Bloodmoon can be installed at any time. Nothing bad will happen to you in Morrowind because of it. The only indication that it is installed is that you will get a dialog line saying Solstheim is a terrible place. The only way to get into the Bloodmoon story is to take a boat from one of the northern villages. You could take this boat to have a look-see at Solstheim to see if you can handle it. You can always take the boat back to Morrowind if you are not ready. To get your initial quest for Bloodmoon speak to a guy who hangs out in front of the Mages Guild in AldRhun. This just gives you a reason to go there but you won't solve that quest for some time once there. This guy appears only when Bloodmoon is installed.

Hey Mad, Bloodmoon takes place on a separate playing field like Tribunal did. You can load it anytime you like. The creatures are a bit on the difficult side. This is probably because the developers figured that you would have a more advanced character after making it through Morrowind's main quest and Tribunal.

For anyone just starting out loading all three games is fine, if you want to play them in chronological order its Morrowind, Tribunal and then Bloodmoon.

Tribunal takes place in Ebonheart and Bloodmoon takes place on the isle of Solstheim. You just stay away from the respective cities while playing in order not to engage the related quests.

Thanks Trail_Mystic

In the past I've always installed all three "episodes" right at the start but due to one constraint or another never managed to complete the whole thing.
[It's such a long (and lovely !!) game ]

So I've never really worked out which plot elements specifically relate to which episode

I suppose if I installed and completed one episode at a time and and just followed the "main" quests for each, I'd find out

[I only installed the first two together this time because someone here on the Darkside advised that the journal was poor when playing Morrowind alone.]

Anyway, thanks again

Cheers.

Mad

Try it Mad, just save first. I had someone in Ebonheart beam me there and it looked way to difficult so I am back to my quests in Morrowind. It is weird though cause if you ask anyone about Solstheim they say it is an awful place. So very tempting!!

I am in Ebonheart now, looking for that magistrate that I am supposed to do in, that was a few days ago, real life keeps getting in the way.

Solstheim isn't really all that "awful"; so don't expect something as horrible as the planes of Oblivion, for instance...

It is a a cold place with some snow, and mainly fir trees, which trees to me look rather ugly in the Vanilla Bloodmoon. You find mainly Nord tribes living there, and a few new creatures that you don't find in Morrowind itself.

I actually found Tribunal a bit weirder as far as its story goes. It takes place in the city of Mournhould, where you can get transported to from Ebonheart by magical transport via Asciene Rane and back to Ebonheart again, by the Argonian Effe-Tei.

Hey guys. I have a quick question. Hubby wants to do a backup of my computer stuff and I can't seem to find where my Morrowind saves are located. Do you know where I can find them?

Thanks!

Cat

Are you on XP or Vista?

Here's a thread about about saved games in Vista that might help:

Morrowind: Saved games in Vista


In XP they are located in C:\Program Files\Bethesda Software\Morrowind\Saves

Thanks so much Trail for posting that link. That is where I had to go to do the screenshot enable that Vista would not let me change. That folder is where the screenshots will be hiding also, I checked.

I'm in Vista btw. Will check Trail's link. Thanks!!

Cat

Back from two weeks on Vancouver Island -- and what fun it was to have the ability to play Morrowind there, on my laptop.

My Mage is now at level 27, absolutely nowhere on the Main quest but I'm leading the Mage Guild and working on my Telvanni stronghold now. I'm also partway through the Thief, Morag Tong and Fighter's Guilds, with the thought of doing the Temple quests as soon as I'm done with one or two more Guilds. I decided to leave the Imperials alone because of the requirement to carry around that heavy armour.

My game's definitely bugged, though. I assume this is related to Vista as these are bugs I've not encountered before on XP. A couple of characters are gone -- the mage at the Ald'Ruhn teleporter has vanished, and I never could find the lady who has the Boots of Blinding Speed. I also tend to fall through floors a lot, especially in the Tels, which makes me wonder if it's safe to store things in my stronghold. I've gotten stuck Quicksaved in the floor a few times, but fortunately a Levitate spell gets me out of that particular jam.

