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The Morrowind Yellow Pages

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 10:04 am
by Kameleon
I've decided to write this for several reasons. The first is because it will hopefully be a resource that people, coming to this forum in the hopes of getting quick answers to their questions, can use. The second is because I've found a load of really good Morrowind fan sites out there, and I want to share the wealth. The third is just because I can :p

This is for everyone. It's for people starting off in the game, it's for veterans, it's even for me when inevitably my hard drive crashes and I lose all my bookmarks. It is a compilation of all the good Morrowind sites that I've come across in my wanderings on the internet, with descriptions of what you'll find there and a rating out of 5 stars. I know there are a lot of 5 star URLs down there, those are the ones that I just can't live without.

I am in no way affiliated with any of these websites, so if I rave about them, it's just because they're really good. Oh, and whatever you do, don't forget GameBanshee, and there'll still be people here to answer questions :D

If you know of good Morrowind sites that I haven't included, please post them, and I will look at them and include them in this post if I think they merit it. Thanks for reading :)

EDIT - Oh yes, if you like the idea of this thread, say so, and I might be able to get it made a sticky... :)

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The Official Elder Scrolls Site - Well duh. This is the place to come for official info, patches, and a really unfriendly forum. ***

Bullhonkie's FAQ - A first-class FAQ. This has answers to almost all of the common questions asked about the game. You should probably read this whether you have a specific question or not. *****

Destination: Morrowind - Not a huge amount of information - they're working on it - but it has an excellent list of where to find all the Grand Soul Gems in the game. ***

GameFAQs - As always, GameFAQs has a huge selection of guides, for most situations. I particularly recommend the Vampire and specific Guild FAQs. ****

Hannah's Whereizit Page - A perfect complement to Bullhonkie's page, this gives a lot of information on where places, items and people are, with excellent popup screenshots in case you get lost. ****½

House of Thieves - I just found this site, it tells you a lot of very good places to steal stuff ;) ***½

Morrowind Alliance - Basically an alchemy guide with extras, pretty detailed. It's a work in progress, so don't expect greatness. A few quest walkthroughs too. ***

Morrowind windfall - This has two things, a walkthrough of translating Caius Cosades' package (very interesting, but not necessary) and the amazing Morrowind FPS Optimizer. You can set an FPS range that you would like and it will dynamically alter the view distance to stay within that range, or if you have the computer power, you can whack the view distance up to TWICE what Morrowind allows. Do backup your saves etc. though, this is unsupported by Bethesda. *****

Steve Miller's Morrowind FAQ - This a VERY detailed Morrowind walkthrough, with quite a few extras. Interesting alchemy guide at the end with some good-looking potion ideas.***

Stratos Group Walkthrough - A fairly decent walkthrough and a good location guide, including all the travel options and vendors in a specific area. The cheats guide gives you the console IDs for nearly all the items, too. ***

TweakTown's Morrowind Tweak Guide - Quite simply, everything you need to know about tweaking Morrowind to get the best performance out of it. ****

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 10:59 am
by cjdevito
Rhedd's Heads - Download the incomparable new head models and textures mods here. Beautiful work.

Thelys Mod Links - A collection of mostly good mods from various authors. Note: AVOID Mykul's cloak mod, it can thoroughly break your game.

Morrowind Files - a mod collection site

Morrowind Summit - another large mod site

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 11:19 am
by Kameleon
I've never actually used a mod, I'm playing with a completely clean game until I finish it (I get so close and then my damn hard drive blows up!). So I didn't include any mod sites, however post them up and I or someone else will compile them...

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 5:03 pm
by free_fall
I'm curious about your comment on the ES forums. Do you mean you feel the users aren't very friendly or that the site itself isn't very user-friendly?

Aside from an unhealthy, obsessive hatred of Fargoth displayed by many of the posters, I haven't really noticed much overt hostility, flamewars, etc in the postings at ES. Certainly, the sheer number of users there tends to preclude the type of laid-back comraderie we enjoy here at GB ;)

On the mechanics side, I would have to agree. The site is unavailable for several hours every day, as if they shut down the server when they go home at night. Pages can take ages to load. After registering and successfully posting 3 times, I now get an error message when attempting to post :(

However, the 'search' works well and there is a veritable cornucopia of information to peruse.

Of course, it's dedicated to just this one game - Morrowind. I think the nicest thing about the GB forums is that we get to discuss different games with the same group of people.

I'll just add this:

The principal Fargoth-hater, in yet another of his/her innumerable (and mostly tiresome) killing Fargoth stories, actually had me ROTFLMAO with one involving 2 guards that began:

First Guard: "...so I said to the guy, "Keep moving." "

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 5:13 pm
by Kameleon
Yes, there is laid back camaraderie, but there's also the problem that stems from veteran posters getting extremely annoyed with people asking the same questions over and over again, when the Search button is clearly labeled and the threads like this one are numerous. It leads to some unnecessary shouting and the person's question not being answered. In fact, there are so many users and the board moves so fast that it's very hard to keep any sort of spirit going, like here.
Oh, of course I was also talking about the detestable speeds there - sometimes it's alright, but most of the time it just won't even contemplate loading.

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2002 6:39 pm
by Rahvin
morrowind summit is great...i check every day for new mods :)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 9:51 am
by Biljac
Anyone tried that FPS Optimizer??

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 10:50 am
by free_fall
Kameleon -

I experienced what you describe first-hand just now. As I mentioned, I'd been having trouble posting there. I discovered the problem and created a post with "test - ignore" as the subject to see if I'd fixed it. The post went thru successfully. Yea!

Within a minute, someone had replied anyway, with the following:

"Mkay, you know you don't have to make a new thread just to see your sig works. You can also just make a post and preview your post"

Like, dude, what part of "test - ignore" didn't you understand?

