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Elder Scrolls 3: Tribunal
Review by Steerpike Oh, It's a Complete Level Editor Most people who experienced The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind were instantly enchanted. CRPGs have been lumbering along since Fallout, neither bad nor good (for the most part) and rarely introducing much in the way of nonlinearity or new ideas to the genre. With Morrowind, a real sense of openness and character-driven narrative evolution was achieved. Even better, the folks at Bethesda included the reasonably easy-to-use Elder Scrolls Construction Kit with the game, allowing players to develop and release little plug-ins and even entirely new adventures using the engine. Most plug-ins are very small—a new weapon here, a house in the town of Balmora there—and for the most part they integrate seamlessly with the rest of the game. Tribunal, the first official expansion pack to Morrowind (which means, I hope, that there will be more), is in fact just a gigantic plug-in, built with the very same tools available to all gamers. This is not a bad thing; though not nearly so colossal as Morrowind itself, Tribunal is expected to supply most gamers with a good twenty hours or so of gaming fun (compared to Morrowind's 200-plus)—and at only $29.99 retail (plus the original game), that's nothing to complain about. In broad watercolored strokes, Tribunal expands on the story of religious and political conflict at the heart of Morrowind. A new Dunmer king has arisen and all his thought and focus is bent upon dislodging the nation of Morrowind from its sad position underneath the Imperial thumb. Meanwhile, the tribunal of Living Gods—Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil—remain at the heart of the story. The problem with being a Living God is that after a while you get pretty darn old, and pretty darn tired, and then grouchy, but you're a God so you can't just slink off and die quietly; you have to stick around and be worshiped and do impressive things or else people will stop liking you. While that's great for a few thousand years, you still possess mortal weaknesses (like sanity) and after a while they begin to fray. Those who had the pleasure of meeting the once-mighty Vivec in Morrowind may sympathize. Almalexia and Sotha Sil finally turn up in Tribunal. Both have their own goals, opinions on Vivec and Lord Dagoth, and positions on the Nerevarine Conspiracy going on in Vvardenfell. If that last sentence makes no sense to you, either you've never played Morrowind or you ignored the main plot of the game. While it's not necessary to have done so to enjoy Tribunal, I do recommend it; ultimately Tribunal is more of the same, so if you didn't like the one you're not going to like the other. Geographically, if you know nothing about Tamriel (the larger empire in which Morrowind/Tribunal take place) you may not realize that the province of Morrowind is shaped like a doughnut and Vvardenfell is an island where the hole would be. The rest of the province is wrapped around it, and Morrowind's capital city, Mournhold, is in that area. While early press statements about Tribunal indicated that it would expand Morrowind to include "the entire nation of the Dunmer," the actual truth is more along the lines of "will expand Morrowind to include Mournhold and one or two other places." Don't feel cheated, though; Bethesda's "bigger is better" attitude is once again at play here so it's not like you won't have lots of new places to explore. RPG Rule #1: Goblins Are Not, Repeat Not, Difficult Foes Rather than taking my 52nd-level character through Tribunal, I decided to start over as a new class and have all the fun again. That was kind of a mistake, so take heed: though the box says that Tribunal is okay for characters of all levels, don't be fooled. Be at least fourth or fifth level before you even install Tribunal. The plug-in lies dormant but activates at some point when your character rests, at which time the new adventure begins and you find yourself attacked by a foe who would be peanuts to a high-level character, but who killed me about nineteen times when I was starting out. Shortly thereafter the intrigue of Tribunal is added to the game, integrating as smoothly as any other plug-in. Naturally, once the quest began I sent my new character straight to Mournhold—a more difficult and irritating proposition than it really needed to be—to check out the new area; once there I realized that I was in no way prepared to deal with the foes and intrigues that awaited me. Specifically, I was killed by a goblin. A goblin, the lowest of the low, the snail's trail of fantasy beasts, a creature normally so base and pathetic that first-level D&D characters starting out as ignorant farmhands with pitchforks are able to defeat entire goblin hordes attacking their once-peaceful community. The goblin is lower than the orc. The goblin is lower than the gnoll. The goblin was, is, and shall always be the most insignificant of all creatures, and under no circumstances should even a very well-trained and armed ninja goblin with exceptionally high morale possibly stand a chance against a character higher than second level. I thought everyone knew that rule. Tail firmly between my legs, I crept back to Vvardenfell where nice normal creatures lived, and worked on improving my character a bit before returning. Things were significantly