Still, I'm really enjoying my Mage. Now that I have the Cuirass my character is no longer so vulnerable, and with Intelligence at 168 I have a lot of magic at my disposal! This is the first time I've actually played a true mage character, without leaning heavily on Longsword or Archery skills, and it's much more challenging in some ways, though an Absorb Health spell sorts most things out pretty fast.

All I can say after reading the above posts, is that I'm glad that I've hung on to XP even after my last upgrade....

Moondancer the game looks fantastic on a Vista laptop, it is well worth figuring out the little things. I too have XP, but on my desktop, I don't think I will ever upgrade that unless I have to. I am thinking of Windows 7 but so far no problems with Vista, but then I haven't played Morrowind on it for very long.

Vista just takes some getting used to, really. I'm very pleased with this laptop, in the main, and Morrowind has always been a fussy game anyway. The bugs are annoying, but I'm not getting the constant crashes I used to get on my XP machines, and since the console works just fine, I can always cheat the Boots into my game. Also, the game runs incredibly smoothly, far better than I've experiencd before. So it's mostly positive. And Oblivion ran beautifully on Vista, too.

I do intend to always have an XP machine around, mostly for Thief and Deus Ex, and since it looks as though my old XP laptop is kaput (mptherboard shot because the power input was loose for too long), I'll just get a custom job put together using XP.

On with the game!

Hi girls. I've got yet another question. I'm only a Level 4 so it could be that I'm trying to do this too soon, BUT, I've gotten a construction contract for my stronghold, and I have two grand soul gems. One is already filled with a Winged Twilight and so I figured I'd put a Golden Saint in the other. Unfortunately when I summon one, she always kicks my butt and kills me and so I'm wondering what the best way to kill one of them is? (and wondering also if I'm too low in level to do the job?)

Thanks so much you guys!

Cat

Level 4 is definnitely too early for a Golden Saint -- and probably for a Winged Twilight, too. They'll knock you down flat. Don't waste a Golden Saint on this quest, anyway. They are far more usefull for enchanting Constant Effect items. See if you can find a Summon Winged Twilight spell scroll somewhere. I haven't found on in my game so I had to do this the hard way (fortunately,the enchanter in Caldera sells unlimited Summon Golden Saint scrolls in my game, so I'm all set).

I don't know if you can find a gem already filled with a Twilight anywhere.

Since Soultrap requires you to be up close to an enemy, I generally use some form of Absorb Health for those fights -- either in the form of an enchanted sword or a spell, and then use Soultrap at the end. Once you've done some of the Mage Guild quests you will be presented with a dagger that casts Soultrap, which is mighty handy if you have any skill with daggers.

catbelly36 !!!! You're achieving a lot more than I ever did at level 4

Hagatha--thanks so much for letting me know. I figured it was way too soon for me to do that, but when the Telvanni house offered me the stronghold quest, I figured I'd be able to do what I needed to do in order to get it started. (sigh) btw---I found a grand soul gem with a Winged Twilight already in it (I stole it, mwa-ha-ha-ha!) so I'll only have to get one other soul when the time comes.

Mad---Awww, well thanks for saying that--you've made my day hon! I haven't done the main quest or anything, just working on Mage's Guild quests and Telvanni quests right now. I think sheer stubborness has gotten me this far! LOL I hate to turn off the game and go to bed until I've done whatever it is that I'm trying to do, so I've been staying up way too late recently trying to "get-er-done".

Cat, who has become addicted to this game despite her still-deep love for Oblivion!

I'm guessing the Grand Sould Gem with the winged twilight came from Galbedir at the Balmora Mage's Guild? If that's the case, don't go back to her for any purchases or enchanting. If you do she will assume that any filled soul gem in your inventory is hers, you'll have the guild after you and will be booted out.

