This
is the Frequently Asked Questions list for Usenet newsgroup
alt.games.morrowind. As such, this document pertains mostly to the
newsgroup, as opposed to the game itself. If you are looking for an FAQ
for the game Morrowind or it's companion applications, we suggest you
start looking at the official Morrowind website at
www.elderscrolls.com, and continue on from there. There are a number of
great game FAQs for Morrowind that deal with all aspects of the game;
the scope of this document is merely to provide a simple game overview,
and an explanation of the purpose and substance of the newsgroup.
Be forewarned that while we try to avoid spoiling the game for you, there are some minor spoilers throughout this document.
If
your news server doesn't carry alt.games.morrowind, they probably will
if you politely request it! If they ask, yes it has a properly
formatted control message at ftp.isc.org, the repository of record for
newsgroup control messages.
A. What Is This Place?
This
is Usenet Newsgroup Alt.Games.Morrowind. It is a discussion group
dedicated (mostly) to conversations about the PC and XBox Game
"Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III," produced by Bethesda Softworks.
The
Newsgroup Charter (every properly-created newsgroup has a charter,
except for a collection of groups whose charters were lost in a major
crash in the early 90's) reads as follows: "alt.games.morrowind is a
Usenet newsgroup for the purpose of discussing all aspects of
Morrowind. Excessive crossposting and binary posting are prohibited.
Binaries may be posted to alt.binaries.games or a website.
alt.games.morrowind is an unmoderated newsgroup; we strongly suggest
that all users check out newsgroup news.announce.newusers prior to
posting, if you are unfamiliar with Usenet."
In short, it's a place where people gather to talk about Morrowind. What's Morrowind? Keep reading.
B. Who Put This Thing Here In The Middle Of My Internet?
I did.
You're welcome.
Okay,
a real answer. Alt.Games.Morrowind was created by John Henry in August
of 2002. As of this writing, John maintains the FAQ, and CONTROLS THE
PLACE WITH AN IRON FIST.
Just kidding.
The group is
unmoderated, although, like any other usenet newsgroup, binaries and
excessive crossposting are 'forbidden,' meaning that most news servers
will automatically torch a binary (that is, non-human-readable-text)
file that is posted to a non-binary group. You can tell the non-binary
groups by the lack of the word "binaries" in the group name.
Excessive
crossposting may potentially trigger anti-spam bots or be a violation
of your ISP's terms of service. Posting in "rich text" (i.e. HTML),
while not PROHIBITED, is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED, which is also true
across all of Usenet.
We also recommend, if you are new to
Usenet, that you take a browse through the newsgroups
news.announce.newusers and news.answers. It may prevent embarrassing
mistakes, offensive body odor, acne, and erectile dysfunction.
C. Why Wasn't I Informed?
That's what you get for missing staff meetings ($1 to the alt.usenet.kooks FAQ)
D. Okay, But Really, What's The Point?
Sharing
information, tips, inside jokes, and various other bits relating to
Morrowind. That and the sooper-sekrit nekkid pictures of the Suran
Strippers.
E. Isn't [insert other newsgroup here] good enough? It is really necessary to have a separate Morrowind newsgroup?
Well, that's a long and rather convoluted story, but I'll try and make it simple.
When
I first set out to create AGM, I searched for an appropriate newsgroup
(other than comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg) for Morrowind discussion and
didn't find one.
Now, contrary to what you may have heard,I'm
not omniscient...but I've been on Usenet for awhile, and it never even
dawned on me to look for "elder-scrolls." alt.games.elder-scrolls also
never came up during preliminary discussions in alt.config, so I'm
forced to conclude that it didn't dawn on anyone there, either.
That,
if nothing else, indicated to me that chances are, when people go
looking on Usenet for information about Morrowind, they're going to
search for "Morrowind" long before it occurs to them to search for
"elder scrolls.
Furthermore, there *is* precedent; Several game
'franchises,' including Sid Meier's "Civilization" series, Diablo,
Command and Conquer, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Final Fantasy, Quake,
Sim City, Myst, Mechwarrior, Unreal, Vampire, and even Morrowind's
predecessor Daggerfall all have their own dedicated newsgroups for
specific titles within the series.
