During the course of the game, those four topics get a lot of work.
I am looking for people or places referenced in these four topics that do not appear in the game, or that do appear but do not correspond to the topic.
Examples:
1) Nolus Atrius, the very corrupt Balmora magistrate, is in the Balmora rumours but nowhere to be found in the game.

2) The player is directed to talk to An-Deesei if the player is interested in a monk's life. An-Deesei has nothing more to say about being a monk than any other monk in the game. ( The PC is actually directed to 31 different specific NPCs for information about classes ( out of 81 classes in the game ) but only a very few of these NPCs actually have any specific information to convey ).

3) Witches and Warlocks offer to tell the PC about bad daedra and summonings, they don't.

4) Herder's talk about the tribal shalk herds. No shalk herds in game.

If you have an example of this sort of anomaly in the game, from these or any other topics, post it please.
There is a mod waiting to be made to fill in these gaps.

To start, I have four named but missing NPC's Nolus Atrius the Evil Balmora Magistrate, Malur Omayn the Dissident Priest supposed to be in the Ministry of Justice cells, Bilsa Andaram the rumour monger in West Gash, Naryn the wandering IL member somewhere near one of the Forts.

That's part of a quest they should also mention a guy at for moonmoth he will tell you to slaughter the comona tong guild at the council hall... of course in a professional medeval cop way, but thats the jist, the mentioning of the npc and his non-existence is just another point to his "untouchable-ness" which is why you go kill the people bribing him instead

I understand what you're doing and filling in the gaps is a great idea. How frustrating it was to play and see these references but nothing became of them. Thannk you.

Another excellent idea for a mod, always felt strange the way you were directed to these NPC's yet they had very little actual info on them.

Cant remember any names off hand, but good luck with the mod.

Apologies for not being more clear, I am just looking for the gaps, anomalies and lacunae in the game between what is in topics and what actually exists in the game. Not looking for bugs like Ajeera not being able to tell east from west when she gives directions.
I have a fairly large list of these things but by no means a complete one. If a mod comes out of it all well and good, maybe just a posted list of game gaps will arise.
Doesn't have to be somebody missing, could be somebody assigned the wrong faction or wrong sex, could be a dead body in a locked room that is never referenced anywhere else, or the lack of membership in the EEC faction for the EEC members on Morrowind after Bloodmoon is installed. Just anything that feels "unfinished," or "incomplete."

I've got the list of 31 that are referenced to visit and am checking their dialogues to see if they add anything about their specific classes. Some do.

I can never tell east from west. This gets annoying when I'm told I'll find something east of Balmora, and realise I was going the wrong way after I reach, say, Solstheim.

Ooh, I have one - that dead bloke in the Balmora Morag Tong guildhall. He's the Grandmaster's brother, I think, but the name eludes me.

I have found that body as well. I have yet to complete every single in-game quest so thought it might be a Great House quest or something.

That is a good one: why is he there? Did the Tong torture him? etc.

YES! Great one Cow_Guru...plus when I play I'll keep this thread in mind as I play the quests and talk to various NPC's.

Looks like I'm taking a little break from my Dark Isle - Blood Point by doing lots of little adjustment mods.

I'd be willing to have a go at filling in the blanks, if someone tells me the blanks that need filling. I'm not very good at Dialogue yet, but things like missing NPCs I'll do.

Often it depends on the random chance (sometimes just a small chance) that one of the major topic keywords might pop up in their dialogue (or someone else's dialogue, for that matter), making it clickable and thus releasing a flood of related information (all the different potion types, ingredient types, for example).

Sun Xaing is 'just' starting out. She shall pay more attention.

Should we add to this thread things as they appear?
Or keep a list?

Interesting and new to me: could you please document or describe a test for this or indicate where to look in the CS perhaps to prove this to oneself?

Add immediately or keep a list and add when you feel like it.

The dead guy in the Balmora Morag Tong locked room is a Hlaalu Noble, member of the MT and has a special family amulet. And that's it, no story, no links, no leads to him, and finding him doesn't trigger anything..... I would call that the start of a Perry Mason Mystery.



So far all I have done is go through every line of dialog of these four topics in the editor, and then done an Edit -> find text in the editor for NPC names that were unfamiliar, or a filter of dialog for the NPCs that the PC is directed to visit to learn more about specific classes.

Most of these topics are triggered by minimum disposition levels and some of them by the rand variable. Just scrolling through the topics and looking at the dialog conditions is interesting.

In other threads I have mentioned that there is a member of the DRES family on MW, even though all the dialogs that concern the Great House Dres go to great lengths to inform us that there are no Dres on MW. So today I was doing one of the Telvanni "dome acquisitions" for my 50 places mod and there he was Treras Dres, aligned with House Telvanni, but a DRES nonetheless, and that is what triggered this whole thing.

In the Dunmer stronghold that you need to go to during the MQ (to get Corprus Weepings, a Dagoth Goblet, and something else), there's a dead body with lots of Glass Armor and I believe he has a special amulet, note, or ring. Also, when you get Mentor's Ring, there is a journal of a Necromancer complaining about his mentor in Hla Oad, and he isn't actually in Hla Oad... Those are all I can think of off the top of my head.

I was messing around with the CS once, trying to find out why Khajiits have no problems trading in moon sugar / skooma (or conversely, what was preventing every other merchant from doing so) when I discovered some food dialogue. It seems to be a general topic that is available to publicans (not sure if any other class of merchant is included) and which I had not seen before. Most of it sounds like recipes.

