{"id":8028,"date":"2017-08-04T22:01:11","date_gmt":"2017-08-05T02:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/?p=8028"},"modified":"2017-08-06T05:11:43","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T09:11:43","slug":"morrowind-dlc-soloable-content-completed-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/2017\/08\/04\/morrowind-dlc-soloable-content-completed-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrowind DLC (soloable content) completed, thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve saved Vivec City (and possibly the entire island) from total devastation. I’ve also completed every single quest hub on the island, and done (well, nearly done) every Delve.
\nAnd now’s the time to tell you folks who are thinking of buying this DLC, straight from my fingers, if this thing is “worth it” from someone who dislikes every little itty bitty annoying thing in every game ever created (while people are still<\/em><\/strong> posting to a dead(to me) thread about this thing).
\nI didn’t expect an expansion (actually I did for that asking price, but..) and my hopes were not high (clearly).<\/p>\n

-Atmosphere…
\nWhen I first arrived on the island (and having never played the original game), I was quite blown away. The tall mushrooms. The swamp to the East. Seeing the ominous sight of Red Mountain in the distance. The music. All real nice. It was a real pleasure running through the area.
\nThe silt-striders are a nice touch too.
\nHowever, I can’t help but feel that some of what I’ve seen feels “oversaturated” and “fake”. Now I’m not talking about the world, but an image that shows up both of the login and loading screens, of seeing a dense forest of mushrooms and regular trees(with moss growing from them). I have not seen this anywhere on the island. Maybe I’m just blind, but it looks fake and deceiving in order to sell the product.
\nAnd the second, is the music. Started off pretty cool, but this..what feels like a ‘remastered’ version of the songs, sounds…well, “un-authentic”. The fact they keep playing the song, starts to feel like “this is what our budget went to”. I would rather them have the official OST playing (make it authentic, please. Not this ‘remastered’ stuff). Yet again, I still give praise to Zenimax’s art team. I feel they did the best job.<\/p>\n

Oh, I almost forgot about this unused northern island just off the coast. I assume this is uncut unfinished content that stayed in the DLC, as attempting to swim there (the only option) becomes delicious food for the Slaughterfish (I even got an embarrassing ‘achievement’ called ‘Slaughtered’). I can almost imagine a wall of Slaughterfish that I ran into.
\nHope they ate good.<\/p>\n

-Main Questline opinions…
\nI assume this is where the claim the DLC is ’40 hours long’. If I had just focused on the questline and not the quest hubs, I would probably agree. Though it’s good, it also feels short’ish. However, none of it feels anti-logical.
\nPossibly the best part of the entire questline, is seeing the suspended asteroid hovering above the city (called a ‘moonlet’) hurdling towards me. I was seriously freaking out when I saw this happening right infront of me, and seeing the chaos in the city. I could feel a sense of urgency as I feverishly tried to get what I needed, feeling that there was a hidden time limit ticking down.
\nYet after saving the city, I didn’t really feel satisfied. I actually wanted<\/em> to see this thing crash into the building (and having to evacuate the island)). Though, I am glad to see where the moonlet came inches from my face… is now once again suspended (but now closer).
\nI feel the questing team did a cool job here. It really made me feel immersed.<\/p>\n

-Side Quest opinions…
\nThis is where the DLC started showing its ugly, unfinished “we did this for money, and didn’t bother to fix some things” (for me). But first, let’s talk about the positives<\/u>.
\n–
\nOne I hope was going to be a good one were these two Argonian slaves, with the male wanted to be with the female, and the female having a plan to rise in House Telvani ranks high enough to rescue him. Yet then it just went.. “uhh.. what is even happening?” to me. Especially at the end (not revealing spoilers).
\nAnother good one was this guy calling himself ‘The Scarlet Guard’, protector of the innocent and asskicker of the wicked. He’s seen as a vigilante.
\nBut possibly the best (yet not so ‘facepalm’) was bringing back my good assaholic friend, Narsis Dren. As much as he’s an asshole (and a Narcissist.. hint is in his first name), he’s also pretty funny. My favorite will always be meeting him in a Nordic tomb (in the Wrothgar DLC) and him trying to figure out the Dragon Wars. Coolest part, is it’s an instanced single player-like scenario.
\nAlso, his oh so hilarious “Aim for the knee!” comment when fighting a mob with a bow! Ohh god, yes. Fantastic (but highly overused) ‘arrow to the knee’ Skyrim reference.
\nThis one, I feel they could’ve done more work on him. Plus the place was open to other players, which killed the immersion (of him saying there’s a mob here when there’s not). One time my char actually was..agreeing to him. That’s not right. But DAMN did it feel good when I had the option to push him into a well. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

And now we get to the ugly stuff. Thankfully, I can’t say “the DLC is broken”, but I can say (again) that it’s unfinished in places.
\nSome NPCs either staring at my crotch or at the sky during conversations, some Dark Elves..sounding like Nords(just slightly though. Not like ones that are drunk from mead), one not in frame during a conversation, or some missing their voiceovers. Thankfully, only a few showed these issues.
\n….And then<\/em> there were the forced thief sections. Just…WHY?! I fucking HATED this when it came to The Dark Brotherhood!!
\nAt least, when it came to these, I knew why I fucked up. Though other times, I swear there’s an NPC purposely put there on a wall just to be close enough to turn around, see me and then give me a fucking 65g bounty. \ud83d\ude1b This is what made me snap and say “That’s IT! EVERYONE DIES!!!!”, laughing all the way watching my bounty grow and grow.
\nFUCK stealth missions (without lube)!! D:(<\/p>\n