With all due respect for the
question, I personally don't understand it; by the logic inherent to
the question, the entire alt.games.* hierarchy shouldn't exist; after
all, that's what comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg is for, right?
Finally,
it should be noted that a.g.m currently handles between 70 and 100
messages, average, per week. Not exactly the kind of post counts you
see in places like alt.politics or rec.sport.pro-wrestling - yet - but
certainly enough to justify the group, and more than one of our regular
readers has said that if not for alt.games.morrowind, they would have
never known about alt.games.elder-scrolls.
The general tendency
is for people who have played the previous games in the ES series to go
to a.g.e-s, and people who have not to come to alt.games.morrowind.
That said, there is plenty of cross-pollenation between the two groups
(and several others), and there is no effort in any quarter to
encourage a "preference" for one over the other.
A. What Is Morrowind?
I. The Game
a. Overview
Morrowind
is a combination first-person shooter/role-playing game for the PC and
XBox published by Bethesda Softworks and released in 2002. The official
website is located at http://www.elderscrolls.com. That's the nuts and
bolts of it; the full answer is much more complex and interesting.
b. The Elder Scrolls Series - History and Background Information
The
Elder Scrolls series of games actually consists of (as of this writing)
no less than *8* titles: Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard,
Morrowind and it's two expansion packs Tribunal and Bloodmoon, and
Oblivion. All of the games are set in a world called Tamriel.
Unfortunately, Your Friendly FAQ Keeper has not played any of the
previous titles, so I can only pass on information I've gleaned from
other sources, but here's the series in a nutshell:
Arena, released in 1994 (not sure of the exact date, but the Unoffficial FAQ hosted at the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (http://www.uesp.net)
was last updated in December of that year), was the first title in the
series and was widely hailed at the time as a genuine breakthrough in
PC-RPG's. This is a watermark that is common to all three of the main
titles in the series (Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind). The visual
immersion (even back in the bad old days when 4Mb was an obscenely huge
amount of video memory to have) - including weather effects, seasons,
and night/day - open-ended style of game play, and high-quality
storylines have long been worshipped by many in the CRPG community.
From what I gather in reading about it, the main quest in Arena is to
gather the pieces of a major weapon and use it to defeat a "Boss"
character in the form of a battlemage. However, with over 400 cities
and uncounted side-quests and NPC's, the main quest is - as with
Morrowind - merely a small slice of what the game has to offer.
Daggerfall,
the second title in the series, was released in September of 1996. With
some fifty thousand people, six thousand towns, and tens of thousands
of houses, dungeons, caves, and so forth, it was far and away the
largest CRPG world ever created at the time, and indeed remains so.
According to the Unofficial Daggerfall FAQ, Daggerfall features "much
improved plot over ARENA; your character is asked to undertake a
special mission for the Emperor and obtain artifacts before rival
groups of the court of the town of DAGGERFALL can get them & use
them to instigate an uprising. In investigating the court of
DAGGERFALL, stories of madness, unrequited love, dark sorcery,
seduction, betrayal, and a plot to recreate a powerful force from
thousands of years past will be revealed." Daggerfall also was one of
the earliest PC games to feature parental controls over sexual and
violent content; indeed, according to what I've read, it's quite
possible to find full frontal nudity in this game. Again, like
Morrowind, game play is open-ended; it is even possible to win the game
by working AGAINST the main storyline. Further, details such as
clothing, experience, player class, and the completion of side quests
were calculated to have a lasting effect on the players world-wide
reputation which had an effect on overall gameplay. All of this packed
in to what was at the time the most advanced 3D graphics engine ever
created and featuring many of the same environmental innovations as
Arena - weather, day/night, etc. The FAQ keeper actually has a copy of
this game; unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to make it run
properly under Windows XP.