Understood - it was Shiva7663's suggestion that there is sometimes more dialogue, triggered by random chance that I was asking to be documented or demonstrated. Here:

If it truly does operate this way, this is an important factor, suggesting that the game is to some extent randomized in the presentation of some NPC dialogue. My experience was that it was not. I am willing to believe I may have missed this but would like to be persuaded by more than Shiva7663's statement that it is so.
So, what is the rand variable to which you refer?

So your planning to take each one ot these type incidents and flesh it out, this done sound like a very nice idea!

I know this is really vague, but I never really went adventuing in random caves for these kind of items...

what are those boots that make you fly? I think they're some sort of artifact, and I think that you are sent to the cave where they can be found during an Imperial Cult quest...(whether the quest is to find the boots or find something else, with the boots as a side bonus discovery is beyond me at the moment...)

anyway, the corpse that is wearing the boots is a vampire, but he's dead, so I saw no reason to make him a vampire...any background story to this? I think the dead adventurers that can be found in the holding cells at Kogrouhn are also vampires (dead too...) I wasn't sure if this is to add to the whole "corrupted sixth house ruins" affect, or if there was some other reason...or if it was just a mistake. These sorts of things confuse me....

I also hate when a book makes a reference to some artifact, NPC, or treasure that doesn't actually appear in the game. Like that sunken ship with all the lost treasure in it that was supposedly sunken in one of Vivec's waterways...I think it was mentioned in "Breathing Water." the book said the boat had never been found, and hinted that the treasure was still there, but I found nothing when I looked....

*slurp*

The dead dude in the cell with mentor's ring, is from a mod, Mystic Path I think.

Kats and sugar is handled in the service refusals under the persuasion tab, the food in morrowind topic I have never seen triggered; publican and savants have the topic and one specific NPC.

Random100 it is a global variable initialized when the game starts, used as a test condition for dialog choices ( among other things )
Easiest way to see it is to open the dialog window in the editor -> latest rumours Topic, look under the Func/variable columns for Random. Fort Frosmoth dialog is the top of the list with BM loaded and there are 7 different rumours you can get in the Fort Frostmoth cell depending on the outcome of Random 100 when you talk to an NPC.

Well first I am just aiming for a list of these anomalies. Some of them could be a whole mod in themselves, others could just be a fill in kind of mod, maybe some extra dialogue about a specific class for the NPC who is supposed to be the know it all in that class.
ThePal has done a superb job of catching and fixing the mechanical bugs and the dialog and script bugs, I am just looking for stuff that isn't exactly a bug but is more of a .... They started something and then left it hanging and incomplete situation.

none that I know of. Didn't realize he was a vamp. That's the sort of thing I am hunting for.


I am not sure how to handle the books, some of the stuff is true, some of it is intentional misdirection, some of the books even point the PC to the Master Trainers ingame, sorta. I know there are a horde of shipwrecks around Ebonheart and Vivec and that region.

At least two of the "dead adventurers" are Dev easter eggs, little jokes for the player to appreciate like Peek Utchoo and Indy Jones.

Thank you.
So . . . for dialogue, essentially it re-rolls a random number each time the player speaks with an NPC - with the outcome affecting which dialogue is then available?
Is that correct?

I noticed this too the first time I played, so I checked in the CS. Interestly, he's not in a vampire faction. There are a few others who appear as vampires, notably the dead hero in Koguruhn with Fury. I'm not sure how this works, but none of these NPCs have specific heads selected in the CS. If no head is selected, does the game revert to the vampire head? And I wonder too if it was just done as an effect on the devs part to make the bodies appear as if they were decomposing.

well, that's what I figured...either that or they wanted the player to think that being killed there turned them into monsters or something...doesn't seem likely though, because it isn't seen too often.

Doesn't speechcraft and the level of the player also impact on this as well? When doing a quest for the imperial cult to obtain the shirt from Caldera, I used the admire function to get it donated and also received a pair of pants with a constant effect on them also. I have only ever managed to obtain those once and I have tried with a variety of characters at different levels.

Pendraia

I'd be happy to see some plain old variety in the responses to "someone in particular" and "latest rumors" and the like. No two people in my experience ever use exactly the same words to describe the same event. Nor would they all decide that the same news was worth mentioning. The application of some character-driven imagination and a lot of dialogue variables would be more than a relief.

I've been working on a mod (largely for me) that makes sure the Khajiits always speak in dialect. It may even be done sometime before TES IV comes out. It's something else you might want to consider, though, as you write--dialects, idiomatic phrases, bits and pieces of other languages--all that could flesh out the game world quite a bit with even a few touches.

Looks like no one is too interested in me making the changes if Iudas does the hunting.
I must admit, I've not found half of those mentioned during game play. Apart from the Corrupt Magistrate. When I first heard of him, I thought, right, where is the little, er, git.

Same Here. I always do THAT particular quest, but woe unto the magistrate if I ever come across him......... ANd healers won't be able to help him. They WON'T find all the pieces.........

Boots of the Apostle, in Berandas. For the reason the corpse is of a vampire, I was assuming that dust = dead vampire. Other than that, and about the other dead vampires, I don't know.


This post has been edited by Vetinari: Sep 29 2004, 04:58 PM

Not exactly, each time the PC speaks to a different NPC in a cell a new roll is made. Speak to the same PC again without leaving the cell and ( from my experience at least ) you get the same response as you got the first time you spoke to him/her.

In the sense that NPC disposition controls a lot of the dialogue outcomes and that speechcraft controls disposition, as does level and faction and faction reaction. A lot of dialogues require a minimum NPC disp of 30. Game starts with DISP = 50 and then it is immediately changed by the racial choice you make. And everything you do in game after that has an effect on NPC disposition. Talk to an NPC while you have a weapon equipped and their disp drops 5 ( 15 with some mods added ), level up one in speechcraft and all NPC disps improve toward you. Successful admires or intimidates or bargains or bribes can have both a long and short term effect on NPC disposition, do some quests that raise your rep and NPC dispositions go up.