-Performance issues…?
\nI would say no. The DLC feels quite polished and optimized to handle most systems. I never, ever had an issue where the framerate was ‘shitting itself’.
\nGranted, I run games at 1024×768. Your mileage may vary.
\nHowever, I have noticed a few times where the game will ‘crash’ by freezing up and act like I was never logged in. When I see this is from interacting with like a vase or a door. I’m wondering if it’s one of the addons I’m using not being 100% compatible with the DLC (as that’s what Zenimax would blame and not themselves). Thankfully, I’ve never had this happen during combat.<\/p>\n

-The new ‘Warden’ class…
\nThe Warden, I wouldn’t<\/em> say is underpowered. It does decent DPS. However, to call the class the ‘Warden’? Nah. Now, if you took away the shapeshifting powers of a Druid, then I would definitely call it as one. It uses nature-based abilities, much like a Druid does in WoW. However, it severely lacks any self-defensive crowd control abilities (which is why I had to go with a (mostly) bow build).
\nIt’s a gamble to rely on the bear to stun enemies. Like all pets, it cannot be controlled (which completely removes any bond with my pets(and why I keep calling it a “stupid fucking bear” and wishing it would die in a fire to make it feel the anger I do)). WoW just does it MUCH..much better with the Hunter. Enough said.
\nThis class is making me debate if it’s worth going as an all melee class (since pets are pathetic in holding aggro(they don’t act like a tank would)).<\/p>\n

-How the base game main questline plays into this…?
\nHonestly, I haven’t gotten to this part (yet). I thought the actual main questline of the base game was ‘removed’ when you own this thing. However, when doing “Shard runs” with my guild Wednesday evening (aka going to a few PvE zones, doing Delves, killing bosses, and adsorbing Skyshards for XP and skill points), I got this quest to “Talk to the hooded man”. Pretty sure I already know the identity of said ‘hooded man’ (having completed the main quest twice(and nearly a 3rd time on my Stam Sorc)).
\nI’ll admit, I am curious to see how it’ll play out. Never meeting Lyris, and never having your soul taken by Mennamarco. I’ll be doing a separate thoughts post about this, once I’ve completed this (hopefully) alternately-written base game main questline.
\nI’m worried he’s going to say “Greetings, Vestige. I am The Prophet. I bring news that your soul was taken and you weren’t informed about it until now.” and then start the questline telling me about The Five Companions and stuff.<\/p>\n

-VERDICT…
\nOverall, Morrowind isn’t<\/em> a bad DLC, and I can see why a lot of people enjoy it. It’s definitely different from the first time I played this game (with it’s alternate beginning story).
\nAs for the almighty, million dollar(or whatever currency you use) question, of “is this worth it”…… I say, not<\/em> for $40. I say in the range of $25-$30 is more reasonable for what I’ve seen. Get it when it’s on sale (if you want it), like I did. But never<\/strong> buy full-price games(or DLCs), unless you’re absolutely 100% sure you’ll be happy with the product.<\/p>\n

.
\nEDIT: Now I said I was going to do a separate blog post about this ‘alternative’ base game main questline. Well, I was 100% wrong about the ‘hooded figure’. She told me to “meet her contact” in a house at Davon’s Watch. When you enter, you see a guy in a chair, tied up and gagged and apparently trying to say “BEHIND YOU!! IT’S A TRAP!!” You’re knocked out, and taken into an undisclosed area where you see Mennimarco stabbing people on a table with a magical soul-stealing dagger.
\nSoon, it’s your turn..and you get stabbed (in first person) and your soul taken from you, and then the opening of the main questline starts of being in a cell, being rescued by Lyris. No changes after this. So this is really cool. The player character is given a backstory of what happened before they lost their soul. Yet this almost feels like something out of Quake 4’s Stroggafication section. At least in here, I’m not seeing my legs getting sawed off… yet seeing the dagger go in (and not being able to defend myself) is going to be in my brain for quite some time. Thankfully they never showed the blood coming out of my heart.<\/p>\n

Yet this opens so many questions. One being “why me?” …If I (as the char we play as) died the same way as the others, why pick me? Why am I different?… And why didn’t Lyris save me before I had my soul taken from me? Because LOLOLOL PLOTLINE?<\/p>\n

I personally expected to be thrown in a pit of other people and then having my soul sucked out during some sort of mass-ritual, instead of getting “Stroggafied” by a soul-stealing dagger. I did feel out of place when arriving in Coldharbour, seeing Level 4’s here (and I’m Level 22) and managing to kill everything somewhat quickly. I also noticed my bear refusing to assist me. Apparently pets are scripted not to assist (unless you started without the Morrowind DLC). Logic, right? Thankfully, I didn’t really need the bear (as I said, they died quicker than normal).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve saved Vivec City (and possibly the entire island) from total devastation. I’ve also completed every single quest hub on the island, and done (well, nearly done) every Delve. And now’s the time to tell you folks who are thinking … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8028"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8042,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8028\/revisions\/8042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}