Battlespire and Redguard were
apparently intended to launch new branches on the Elder Scrolls tree,
with Battlespire being touted as the first in the "Legends" series, and
Redguard being billed as the first in the "Adventures" series. It
appears that after these two titles were released, Bethsoft decided
instead to concentrate on creating Morrowind...a process which took
them nearly 5 years. Both games were less "open-ended" than the other
three titles, and seem to be less RPG than action-adventure game, but
they did provide a nice bit of additional information and structure for
the world of Tamriel.
Oblivion is the announced title for the
next game in the series. Every indication is that Oblivion will hold
to the same system-stretching requirements, incredibly in-depth game
play, and stunning graphics that have been the hallmarks of the
previous three major titles. The best place at this time to get quality
Oblivion information is the official Bethesda Elder Scrolls website: http://www.elderscrolls.com. Note: Oblivion is now released and has an expansion pack or two available as of the final version of this FAQ.
Arena is now available as freeware from Bethesda Software at http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/downloads_games.htm. Our many thanks to them for making this classic title available at no charge. They didn't have to do that.
II. The Place
Morrowind
is a region (sometimes considered a continent, but we lack tectonic
data to support this) which consists of a very large main island
("Vvardenfel") surrounded by archipelagi (or an archipelago; some
scholars insist that because there are so many of them, that they
consistute a single land mass; others even insist Vvardenfel itself is
merely an island, and the entire Morrowind region is a single
archipelago), in what is usually drawn in the north-eastern quadrant of
the region known as Tamriel, which is itself a part of the "planet"
upon which all of these games take place, which is alternately called
"Nim' and 'Tamriel' in the literature. We find it likely that the
historical name of the planet is Nim, but that it is referred to by the
inhabitants of Tamriel as Tamriel out of an over-enthusiastic sense of
their place in the world.
Morrowind is a land rich in flora
and fauna, as well as several different species of intelligent life - a
few different races of elves ("Dwemer" and "Dunmer"), a 'human' race,
the lizardly Argonians, and the feline Khajit, possibly among others -
not to mention gods, demi-gods, and mortals who have usurped the power
of gods for their own egotistical ends.
Nim is quite probably
the largest, richest, and best-documented fictional planet outside of a
fantasy/science fiction series or the original Dungeons and Dragons
games. (An interesting sidenote: According to the official literature
of Bethesda Software, the Elder Scrolls series was actually inspired by a game of D&D played by the creators.)
III. The Story
Many
years past, a group of powerful mortals - Amalexia, Sotha Sil, Vivec,
the Nerevar, and others, if I'm remembering my legends correctly -
found a key to power which would grant them the powers and longevity of
gods. Unfortunately, it did not necessarily grant the wisdom of a god.
There are various aspects to this key of power, and one of the group of
mortals seized this key, betraying the others to gain control of for
his own selfish greed for power. Now, a stranger "born of uncertain
parents under a certain sign" has arrived in Morrowind, and there are
rumors that this stranger may hold the power to divest the traitor of
this key, and with it the power he has usurped. Note that by "key" we
mean "an object which is primary," not "something that unlocks a door."
There are several thousand "door keys" in Morrowind - we wouldn't want
you to get confused!
IV. Game Play
a. Character Races, Classes, Guilds, Skills, and Attributes
One
of the enduring traits of the Elder Scrolls series is the ability to
create characters of various races and attributes. I won't go into
listing them all here - again, this is supposed to be an FAQ about the
newsgroup, not about the game - but suffice it to say that you'll find
everything you'd expect from a full-featured RPG, and then some. Each
skill is governed by an attribute; each attribute is improved with the
use of the skills that it governs, and you progress through "levels" as
you gain higher skill and attribute values. For instance, the "Hand to
Hand" skill may be a function of the "Agility" attribute...so if you go
through Morrowind getting in fist fights, your H2H skill will increase,
and when you advance a level, you may be awarded a potential bonus
multiplier for your "agility" attribute. Each race has specific
weaknesses and strengths, which are explained both in the game and in
the various game tutorials that can be found on the web. You can also
create your own custom Race and Class which has it's own strengths and
weaknesses.
b. Guilds, Factions ("Great Houses"), and Cults
Guilds
are, as you might expect, professional associations...sort of like
labor unions without all the contract disputes. There are several
guilds in the game - Mage's, Fighter's, Thief's, a guild of assassins
known as the Morag Tong, and more. You have to be careful, though! All
is not what it seems, and it is not uncommon for one guild to send you
on a quest which, when completed, will get you thrown out of another
guild.