I am a very slow modder and already have a few in the works, this thread started as a spin out from a situation in one of the mods I am working on. So if you want to take anything that comes out of this and run with it, I will be glad to keep feeding you things that fit. First time I played MW and got the message about the Balmora Magistrate I spent most of an afternoon trying to find the guy to see if we couldn't come to some arrangements.....very frustrating.
An example of the fine ambiguity and superb skill of the Bethesda folks, I took it to be a play on ashes to ashes dust to dust.

Thank you for your patience with this 'hi-jack' re global random and dialogue entries. Now just a little smarter about that - thanks to you and Shiva7663.

On topic - I think this is yet another outstanding idea for a 'meaty' mod that could complete and extend the Morrowind miscellaneous mod experience, regardless of who does it. It would be good not to engineer away all the ambiguities and false leads though. In a sense, it is these non-productive 'trails' that require the player to be discerning about what to track and how far while solving the various quests. A great mod idea - thank you.

This post has been edited by Ronin49: Sep 29 2004, 07:34 PM

No problem with hi-jacking, ( I once had an idea for a guar-jacking mod ).
I agree also that engineering all the ambiguities out of the game would spoil the game. So much of the lore and so many of the books are ambiguous on purpose. Some of the dialog even appears to be intentionally contradictory. As I said, I am just looking to accumulate the "unintentional" ambiguities and the "unfinished" things. What comes after that is open to anyone's individual interpretations and inclinations.

OK got two more: The dead taxman in seyda neen is in the wrong faction, as is the tax collector currently enjoying Baladas' hospitality.

You have a very good point there Iudas I think because I did almost the very exact same thing. By the time I was thru looking I would of likely tore them to threads if I had ever actually found them. Very frustrating to me also, thou I do agree you likely should not remove all the false leads and ambiguities. Heck it might even be good to add some(thou not many), sorta having people really going after one thing while in fact they end up doing something totally unexpected with a sorta surprise outcome. Anyway just a thought there.

This post has been edited by brady228: Sep 29 2004, 08:22 PM

I'll be posting a thread showing the various minor mods I've come up with (from initial ideas by other forum users). The WIP mod for this thread will be included, with credits given to Iudas for the researching.

I think the main thing everyone want's first is the Corrupted Magistrate. Could he be more hated then Fargoth??

Shalk Herds are easy too. A new creature, and perhaps a Shalk Herder NPC, sorted.

Let me disagree with calling these kind of mods minor. Small in kb size maybe but not minor. You are welcome to anything I come up with no credits necessary. ( Maybe it is that corrupted magistrate who gave out the writ on Varro that the Morag Tong Grandmaster gets after Dagoth Ur is dead. For folks who like to play the darkside characters he might even be a positive character )

I meant minor in kb. Like that gold weight fix on the other forum.

Thanks for the reply Iudas. Sorry if I hijacked your thread with the question. I think it is a good idea to do something with the "unintentional" ambiguities and the "unfinished" things. Care would have to be taken that it wasn't just a disposition issue and you sound like you have that under control if your checking scripting.

Pendraia

Also worth looking at is a few things in bloodmoon. First, the hollow tree stump with the ebony arrows of slaying and the other loot.

Second, I recall wandering around the northwest portion of solstheim, and was ambushed by a dude wearing enchanted black wolf armor, and he had a small pack of black wolves with him....they proceeded to whip my behind, and I'm a level 50 crusader! Who was that guy? Each piece of his armor was enchanted with a partial sanctuary, so when fully equipped you'd have a high sanctuary effect.

Also, in the mages guild in balmora, one of the ladies downstairs makes a reference to necromancy that causes a curious journal entry, but even with a disposition of 100 and personality of 100, she wouldn't elaborate like the journal suggests.....

Does anyone know if any of the above listed has a logical reason that I'm just unaware of?

The woman you're talking about is the orc mage that Caius sends you to talk near the beginning of the game. In one one of the chest nearby there is a book about necromancy. If you find it and show it to her she will teach you a spell that lets you summon an ancestor spirit.

Is that what that was all about? OK, then, that makes sense... but a Summon Ancestral Spirit spell is hardly Necormancy...

Umm, that opinion varies by jurisdiction, apparently. heh.

This post has been edited by shiva7663: Sep 30 2004, 12:16 PM

Necromancy is raising the dead, not summoning something. To me, Summons (at least as far as Morrowind goes) is bringing Daedra under your control from Oblivion. The Summon Skeletal Minion and the Summon Ancestral Ghost spells were just added as psuedo-Necromancy. But that's not really for this thread, so to get back on topic...

Is anyone definitely planning on fixing these little problems? I would be very much interested in that mod if someone did!

Thanks for clarifying that!

Yes! I'm filtering my way through this thread, picking up the key things that need changing.
Once I have a list of the main "gripes" I'll go into the editor, find out more information about the grip, and prouduce the change to fit the available information.
Once all the NPC/Creature/Item additions have been made, I'll then look at the dialogue.

The Balmora mage, you have to do a bit of rooting around in her crates and boxes and stuff and find her copies of the books on necromancy, then talk to her again with them in your possession.

Loot tree stump, That is an intentional "goodie" for the PC left by the devs. ( it sorta bookends one of the very first potential quests in MW about Fargoth's hiding place ).

I have no clue about the dude and his wolfpack, first question would be is he from a mod?

This is sort-of-but-maybe-not-quite the kind of thing you're looking for, but I want to mention it because it always bugged me: the ashes of Lord Brinne (sp?). Back when I was playing this on console, I always took and saved those ashes, expecting that they would be involved in a quest, even if only a 'fetch this' quest, because the ashes are so specifically named.

