Greetings everyone. I hope you like the latest installment of Morrowind Rebirth! I want to ask a few questions to the community and I hope you can take your time to answer at least a few of them, it would mean a lot to me and to the progression of the mod.
1. What do you like about the mod and why?
2. What do you not like about this mod?
3. What would you like to see in the future?
4. What do you think about the game balance?
5. Is there anything else that I should be aware of?
Preview
Here's a preview of what's next. This is just some of the changes you'll notice in the upcoming 2.9 update.
Morrowind Fixes
* Removed ownership from Percius Mercius' chests so that you are no longer considered a "criminal" for chosing to accept your reward after finishing the quest "Kill Hard-Heart".
Morrowind Rebirth Fixes
* Ivramie Sarandas in Tel Naga didn't wear her armor, even though she had several pieces in her inventory.
* Reduced Scamps' running speed, cause they were way to fast for their animation to play properly.
* Revised a few lines of dialogue to reflect that summoned creatures no longer have a soul value.
* Moonmoth Legion, Guard Tower: Removed lock from the trapdoor.
* Removed trading services from "Agaran", who's in Ebonheart.
* Improved path grids in Ebonheart, Caldera and Khuul.
* Fixed some scrolls which had the wrong weight.
* Fixed several floaters in Caldera, again.
Morrowind Rebirth Changes
* Moon-and-Star enchantment changed from: fortify personality 5 points to 15 points and fortify speechcraft 5 points to 15 points.
* Face of Kagrenac enchantment changed from: fortify Personality 10 points to fortify Intelligence and enchant 15 points.
* Rebalanced damage output of most fire/frost/shock/poison spells (slightly lower damage).
* Dwemer barrels, drawers etc now have a slighly lower chance to hold rare loot.
* Medusa's Gaze (Paralysis) spell duration changed from 15 seconds to 6 seconds.
* Paralysis enchantment duration changed from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
* Paralysis spell duration changed from 5 to 3 seconds.
* Re-enabled invisibility for spellmaking.
Graphics
* Removed and replaced a handle texture attached to two Telvanni doors, with one that doesn't appear streched.
* Velothi platforms now have textures that matches other velothi buildings.
That's it for now.
Invisibility will be nice.
I love a lot of things about this mod. The quality of the work is on par with that of Bethesda normally. The Balmora Underworks (sewers) looks a bit cartoonish but it's not so bad. I do think the game needs a bit of optimization especially within Balmora. I have a good gaming computer and I get framerates in the teens there but nowhere else.
Other than that the work you're doing is fantastic and I encourage you to keep it up! Since the game is so large and so great I can't think of any specific improvements off the top of my head. I can't believe you keep finding stuff to tweak and make better.
Cheers!
This will be a long post (i will probably have to spliti it in 2 parts) and will mostly cover the point 3, the reason for that is that i have very little to complain about the amazing work you did with Morrowind Rebirth so far, balancing and giving more life and detail to an already great masterpiece is no easy task.
If there is one factor that made me love Morrowind more than any other elder scrolls game, is the dark, exotic and immersive lore of it.
From a more aesthetic point of view, during my playthroughts i would often travel to ruins or mystic places just to take a deep look and enjoy every single detail of them: from architecture to oroganic composition and so on. I also used to read and attempt to translate the daedric/dwemer scripts carved/written around the world and of course devouring every book and story i would happen to find during my travels. And last but not for importance are the treasures and unique pieces of equipment scattered in unthinkable places, that's another incentive to exploration and to investigate every single detail.
From a more psychological point of view, i praise Morrowind for its authenticity, the way bestial races are hated and treated by the dark elves community, the way morag tong and other criminal guilds affect the lore and the people, the way folks will treat you depending on your personality and race, the unforgiving justice system and so on...
The more you can emphasize these aspects, the more immersive and enjoyable the game would be.
Now there is a numbers of ways to do this, either by placing/replacing objects in a more interesting way (which you are already doing really well), aswell as adding more and more lore references/connections and reactivity to the world:
1) More Scripts and sings around the world (possibily some written in dwemer/daedric)
2) More underwater ruins, treasures and fauna, we have very little reason and incentive to delve into the ocean to search for goods as of now.
3) Head/hunting throphy in taverns just to give a little taste of the fauna that inhabits the place and to prove that you're not the only hunter around
4) Tavern with posters and/or notes referring to services offered by the inhabitants of the town/city, but not necessarily legal services, also more subtle ones like slavery business (totally legal for dark elves controlled regions), drug/skooma dealers, underworld business and underworld arena fights (that would be a nice touch to Balmora) and so on...
5) Heavier reactivity from the folks that inhabits morrowind based on my character personality, status , reputation and race (possibly also the way I dress).
For Example if my character is noone, has low personality and plus is a bestial race, I would love to feel scared and in danger in infamous places, especially around the Dark elves of the Morag thong, bestial race haters or worse slavemasters. I will have no easy life dealing with people, having them not speaking with me at all or even attack me in secluded areas if they are part of criminal organizations and they have low disposition towards me.
These aspects are already implemented in the game, but not as dramatically as i would like them to be.
6) The infamous districts of some cities should be somewhat wet and dirty (darker and wear out textures), less patrolled by guards, with animals (guar) roaming around, full of danger, beggars and criminal dealers with both illegal and less quality items and with bad prices on top of this).
I understand that some of these ideas could be too hard or even be impossible to implement...Or simply way too hardcore or out of place for some players, but i just wanted to share my vision that in my opinion would enhance the immersion of the game.
Other than that, keep up the good work trancemaster.
Thank you very much for your feedback! I'll give you a proper response in a few days (swamped right now..).