There are three "great houses" - Hlaalu, Telvanni, and
Redoran - and again, each has it's distinct advantages and
disadvantages. You can only join one Great House (unless you're using a
mod that allows otherwise), although I have heard rumors that you can
join 2 houses IF you pick the right two.
There are also several
religious organizations - the Imperial Cult, and the Temple, for
instance, that you can also join; I don't believe that membership in
one will prevent membership in another.
In all the guilds,
houses, and temples, there are things you can do which will cause you
to be kicked out, or which may prevent advancement higher through the
ranks. In my first character, for instance, I made a mistake which
caused the Mage's guild to refuse to promote me any further (during the
'Telvanni Spy' quest).
c. Weapons and Armor, Magic, Items, and Travel
TRAVEL
in Morrowind happens in a variety of ways - you can walk or run over
the landscape; you can get really good with potions or spells and fly
over the landscape; you can take a silt-strider (sort of a bug bus) to
and from major cities in the game; you can travel by boat to and from
certain places; you can travel by something called a Propylon Chamber,
which is sort of a teleportation device; or you can make use of one of
the Mage's Guild transporters (I think you have to be a member of the
Mage's guild to use these). Each has it's own advantages and
disadvantages, and chances are you'll use just about all of them in the
course of playing the game. There are a dozen or so major cities, quite
a few minor cities and towns, and small settlements (such as the
Ashlander camps) scattered all across Morrowind, and each one has it's
own surprises and challenges. Of course, there are also literally
hundreds - perhaps over a thousand, I haven't counted them - of
dungeons to explore.
MAGIC in Morrowind is unlike any other game
your FAQ Keeper has played, and - along with the spectacular graphics,
incredibly immersive game play, and just plain fun of it - is one of
the reasons why it is far and away my favorite CRPG since Betrayal at
Krondor. Not only do you have spells, but there are scrolls, 'soul
gems' in which you can trap the soul of vanquished foes and use it to
enchant weapons, clothing, and armor, potions which you can create from
alchemical components you gather on your journeys (more on that later),
inherent powers that you may be gifted with depending on how you elect
to build your character. There are ranged spells, contact spells, and
spells you cast on yourself. You can control fire, ice, electricity,
poison, and paralysis; you can fly, walk on water, enhance or restore
your skills and attributes, drain or enhance the skills and attributes
of hostile or friendly NPC's. You can combine spell effects - in-game,
without creating mods - and there are hundreds of scrolls, potions,
spells, and enchanted items that are already canned and placed in the
game for you to use. If magic is your forte, you'll love this game
without a doubt.
WEAPONS and Armor in Morrowind are just as
varied as magic; in part, because they can be enchanted with any magic
effect that is in the game. There are multiple classes and types of
swords, maces, staves, bows, crossbows, knives, clubs. They might be
made of chitin, glass, steel, silver, ebony, or other material, each
with it's own set of strengths in varying degrees. Ditto the
armor...and it can all be enchanted (and often is!) with any given
magical effect...if you've gained the skill or have the money to pay
someone to do it. Plus, again, there are several hundred (thousand?)
"canned" items already placed in the game for you to find or buy.
ITEMS in Morrowind are ridiculously plentiful - nearly
EVERYTHING in this game can be picked up and manipulated. The products
of native flora (flowers and plants), fauna (animals and monsters that
you kill or harvest), and other natural resources (like gemstones) can
be used as alchemical components to make potions with; there are lock
picks and probes; armorer's hammers and metal-working tongs so you can
repair your own armor and weapons if you'd like; there is a HUGE
variety of clothing in different styles and qualities that can be
enchanted with spells just like armor and weapons...but even such
mundane things as spoons, napkins, and pillows can be picked up,
bought, or sold as you wish. One of our early AGM contributors actually
created a side-quest for himself by deciding to try and collect every spoon in Morrowind.