Of course later on I found out it's an Easter Egg/tribute (to a particular individual) kinda thing, which is cool and all, but I still felt that a unique item like that ought to have something else in Morrowind connected to it. (And if there is something connected to it that I've missed, I'd be glad to be told that.) Even if it's only something like a book, somewhere else in Morrowing (the Imperial Library? Caius's place? Or maybe in the home of one of the Telvanni wizards) that tells the story of Lord Brinne.

And of course, along those lines, something having to do with fishy sticks would be great, just to keep up that inside joke, as a sort of special thing between the Forums and the devs.

As I said, these things might be a bit outside the kinds of things you're looking to do; I just felt they deserved mentioning in case someone else felt kinda like the ashes or the fishy sticks book needed to have more...something, anything.

It actually is fitting for this thread, the summons are weak summons because of the quests location in the game ( if you assume the PC is doing the MQ first, then his level is about 4 or5 when he hits this potential gift ). So the answer here would be a set of dialog results filtered on the PC's overall level or his conjuration skill level, low levels = weak summons, higher levels = better summons. There really aren't any "truly" necromantic skills in the unmodded game; and turn undead spell is I believe still non functional.

If a list of the ambiguities and incompletenesses can be developed, a mod to cover them should be doable. It's not exactly like hunting for game bugs or broken scripts or hashed dialog conditions or imbalances in weapons or armour, those things have all been found and corrected.

That's actually a good idea. There are a few spell type rewards you gain, and sometimes they are useless to my character, especially if it's a warrior.
This would give the NPC a sense of intellegence when offering a reward.

3 sets of named ashes, Pop Je's bone, FishySticks and some other stuff are all "tips of the Dev's tophat" to different fans who passed away. Until I read the thread that explained what all of them represented I had the exact same feeling about them ... There is nothing else connected to any of the ashes or the fishysticks or pop je's bone, no quests no special items no nothing.
It would be simple to make a mod to remove them from the game, a bit more complex to make a mod that made a quest out of them, or added some explanatory dialogue about them, or added a Memento Book explaining them ingame.

Had some time this afternoon, found a few more things of interest:

Almsivi intervention is supposed to teleport one to the nearest Tribunal Temple, there are no temple markers for Sadrith Mora, Maar Gan, Vos, Suran or Holamayan.
All Imperial Cult shrines have Divine Intervention markers.

If the PC gets arrested by the Ordinator's he is sent to an imperial jail...that seems incorrect, given that damn big jail hanging over Vivec.

One for the lore masters, in the "Unrest in the capitol" rumour Uriel Septim had a named heir Geldall and two young sons Erman and Ebel, in the "Uriel Septim" rumour, it is Erman and Ebel who have been declared his heirs.

Is it Ald'ruhn or Ald-ruhn? Half the topics/infomations have it one way; half the other, all scripts but one have it -, the one that doesn't also doesn't work properly, all cells are -, but half the book entries are', and half are -.

"Renda's Dower" a nilchi junk supposedly docked at St.Olms canalside seems to be missing.

A few of the ingame rumours refer to Ash-Poets, part of Dagoth Ur's posse....they are missing.

From another thread, the two miners the PC hires for the Redoran stronghold quest never appear at the stronghold...do the wives show up?

Question: Has anyone ever gotten a bounty placed on their char for using Intimidation ( verbal assault), or for Tresspass. If you have gotten a bounty for pickpocketing was the bounty a fixed amount or was it based on what you lifted?

Doom Drum anyone?

Found another NPC from Dres country ( not a family member ) Drulene Falen the guar herder. Speaking of whom, she will buy Corky the guar, but not Rollie.

There appear to be only the four people ( Nolus Atrius, Malur Omayn, Bilsa Andaram and Naryn ) named in rumours as existing on the island who are missing from the game.

Does it seem incorrect that the PC can join both the Temple and the IC? Does it seem incorrect that the PC can join both the Mage's Guild and House Telvanni? Given the in game information about the attitudes of House Telvanni and the Tribunal Temple?

This post has been edited by Iudas: Oct 1 2004, 11:45 AM

This is a good idea.

Chris Woods

What would be very useful to me would be the name of the NPC that is missing, who talks about it (or what dialogue topics) and where they should appear.

This also applies to anything else that seems to be missing.

Big Thanks, I'll see if I can get something knocked together at the weekend.

That's a good point, though is there actually any Tribunal Temple at Sadrith Mora? I don't recall seeing one but it's been awhile. I wouldn't put one on Holamayan, given they're dissidents who've denounced the Tribunal, I'd suspect the 'Gods' would actively block attempts to teleport there? I would consider adding Ghostgate's Temple, though a case could be made the Tribunal is blocking attempts to port there too as a quarantine measure?
Yes, the theology, ideology & goals of the two are mutually exclusive IMO, there's no way one could accept both simultaneously, nor prosletise for both in good faith.
No, I think this one is legitimate, though should be difficult to pull off. The Telvanni clearly aren't happy with having competition, but they're so power hungry it seems plausible to envision a scenario in which the player wrests control of the Mages Guild FOR the Telvanni, which would make the Telvanni pretty happy I'd say?

Missing NPCs:
Nolus Atrius the corrupt Balmoral Magistrate. latest rumours filtered on balmora. Not sure where he should be Most likely place is somewhere in Balmora only there is no logical place in Balmora for him. Other likely places, Dren Plantation speaking with Orvas or Council chambers in Ebonheart. Another potential is to have him have absconded from Balmora after the "bloodbath" and a new Morag Tong writ is issued on him along with the other Grandmaster writs ( therana, baladas, larrius varo, dram bero ) then he could be anywhere maybe with a bunch of Cammona Tong associates/bodyguards.