Whoops! Thanks Trail Mystic! I appreciate that heads up!

Cat

Until your stronghold is finished, you can safely store things in the chests in the bedrooms in the Ald'Ruhn Mage Guildhouse.

By the way, for future reference, the stronghold is built in stages. Whatever you do, don't store anything in the stronghold until it is completely finished, i.e. it has a couple of levels and looks like a proper Telvanni structure. If you store things in the half-finished structure they will vanish forever when the stronghold upgrades to its final configuration.

My mage is levelling up far too fast, so I'll have to start using weapons for a while -- difficult to do when magic is so much more effective, but I'll have to try. At least I can practise on rats and other small things. I'm about to start the Ahslander part of the Main Quest tonight, having just found and cashed in on a set of Ebony armour. i won't need any money for a very long time, now.

I have to say this is my favourite character build of all time. I've got constant effect enchantments for Intelligence draped all over, and with Trebonius' pendant and the Cuirass I can fight Deadra Lords with some hope of winning. The only thing I'm not good at is creating my own spells. The only really effective one I've made is the Absorb Health + Soultrap number, which uses a lot of magica but works pretty well.

By the way, I've found that if I cast Soultrap twice very quickly just before and as my enemy is dying, I can sometimes fill TWO soul gems at once, even with Golden Saints. I don't know if that's a bug, but if it is, bring it on!

Yup, that's one of those exploits they probably didn't think anyone would stumble upon Another good one is clicking on the summoned Golden Saint right at the point of death. If you catch it just right you can end up with some gear that is a fair amount ahead of your character's current level i.e. Glass Long Swords, Enchanted Shields, and so on (at least in the earlier levels).

I do like the two-fer-one special.

I sort of wish I'd given my mage a more exotic skill like hand-to-hand, instead of longsword. I've been using hand-to-hand to trigger the attack response in my Summoned Ancestor Ghosts, and I'm tickled by the idea of a mage that can follow up a Fireball with a roundhouse wallop to the jaw. Maybe next time.

On with the Seven Trials.

I give you a lot of credit for developing so close to a pure mage character. That's really hard to do with all the up front combat you come across. I always end up with something close to a Battlemage.

I'm enjoying the character I have going as well. This time around I gave him all the skills that I usually don't use thereby delaying his leveling, but still making the skills available for the obscure.

The only Major Skill in the Magicka realm he has is Enchanting, so I've been spending oodles of gold on training up his lesser skills.

I was pretty pleased when at level 5 I was able to take down all of the Dark Brotherhood guarding the entrance to their lair; 6 in total. Of course 2 out of 3 were initiates at that level, but beggars can't be choosers and I earned another 20k+ in gold for their armor to further my character's education. He is going to kick some Dagoth %^&$# later in the game

I've always been a bit daunted by the thought of playing a "pure" mage before, but I did also select Alchemy, which helped a lot early in the game. I've been pretty careful not to train my major skills, using training for all of the miscellaneous skills instead.

The only Major skill I've trained and will have to continue training is Sneak, which, due to my inability to use it with the touchpad mouse, is almost useless unless I can walk in a straight line and turn at right angles only. I've used it to good effect a few times when I've got myself in a good position to steal, but I can't train it by sneaking around.

I've never been able to get Enchant up to the highest levels because the trainer is so...difficult to talk to. It's the one mage skill I don't have as either a major or minor skill.

If I were to start again, I'd skip the Longsword and Light Armour. Light armour is far too easy to "train," since it's a passive skill, and Longsword somehow seems counter to being a mage. I should have chosen Staff instead.

My Mysticism skill is already at 100 just from casting Absorb Health. I made a ridiculously powerful ranged Absorb Health Spell which allows me to cast from 15 feet and stand around twiddling my thumbs while the enemy dies over the next ten seconds. Used up a quarter of my magica each time, but effective. It wasn't actually much fun. Time to start using Destruction and Conjuration instead.