It is the allowance for this kind of creativity which, in this writer's
opinion, sets Morrowind head and shoulders above any other CRPG
currently available.
Additionally, there is property ownership
in Morrowind; many things are laying around for the taking, but many
more are "owned" by an NPC, and if you steal them you will be caught by
an Ordinator or Imperial Guard (Morrowind Cops) and forced to give the
property back, plus pay a fine or serve time. There are even illegal
drugs - some traders will refuse to deal with you if you have certain
things in your possession.
d. Non-Player Characters (NPCs)
There
are two major classes of NPC's in the game - essential and
non-essential. Essential NPC's - leaders of guilds and factions who
give you quests, wise women of the Ashlander camps, and all sorts of
other interesting characters - may give you quests or challenges which
will help you complete the Main quest. Unlike many other RPGs, these
characters have personality - just wait until you get to meet Crassius
Curio! You maintain a level of favor or "disposition" with *each and
every NPC in the game*, which, together with your overall reputation,
determines how they act toward you throughout. You may find yourself
being looked at with contempt early on by characters who will become
almost slavish in their admiration as you progress. The non-essential
NPCs are, perhaps, not *quite* as versatile and interesting as the
essential ones, but in any case, especially early on in the game, it
pays to talk to EVERYONE about EVERYTHING. Plus, of course, there is
the usual assortment of shopowners, regents, bad guys of all caste,
slaves (yes slaves - buy them, sell them, or set them free), and even -
if you know where to find them - a trio of erotic dancers (all human
;-)). Sometimes you may have to escort them from place to place - other
times you may take great pleasure in killing them with no remorse...as
long as they attack you first. You can pick their pockets. You can
strip them naked (nearly) and leave their corpse laying in the street
as an example of your power. It's your game - play it your way!
B. What Is Tribunal? Is it worth the extra money?
Tribunal
is the first official expansion pack for Morrowind, released in fall of
2002. It adds a new city - Mournhold - and a whole new set of NPC's,
quests, caverns, dungeons, new flora and alchemy components, new
weapons, new armor, and new reasons to continue playing. The original
Morrowind game is required for Tribunal on the PC. The Tribunal and
Bloodmoon expansions are not available for the XBox; however, the XBox
version of the "Game Of The Year" edition incorporates elements of both
expansions.
C. What About Bloodmoon?
The
Bloodmoon expansion is now in stores worldwide. Hailed by most as yet
another stunning advance, Bloodmoon incorporates new creatures, new
alchemy ingredients, new spell abilities, a new island, Sothseim, that
is about 1/4 the size of Morrowind, and of course, a whole passel of
new quests. Also added is the ability to become a Werewolf, which
carries with it a whole new dimension of game play, literally - your
field of vision is wider, you can't carry anything while in wolf form,
etc. This has the effect of creating a 'game-within-a-game'.
D. Game Of The Year Edition
Bethesda
released in late 2003 the "Game of the Year Editions" for PC and XBox.
The PC version includes both the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions, and
is typically priced lower than buying the three titles separately by
quite a bit. (In fact, it's priced at less than I originally paid for
JUST Morrowind in most places - $29.95 US). The XBox version
incorporates elements of Tribunal and Bloodmoon, although as your
humble FAQ keeper is not a console gamer, I can't provide details
regarding what is and is not included. (Information on this from
XBoxers or Bethesda would be most excellent to have for the next FAQ
rev, hint hint).
E. Platform Variations
Your
FAQ Keeper is not a console gamer; therefore, I can't speak much about
the XBox version of the game beyond what has already been written.