Malur Omayn dissident priest, supposed to be in the cells in the Ministry of Truth, Dissident Priests topic and latest rumours in vivec before the PC has met Vivec. As a named corpse most likely in the Ministry of Truth.

Bilsa Andaram twice named in latest rumours in Gnisis about smuggling. One a specific rumour from Fens Madach. Gnisis or the environs

Narese Athrys suran latest rumours about a rogue telvanni base.

Madayna Sarendas latest rumours about smugglers in Dagon Fel. In the tradehouse in Dagon Fel or somewhere in Dagon Fel.

Naryn latest rumours Balmora this one starts after the PC starts the MQ. Should appear in Fort Moonmoth.
Also "Old Avus" latest rumours balmora alternates with the one above.
Somewhere in balmora.

Yes it is in the bowels of the council chamber building.

Agree on Holomayan at least until Vivec lifts the bans on the dissident priests

Not sure about GHostgate and I missed that that temple didn't work. If nothing else I would think the GhostGate temple should work just for the support of the Bouyant Armigers and such who have to go inside the GhostFence.

This post has been edited by Iudas: Oct 1 2004, 08:07 PM

The Sanguine items that the PC can retrieve for the Morag Tong.
There are 27 of them, Eno has one already, that leaves 26 for the PC to retrieve. The dialog results for those threads appear to make it possible to complete the task by only finding 25 of the remaining 26.
The dialog conditions for successful completion of the task are >= 25.

added: posted about this in the TESCS forum maybe one of the dialog experts will take a gander at it.

This post has been edited by Iudas: Oct 1 2004, 09:26 PM

True, but that's assuming that your character is only joining to show "good faith." I've had a few characters who do care enough about religion to only join one of the factions. I've also had a few whose only reason for joining any faction is because of what's in it for them.

I think it is closer to the basic idea that only one great house will have you. Even if you get expelled from a great house no other will allow you to join.

I think the tribunal temple would refuse to accept a person who is in the Imp cult unless they quit the cult, and would expell any current member who also joined the cult.
The cult might not be so rigid, but that would be irrelevant.
Or maybe the morrowinders are more religiously tolerant than the game information paints them.

Just like House Telvanni might be willing to accept a mage's guild member; but the mage's guild would not accept a member of house Telvanni. I think one of Treborius's tasks is to have the PC kill all the high rank Telvanni, and one of the Telvanni tasks is to break the mage guild monopoly.

It should be noted that joining the TT lowers your reputation with the IC, and vice versa, and the same for MG and the Telvanni.

And I agree that the "rogue Telvanni bases" should be in the game somewhere.

Hi Iudas,

When you cross the bridge heading out of Balmora on the temple side, there is a body a little off the road, under a stone rock formation; it is Ernil Omoran, Dark Elf, Smuggler Class.

He is carrying a good skooma pipe, and a note;
The note reads:
Tsiya
Here's your stuff. Sorry I couldn't stay and chat with you,
but it's not always a good idea for me to hang around, you know.

Ernil

Maybe it's just me, but I have not ever found a quest for him, or had conversation arise about him with an NPC.

However... when I load up the CS, I get this one warning:

Following string is different for topic "someone in particular" info 2963712435680719868- "What do you mean you're looking for me? I don't know you, do I? You say you have a note from Ernil?"

Spooky...

That corpse is part of a strange little quest. Tsiya is in one of the riverfront houses in balmora. You only get the quest ( actually the quest result ) when you ask her about "someone in particular" and you have to have her stuff with you.
The error message is because you have Tribunal loaded and the Trib dialogs caused a few conflicts with the originals, it is not a significant error, the game relinks the dialogs during the load.
There are a lot of druggies in Balmora.

This post has been edited by Iudas: Oct 2 2004, 12:00 AM

A Baptist church wouldn't kick me out if I joined a Catholic church, and vice versa. If I don't tell anyone, then there's no reason for either of them to know that I was playing both sides of the fence.

If you want to join the IC and the Temple to get cheaper services from both, and have no religious leanings to begin with, then why not? Just my opinion though.

This post has been edited by Monica21: Oct 2 2004, 04:25 AM

I suspect that the devs did the same kind of "soul searching" before they released the game?

What I think I am going to do with this one is make a "single issue" mod, really simple one, that if installed would prohibit membership in both religions at the same time and membership in Mages Guild and Telvanni at the same time. All the globals for it already exist in game so it can be done with just dialog additions and dialog tests.


Thanks Monica.

While joining the MG and the Telvanni at the same time may seem a bit odd in the lore of the game, the real problem is that there really aren't too many options for a Mage character in Morrowind. A Warrior can join the Imperial Legion, the Imperial Cult (as a sergeant whatever), the Fighters' Guild, and House Redoran. A Thief can join the Thieves' Guild and House Hlaalu (usually Theives also have the Personality to do well in both religions, too, though a Mage could just as easily).

That is a good point. There should be a Battlemage Faction. Maybe the Buoyant Armigers can have such a group, too.

On the religion question: I've always felt that The Dissident Priests should be a joinable faction, too. Makes encounters with Ordinators eighty times more dangerous. (I guess being the Nerevarine is bad enough?) The DPs are so steeped in lore, they would make natural mages, even if they have no military arm.

The problem with that (spoiler) is that after the MQ, the Dissident Priests return to the Tribunal Temple.

