, you're a mugger. A bad one.

The mere request to off someone "for free" is just... offensive to a professional's pride.

Alternatively you could say it's a matter of making sure that the guy can't rat you out later to some advantage of his own. People who hire professional "cleaners" aren't exactly the most stand-up crowd. Tying up a lose end before it trips you up, as it were.

But either way, eh?

[Keltest]

Totally not the point. If you kill him just to loot him, you're not an assassin, you're a mugger. A bad one.

The mere request to off someone "for free" is just... offensive to a professional's pride.

I mean, I usually off Motierre because he's just offensive in every way to me. Except for his money. That's not offensive.

[Triaxx]

I always figured the gems were the payment. The emperor knew you were coming and so probably knew Motierre would have gems on him. Plus he knew who'd ordered it, so...