However, many of our readers are owners of the XBox version, and
questions regarding it are certainly welcome. If someone here can't
answer your questions, chances are we can point you to someone that
can. The biggest variations are in regard to expandability - there is
no "modding" for the XBox version; hence, the Elder Scrolls
Construction Set does not come with the XBox version. As mentioned
above, the expansions will not work with it either (and are not offered
for XBox as separate products) although Bethesda has created an XBox
version of the "Game Of the Year Edition" which implements elements
from both expansions.
F. The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, and "Mods"
Included
in the PC version of Morrowind is The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, a
"level editor" unlike any you've ever seen. Basically, anything that is
part of the game, you can create, recreate, or modify here to suit your
own needs. While there is no included tool to re-texture ("re-skin")
existing models or create new models, re-texturing can be done fairly
easily with the help of a decent graphic program (I highly recommend
Adobe Photoshop) and several available tools; if you're loaded with
extra cash, you can pick up the 3DStudioMax software from Discreet and
make your own models.
Even without new models and textures,
however, there is an unlimited range of things you can create with the
level editor - new interiors (caves and houses), exteriors (land and
building exteriors), characters, weapons, armor, jewelry, spell
components, quests, storylines, alchemy tools, clothing...even create
entirely new factions, races of characters, or (as several folks have
already done) create an entirely different *game*.
If you don't
want to do all that work yourself, there are literally thousands of
mods out there to be downloaded and enjoyed as you see fit. A caveat -
some modders aren't as careful as they should be about changing things.
I'm forced to recall with some distaste a rather negative thread
involving a fellow who had created and released a mod which rendered
major dialogue threads inoperable, prevented the player character from
ever joining the mage's guild, and made the main game quest
unfulfillable! Obviously, such sloppy modding should be subject to
imprisonment of the author in the Corpusarium, but unfortunately that's
not an option out here in the mundane world.
So, we can only
highly recommend that you install one mod at a time and make sure it
works, rather than going and downloading 50 of them and installing them
all at once.
You can find sites full of mods all over the net
just by typing "morrowind mods" into your favorite search engine.
However, there are a handful of sites which this author, and many
regulars of AGM, have found to be of particularly high quality and wide
selection. These are:
The Official Morrowind Site
- Bethesda has written several very good "official plugins" for
Morrowind - you can find these by browsing their site at
www.elderscrolls.com.
The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages
- (http://www.uesp.net) - source for much of the background information
in this FAQ regarding previous ES titles, plus has full quest
walkthroughs for Morrowind and Tribunal, and a great selection of mods.
This is the one site that I consistently visit for Morrowind
information.
The official Elder Scrolls website also has an excellent collection of links to Morrowind fan sites at http://www.elderscrolls.com/index.php?url=/links/links_fans.htm&bg=06 (including a link back to the web home of this document - thanks guys!)
The
FAQ keeper (who, being the FAQ keeper, is allowed ONE gratuitous plug
for his own site!) also keeps a small selection of his own custom mods
at his website, http://www.lowgenius.net.
Just browse to the 'gaming' section and you'll see find links to
several Morrowind-oriented pages, including mods, this FAQ, and the
Morrowind FPS Optimizer, which is a most excellent little tool to help
you get the most out of Morrowind on your particular computer system.
CAVEAT
CREATOR ("Let The Builder Beware") - The Morrowind software license
gives mod creators permission to create and distribute mod files for free. Selling them is a violation of the Morrowind/TESCS license, and will likely get you in trouble, so don't do it.
G. Where can I get these wonderful, must-have, innovative, earth-shatteringly stupendous games?
Flattery
will get you everywhere. Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, Bloodmoon have
shipped worldwide as of this writing. If, for some reason, you can't
find them locally, you can purchase them via the FAQ Keeper's website,
gratuitously plugged in the previous entry.
So endeth this
FAQ, at least for now. I hope you have found it informative, and if you
would like to see something added in the future, please don't hesitate
to drop me a line at agmfaq (at) lowgenius.com (this address actually
works now) or using the contact link at lowgenius.com (please include
the word 'Morrowind' in your subject line), and I'll see to it that
it's included in the next version.