The game is unbalanced in many ways. In the early stages of playing, Fighters are the favoured choice; by the end game, the capped levelling mechanism leads to Jack-of-all-trades characters.
A PC with all 27 skills at 100 has a level of about 74. This means that an opponent would need a level of about 300 to be an interesting encounter ( due to the games limited AI.)
I am just looking for things that, as you pointed out, are "a bit odd in the lore of the game," incomplete, ambiguous, or unintentionally contradictory. Dynamic balance of the game is another issue,
Some of the kind folks who are preserving the old forum threads have been able to find the thread titled "Balancing Spells" from two years ago ( pre Trib ), the spare hours ( 20+ pages almost a thousand posts ) reading though that thread and especially the comments by MaxPublic are an eyeopener to what it might take to put a truely dynamic balance into MW.
So here is how I plan to set up the mod:
Join the IC first, the Temple will not have you. ( same as greathouse membership )
Member of the Temple already and you join the IC, the Temple will excommunicate you No Make Amends, No Return. The IC won't care.
Get expelled from the IC, Temple still won't allow you to return but will allow you to join if you have never been a member before.
Already Telvanni, Mage's Guild won't have you.
Already Mage's Guild, Telvanni doesn't care and Mage's guild will allow you to stay ( think of it as the Mage's guild believing you are a spy in the house Telvanni ).
Interesting GLobals already installed in MW control Expelled; for which you can make amends and the equivalent of exorcized/excommunicated with no hope of making amends or rejoining the faction. And those globals are already in the game for both religious factions.
So does that sound like a reasonable interpretation of the lore and the gestalt of the two religions and the Mage's and Telvanni?

No.

I really do believe this is a question of gameplay vs. most logical.

While the Temple sort-of gently chides those misguided IC'ers, the IC isn't despised like vampires/necromancers/dissidents/nerevarine cultists are. By the logic you propose, you should get kicked out of the Temple for becoming Nerevarine (or the Ashlanders shouldn't accept you as Nerev if you're in the Temple). But implementing that change would seriously damage gameplay, and I think the same would ensue from the changes you just proposed. Those proposed changes do make a lot of sense, but I think a massive change would be required to totally rebalance factions if those changes were implemented.

Isn't it just as logical to eliminate negative-reactions from rival factions? After all, why would Ranis in the Balmora Mages Guild know that I've joined Telvanni in Sadrith Mora, unless I chose to tell her? Also, at least one NPC is a member of both Telv and Mages G and belonged to Telv first. House membership can readily be seen as different, based on the idea that the Houses, whose primary purpose often seems to be giving other Houses a hard time, might expend serious resources keeping tabs on one another, while Guilds, though they are also political, have a primary purpose that is professional.

(I'd much rather see implemented: not getting kicked out of House Telvanni if you steal from or attack another Telvanni, which is in direct violation of the stated Telv rules)

The idea to collect/correct the missing NPCs is great.

Thank you, I will do some more thinking on this overnite, while gameplay balance is not the overriding concern; it is not going to be ignored either.
If you become acknowledged as the Nerevarine, you cannot join the Temple or House Redoran until after Vivec lifts the ban on the dissident priests. If you are already a member of either, you get a very rough time from them until Vivec lifts the ban, ( they do not expell you however ).
I missed finding the NPC who is a member of both the MG and HT and is HT first ... fell like pointing me in his direction? According to the TESCS, NPC's can have only 1 faction membership ( only one slot for faction available in the NPC object sheet )
Ashlander standards are different. They also give you a hard time if you are in the Temple.
I have played around with the faction reaction table in the past, things get a lot more "interesting" when faction reactions are worsened.
The expulsion from faction for members in Telvanni for stealing, is corrected by talking to any mouth...immediate re-instatement. For all the other factions the PC has to do something to "make amends."
I honestly cannot answer how the NPC's in MW all know the PC's faction memberships ( blight wind inspired telepathy maybe ) but they all do. It's a really really really small island with not a lot of population so maybe there is just a really efficient "grapevine" among the NPC's that the PC is never included in.

I hope im not too late to add something that i think is a little bit weird. Snowy Granius sitting on the bridge leading to that dwemer ruin, with dwemer kegs sitting there. What is he doing there? As a matter of fact what are smugglers doing in those ruins in the first place? AS far as i know its the only place where people have taken up residence in dwemer ruins maliciously. (toher than the archeologists and the vamps) And why does nobody in balmora know about this when they live barely three cells away? Does anybody exept your player use roads? Did not Snowy attack everyone going over the bridge? or did he not like how you look?

That's a good point. I've never thought about him. He definitely should be further up the road to Arkngthand (i.e. guarding the ruin no one goes to, as opposed to the bridge that appears to be used often). As for the smugglers being there, that makes sense, since Dwemer stuff is illegal.

I'm guessing that he's the lookout.
The roads in MW are singularly unused.

Well, I was always under the assumption that they were used, just not when we were there since the Devs didn't take the (ridiculously long) time to create the scripting of people walking all over the roads. Where does the left branch of that road go, by the way? Is it someplace often travelled to? I don't remember...

That's a reasonable point. I can see a thief say joining both for cheap gear, but I can't see how the player could become a significant figure in both. Were the player to attempt so, I'd expect the priests to pick up on your lack of faith &/or odd beliefs (ala the dissident priests) and nobble your career. Also I'd expect rising rank to be accompanied by increased fame, so your duplicity would become widely known.

Perhaps simply being a member of both shouldn't be an issue, but the player should be prevented from advancing beyond Layman in one if a member of the other? That should be easy enough to implement with an extra condition in the Advancement Topic checking the rank in the opposing faith?

I'm not sure whom alexandrian had in mind, but the Balmora Mage Guild does send you to recruit the Telvanni Llarar Bereloth, so apparently the Mages Guild will accept Telvanni.