Anyhow, the fix only lasts for the current session, but I can tell tech support now exactly what's wrong. Their initial response was "you're behind a firewall so you're unable to post".

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:20 am
by Kameleon
Originally posted by Biljac
Anyone tried that FPS Optimizer??


I have - the on-the-fly changing of view distance is very well executed, if a little annoying at times. And when you whack the draw distance all the way up you really can see for miles - in some places (e.g. Vivec) to the edge of the cell, so that the sea/canton just seems to disappear. There's no way around that, I think :( But it's still good in most places...
Originally posted by UncleScratchy
@Kameleon: Great links - Thanks. BTW - I noticed that you, Santa Claus and Fable have taken to wearing an Uncle Scratchy type hat. Looks good!


No problem - glad you find it useful. And LOL - come see this thread if any of you want to get your very own Santa hats... :p

@free_fall - yes, you do get some very stupid people there... :rolleyes:

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2002 8:04 pm
by K0r/\/f1@k€$
Good stuff Kam. This definitely merits sticky status!

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 9:09 am
by Tybaltus
Originally posted by Kameleon
I know there are a lot of 5 star URLs down there, those are the ones that I just can't live without.
Now call me crazy, but I find all these sites really diminishes the gaming experience, as how far can it be considered before you draw the line between playing as you would play, and playing the way the sites tell you to play? I find one or two sites are good enough, and even then, thats only good if youve already beaten the game, and youre just catching up with missed experiences...

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 10:25 am
by Kameleon
Re: Re: The Morrowind Yellow Pages
Originally posted by Tybaltus
Now call me crazy, but I find all these sites really diminishes the gaming experience, as how far can it be considered before you draw the line between playing as you would play, and playing the way the sites tell you to play? I find one or two sites are good enough, and even then, thats only good if youve already beaten the game, and youre just catching up with missed experiences...
You're crazy. :p

First of all, a good few of those sites just have useful utilities, maps etc. for playing the game. Secondly, it's entirely up to viewers how they use the information - whether they want to use it just to find out how to get Goldbrand or what to do in a specific quest if they're totally stuck, or if they want to get a complete walkthrough. Me, I'm a perfectionist - I like to do everything possible in a game, and I like to do it in the way that benefits me the most. Call it powergaming or whatever, it's just the way I play. I've already done pretty much all the quests I could find apart from the main quest (Damn my hard drive) and now I've started again, I want to do EVERYTHING. It's completely up to those people reading this thread whether they want to "spoil" their game or not...but this thread is primarily for people who actually want help, advice, hints or spoilers.

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 11:23 am
by K0r/\/f1@k€$
I have to agree with Kam on this one, up to a point. I don't like to use the resources as extensively as he does, but maps for example, which tell me things I already know but cannot remember every single detail of are very useful IMO.

Guides on things which seem a little obscure at first such as alchemy and enchanting, I found useful just to get me started.

If you have ever played D2-LOD and have used a runeword, I bet that you didn't work it out yourself by trying every possible combination, but looked it up on an info site, or asked someone else.

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 3:18 pm
by Tybaltus
Originally posted by K0r/\/f1@k€$
I have to agree with Kam on this one, up to a point. I don't like to use the resources as extensively as he does, but maps for example, which tell me things I already know but cannot remember every single detail of are very useful IMO.
Ah. Thats where it makes sense. As maps are etched in my memory real easy. I havent played Morrowind in 3 months now, and I dont have the game with me anymore, as my brother moved with it, but without looking online, I can tell you where most everything is. Its all committed to memory. Some call it superhuman, but my memory acts in strange ways. I remember all this stuff, but come exam time, it flies out the window. :D

But I only used 2 sites to accomplish nearly everything in the game. (Im only missing a couple items, and maybe 1 or 2 quests. Other then that, Ive done everything thats not in the expansion)


BTW-Just some general info on my status of the game and this Morrowind forum:
For anyone who I have helped on this Morrowind site, its been fun, but since I no longer have access to the game and will never be getting Tribunal, I dont think my information is helpful anymore.

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 6:22 pm
by SSRat
Always helpful

I actually prefer generic or general hints when it comes to gaming. I think a lot of sites are very useful but at the same time, i don't use them unless i'm completely stuck or *cough* lost an item like Sunder which is essential.

Let's say that they are a necessary evil IMHO. I always have a need for them, and I always use them for more than I need. :)

Tybaltus:
Don't give up helping. I've seen firsthand that memory of yours at work. And new players could always use some experienced gaming advice.

Kam:
I'm in the same boat, I have to solve/explore/find everything! I can't help myself. And I'll definitely be visiting some site walkthroughs just to make sure.

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 8:41 pm
by Tybaltus
Re: Always helpful
Originally posted by SSRat
Tybaltus:
Don't give up helping. I've seen firsthand that memory of yours at work. And new players could always use some experienced gaming advice.
Thanks for the good word. :) But I think sorting through whats Tribunal and whats original Morrowind would prove difficult. Ill still lurk in this forum from time to time, I imagine.

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 6:04 am
by Kameleon
Originally posted by Tybaltus
Some call it superhuman, but my memory acts in strange ways. I remember all this stuff, but come exam time, it flies out the window. :D
I know exactly what you mean. If I knew anything like as much about Latin and Greek set texts as I do general knowledge, I wouldn't have to work for a first-class degree at all. You should see me on IRC trivia... :p

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2002 8:55 am
by Kameleon
I've added a couple of sites, Steve Miller's walkthrough and the House of Thieves.

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2002 2:34 pm
by Kameleon
Mini-bump!
Originally posted by Fairmaiden
Fantastic info, Kameleon.
Thanks :)

Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:14 am
by Kameleon
Kercha-bumpoo!