3. FAQ Version History
1.6
(Final) 9-March-2008 Integrated updated information about Oblivion,
fixed a couple of broken links, and basically wrapped the whole thing
up. As Morrowind's successor, Oblivion, has been released, there's not
much point in maintaining this FAQ any further. Any future changes
will be cosmetic and minor, and there will be no additional revision
numbers generated. Thanks, everyone, for a great ride.
1.5
27-Apr-05 Update to Oblivion information, added information about
changes at LowGenius.Com which effect information contained in the FAQ,
other minor changes.
1.4 05-Jul-04 Update to correct some
geographical information about the ES series, and add information and a
link to the now-freeware Arena download at elderscrolls.com. Also added
a reminder that no matter how much you think your TESCS mod is worth,
you are not allowed to sell it per the software license that you agree
to when you install Morrowind, so don't even think about it. Also,
please note that the URL for this document has changed from
www.lowgenius.com/agmfaq.htm to www.lowgenius.com/agmfaq.asp
1.3b
01-Apr-04 Update to fix some formatting issues with the host site and
clean up the grammar and spelling a bit, as well as correcting some
artifacts from the replacement of the XBox "Morrowind Gold" title with
"Morrowind Game Of The Year Edition"
1.3a 27-Feb-04 Web Only update to include corrected/updated information for Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages website.
1.3
27-Feb-04 Added bits of information throughout the FAQ, including
updated Google status, link to Bethsoft's 'Fan Sites' links page,
eliminated link to Morrowindfiles.com (RIP), added notes about bad
mods/modders, added bits of commentary throughout, re-activated agmfaq
(at) lowgenius.com mail address. Inserted new section 2D for GOTY
edition, moving former sections 2D-2F to new sections 2E-2G.
1.2 13-Jul-03 Added information about Bloodmoon, more spelling corrections, added section 2F with purchasing information.
1.1a
29-May-03 Web-only revision to include some minor spelling corrections,
information about Oblivion, an FAQ Version History, and a copy of the
alt.games.morrowind newsgroup creation message
1.1 28-May-2003 -
a huge overhaul of the FAQ, to include history of the Elder Scrolls
game series, information about the history of the group, and detailed
information about gameplay components such as character creation, magic
and weaponry, and mod creation.
1.0 23-August-2002 Newsgroup created, simple FAQ written
4. Alt.Games.MorrowindControl Message
From johnhenry@lowg...Fri Aug 23 16:25:29 2002
Newsgroups: alt.games.morrowind,alt.config
Subject: cmsg newgroup alt.games.morrowind
From: "John Henry, KingOf The Night-time World"
User-Agent: Xnews/5.04.25
Control: newgroup alt.games.morrowind
Approved: johnhenry@lowg...
Lines: 24
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 16:25:28GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.96.231.239
X-Trace: news.uswest.net 1030119928 68.96.231.239 (Fri, 23 Aug 2002 11:25:28 CDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 11:25:28 CDT
Xref: news.isc.org control.newgroup:344636
[posted and mailed]
For your newsgroups file:
alt.games.morrowind Bethesda Softworks' RPG/FPS for PC and XBOX
CHARTER:
alt.games.morrowind discusses the fantasy role-playing game Morrowind.
This discussion may contain spoilers, or be relative to The Elder
Scrolls construction set, or the X-box version of Morrowind, as well as
the PC version. The newsgroup is unmoderated. Binary postings are not
allowed. Use of [SPOILER] tags, or other relevant tags for filtering,
scoring, or killfiling (for instance, [TES] or [XBOX]) are strongly
encouraged.
JUSTIFICATION: According to a google search on
22-Aug-02, the word" Morrowind" had appeared "about 38,300" times. The
discussion is obviously there to justify the group. Currently
discussion is spread across usenet, with some in the *games* groups,
and some found elsewhere. There is also a strong existing community of
Morrowind users who would certainly populate the group once it
propagates. The alt.games.* nomenclature/subhierarchy is already
established and active on Usenet. Discussion took place on alt.config
22-24 Aug 2002. Suggestions for improvement were incorporated into this
message.
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