There's also the Telvanni spy mission, though looking in the CS he doesn't have ANY faction assigned, presumably a ploy by the devs to make the spy harder to root out. This is more along the lines that the Telvanni will tolerate MG membership where it suits their ends though, as the MG remove the spy once unveiled.

This post has been edited by OldeCow69: Oct 2 2004, 12:38 PM

Right, the shakedown quest in Sulipund. Disp 70 to get him to pay the dues/join the Mage's Guild, less than that and the PC has to kill him. Either outcome satisfies the quest requirements, I don't see an ambiguity here or any incompleteness.
Is there a way to change an NPC's faction ingame as the result of a quest or journal entry?

My knowledge of religious organizations is limited, but I have always been under the impression that most religions discourage their members from espousing belief in multiple faiths, some much more strongly than others; and that conversion/acceptance was an all or nothing process.

Sorry, no idea. It's a shame they can only belong to one faction at a time.

That's probably because you come from a monotheistic Western culture? It's not universally the case, for example many buddhists are non-denominational, and will quite happily disseminate their teachings etc to people of other faiths, or no faith at all for that matter. In pre-Christian Rome, people offered prayers to all manner of local dieties in addition to the official Roman pantheon, in an effort to curry favour where ever they could. As I say, it seems reasonable for common folk to go to services at both/either, but I don't see the Archbishop of Cantebary rising to the Papacy anytime soon.

That is a very good point and an excellent idea. I like the idea of not being able to advance beyond a certain rank unless you are no longer part of one or the other faction.

Another idea to to add a mini quest to be done for the faction before they even consider letting you join.

The mages guild might want you to fill 10 soul gems with certain souls before letting you actually join their ranks, if you've already joined with telvanni.

Or for temple/IC, it could be a case of retreave a certain item. This item can be placed via script.

Sorry, but that's one plugin I won't be playing. There is plenty of precendent for multiple religious membership (like the Buddhist/Shinto combo in Japan, for example), and Mages Guild/Telvanni membership is quite adequately covered ingame (Trebonius criticises the player for also being Telvanni, but doesn't expell him from the MG for it). I don't think this mod is either needed or appropriate.

I suppose it is a question of how rabid / militant the religion is.

Think of it as a sliding scale of 1 to 10. At the 10 rating, the religion is no better than a brain-washing polygamous cult. They rigorously enforce their beliefs, often with special ranks of policy wonk priests who have better search powers than most police, and they prohibit contact with the outside world. Any mention of lack of faith, doubt in the charismatic leader, or just plain wanting to get out, is immediately surpressed. All other religions are banned, and the slightest deviation from generally accepted doctrine is punished.

At the 1 rating, the religion is chilling like a villan. They do not bother with membership cards or church rosters, people come and go as they please. All points of religion and philosophy are open for discussion and debate. The exact number of deities worshipped is unclear, because the central philosophy / creation myth of the religion itself is unclear. No behavior is prohibited, and in fact all forms of behavior are permitted and encouraged (as religious expression). Services feel like seances or parties.

The Temple is definitely closer to 10 than the IC.

Appropriate? As in not Politicaly correct? I don't see the impropriety in voicing thoughts on a possible mod. As for not needed, 5000 + mods exist, but this idea is not needed? Maybe I should drop the idea and go reskin an AK-47 mod instead?
As for not playing the mod if it is made, 5000+ mods exist, most of them are not played by almost everyone.

Trebonius criticizes any PC who is Telvanni and speaks to Trebonius about the House Telvanni topic. Membership in the Mage's guild not a requisite for his condemnation of the PC. Membership in the Mage's guild is required to get Trebonius to assign you the Kill All the Telvanni Councilors quest.

Nothing I have read in the dialogs, the ingame lore, or the overall MW lore suggests that the Temple would either allow one to join if he did not renounce his current regligion or allow one to remain if it were discovered that he had accepted a different faith. They still have a Grand Inquisitor and still imprison and execute for heresy. I imagine they would be quite harsh on apostasy.



That's easy enough to do. With only two religions available, both religions would have to allow cross membership at low levels for it to be meaningful. ( I can see the IC not having a problem with cross membership at low levels, I see the Tribunal Temple as being a lot more rigid. ) To make it work, one could add a renunciation topic. So is Renunciation permanent or retractable? ( some neat ideas about Renounce and Almalexia and Her Hands ... and Renounce and Wulf ... Living gods and their avatars may not take renunciation calmly.)


By treaty, the tribunal is allowed to imprison/execute heretics, and suspected heretics and dissidents. The Tribunal Temple has a military arm and a policing arm and a rather tidy hanging jail, commanded by The Grand Inquisitor and nicely staffed with guards and warders. ( some very interesting dialog tracks if the PC visits the Ministry of Truth after he has reached ArchCannon level).

Very true. Each mod finds it own fan base. And the degree of "purity" (to the MW lore) that a mod brings to the game world is also still a frequent hot topic of debate to this day.


My vote is permanent. Religions invented vows, after all. And I mean lifetime service vows (think: entering the priesthood, or joining a monastic order, or just plain ol' marriage vows) that usually go part and parcel with any initiation / baptism / membership ritual. It is presumed that one has made these decisions after much heavy and serious reflection (the Arthurian knights would spend the night in a church, praying and thinking, before taking up service to Arthur -- hey, I don't know if they really existed either, I'm just repeating the stories) and flip-flopping is frowned upon.


Cool. I will have to make another character and play the whole game again, just to see that.

Thanks for clearing up the stuff I didn't know about -- so does that mean Mouths reinstate you over and over again? i know other factions threaten you that if you get kicked out a second time, you're never allowed back in, but i've never tested it or anything.

on that telv/mg NPC -- it's that nightblade who's "assisting/advising" trebonius and who turns out to be a spy. i know that technically -- that is, according to the CS and the NPC's true allegiance -- he can only be in one faction, but the player can't know that without going into the construction set.

Basically the mouths will re-instate you over and over, and after a certain level you can just re-instate yourself in Telvanni. They take pragmatism a long way.

Ah Trebbies trusted advisor, they couldn't give him the telvanni membership because then his char would have the telvanni topics.
And the didn't give him mage's guild for some reason.
That one membership allowance for NPCs cuts off a lot of potential plots for quests.

AS far as the Imperial Cult goes....

It was MY understanding that you couldn't fully join the cult (IE: become a priest) because we adventuring types wouldn't like ending our careers as adventurers.

Under that, would they really care if we were part of the Tribunal Temple? Maybe. But I'd think that the Imperial Cult would be more trying to change us from Tribunal Worshippers to Worshippers of one of the Nine Divines.........

You can rise 10 ranks in the IC to Primate, which if I read the dialog correctly is the highest rank a lay servant can obtain. The implication is that there are higher ranks in the IC but they are not included in the game. Since they talk about priests and priestesses but those are not among the ranks available to lay members. Not surprising since the IC operates across the whole of Tamriel while the Temple is a local religion restricted to Morrowind Province.
So yes, I think the IC would be less concerned about an unconsecrated member being in the Temple and indeed might see that as a prosletyzing situation. It is possible to get excommunicated from the cult as well as the much less onerous condition of just being expelled and having to say "I'm sorry." to get readmitted.

This post has been edited by Iudas: Oct 3 2004, 10:59 PM

Volendrung and a few other weapons dont have an enchantment while they did have one in previous games.

I think the smugglers are there. Located in a cave on the east (???) side of the island... Allthough after you deal with them there is no additional dialog (AFAIK).

Redoran miners (???)... Might have missed that one (been a long time), unless you are refering to the individuals you initially hire to build the stronghold. The wives DO show up (albeit only two...).

Pet peeve (might be OT) is the individuals who roam around outside of the Daedric ruins with absolutely no specific dialog as to why they are there. On a few occasions, I have noted that they are house retainers, and typically the NPCs within the shrine will belong to that house, but after slaughtering those inhabitants, one would think that those outside would be a bit peeved that you just offed their source of income...

Big pet peeve... Absolutely no one at Ghost Gate has the slightest clue that anything is amiss after Vivec lays out the plan for conquest of Red Mountain. No changes in dialog whatsoever if I remember right. You'ld think at least a couple of them could wish you (and your armies... ) luck. In my opinion, this whole affair was handled very poorly and would have been simple to fix... AKA Baldurs Gate: You do full screen static pictures with narration to lay out the story (great battle-indeterminite outcome), then when that's over you throw a few corpses around the field inside the gate, and retain some semblance of immersion.

I realize this last part is beyond the scope of our (modder's) abilities, but there could have at least been a little dialog up there...

...break a leg

...have a nice day

...something...

Noted and thank you.
Wakim's Game Improvements addresses this and there is a new mod on the Summit that addresses Volendrung only.
Volendrung and I think Auriel's bow and shield? Any others?

On the original theme of the thread, there is that woman looking for Nels Llendo on the way from Pelagiad to Balmora. She talks about her "jewels" when she gives her quest, but I don't recall ever finding any even if I did what she wanted.

The lady along side the road had her jewels and her heart stolen by Nelos Onmar not Nels Llendo ( who wants money from the men and kisses from the women ). If you complete her quest ( love messages back and forth between her and Nelos ) she tries to set you up with one of her friends in Tel Branora. Nelos actually does have an extravagant ring and extravagant amulet in his inventory if you decide to off him, but the lady will not respond to your attempts to return her jewels anyhow. True love and all that .... even on morrowind it seems that foolish girls go for the "almost bad boy."

This is such a trivial thing when compared to all the weighty religious discussion and it may have already been mentioned. I just hate it when merchants won't deal with me because I'm carrying moonsugar and then come to find they are selling it. Just a peeve. Probably not worth a big fix.

That's always peeved me, too. How can they even tell you have it, does your character wave it around in front of them? Perhaps the blight makes their sense of smell better. If possible, they just shouldn't *buy* it from you.

It's the little hypocrisies in life that can be the most annoying.
I will check out the service refusals section later today and also the MS and Skooma distributions. But this one I think might just be written off to the cupidity and scurvyness of some merchants.


Pretty much the same way they can tell your name, your faction, your rank, the septim value of your clothes and whether or not you have a bounty on your head.....Every NPC on MW is an onmiscient telepath only you the Outlander PC are telepathetically challenged. ( pun intended )


This post has been edited by Iudas: Oct 4 2004, 01:04 AM

Actually, DM, that pisses me off too. If that could somehow be fixed, that'd be nice.

As for the religions, I was always under the impression that the IC didn't require that their members believe and worship ONLY the Nine Divines, only that they did worship the Nine Divines. Whoever else they wanted to worship was their own business. The Temple, on the other hand, is unlikely to allow the worship of anyone other than Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec, along with the Good Daedra (Azura, Mehpala, and Boethiah) and the saints.

Regarding Moonsuger/Skooma, is it possible to have the NPC react in a way if you offer it for sale? So that actually putting it under their noses and saying, "how much?" becomes a crime.

Like I said, not worth a major fix. But nothing will ever stop me from depositing a little pile of moonsugar at their feet and leaving it there. I can be petty too. LOL

It might be possible to trick the game into thinking that you stole Moonsugar/Skooma from every merchant in the game, so if you tried to sell it to them, they'd get pissed... but they'd call you a thief...