more balanced once I was 12th level and above, so new players take note. Meanwhile, I was able to appreciate some of the technical and gameplay improvements that Tribunal makes (it's a patch as well as an expansion pack). The journal system, widely reviled as inadequate in Morrowind, is improved to include sorting by quest, entry, and more. Frankly, however, it's still nowhere near as good as it needs to be in a game this complex; there's still no way to make your own notes in the journal and the general interface is lacking. In the next expansion pack, I want to see more powerful cross-referencing, the ability to export your journal to Word or Excel, sort entries manually, add personal notes, switch between game time and real time dates, apply priority levels to notes, and so forth. Another new feature is the ability to add notes to the automap on both the world and local level. This is a nice addition, and there's not much that can be said about it (other than that it should have been included with the original game). The automap in general, however, remains unimproved, and while it's not nearly so lacking as the journal, some tweaking here and there—such as more accurate representation of elevations—would have been nice. A few merchants in Mournhold have unusually large amounts of cash on hand. This is a big improvement—anyone who finished Morrowind almost certainly wound up with a room, house, or stronghold full of loot so valuable that no one on the island could afford to buy it from him/her for more than a fraction of its worth. The Glass Staff, for example, a not terribly uncommon item, is worth 50,000 gold. A "Seller Max" button is also a nice blessing to traders who are willing to pass along items worth more cash in toto than the merchant has; just offer the items and click the button rather than messing with the slow plus/minus keys. Meanwhile, adventurers also have the ability to purchase a pack Guar to carry the loot from all their travels. These animals, which resemble friendly bipedal goanas with the mouths of sperm whales, can be found all over the province doing the combined work of mules, oxen, donkeys, horses, and cows. The drawback to the pack Guar is that Tribunal doesn't improve 3D pathing very much and if you don't keep an eye on your beast, it's going to get stuck on a rock and you'll inadvertently leave it behind. This would be especially vexing if you don't know where to start looking for it and it happened to be carrying a fortune in loot on its back. Overall stability is increased in Tribunal as well, and though Morrowind was not a really unstable game to begin with, each little incremental improvement helps. I still find myself crashing out to Windows without warning now and then, but the event is rare and, compared to some of Bethesda's other offerings, nothing I take too seriously. Dungeons Deeper than Daggerfall's You'll have the opportunity to explore, among other locations, the vast sewer-cum-lost-city complex underneath Mournhold, and if dungeon crawlers have been sad that Morrowind's underground adventures were too short or simple, they can stop their braying now. This underworld is immense and home to several mysteries of its own, sporting fantastic new creatures and exciting treasure to be had. In order to fully explore the area you should expect to spend probably six to ten of your twenty hours down there, and it's here especially that being able to annotate the automap is necessary. Other quests range from simple ten-minute operations to more complex citywide excursions, and as usual you're free to take them or leave them as you see fit. Just as in all of the Elder Scrolls titles, you're under no obligation to do anything that isn't part of the overall story arc, but if you ignore all of the corollary material you're likely to miss out on a lot of fun and charm. Gamers who allow Tribunal to take them forty hours are more likely to be pleased with it than those who only allow it to take twenty. One note of irritation is that though Tribunal integrates comfortably with Morrowind from a technical standpoint, there is a great in-game sense of disconnection between the two places. Actually getting to Mournhold requires a ridiculous expenditure of effort every time—the only point of access is through the fortress of Ebonheart, and a less conveniently placed locale to make your base of operations there never has been—then getting back can also be a chore. Those employing magic will probably use the Mark and Recall spells to some effect, but you can (stupidly) only set one mark. Most players I know place a mark at whatever house, structure, or town they've chosen as their "home base," and they are loath to change it. In a way this all goes back to the fact that your character walks too slowly, that Bethesda or some enterprising fan never created a plug-in for horses, and that there are more fun ways to spend your time than walking from Balmora to Ebonheart day after day. The result of this is that while Tribunal is meant to slide right in beside Morrowind on a logical level, it's incredibly jarring to move back and forth between them. Since you're not expected to have finished Morrowind before you start Tribunal, you constantly feel like you're moving from the game to the expansion pack. I might have preferred a much higher-level expansion for those who'd nearly finished Morrowind—much like the Baldur's Gate series expands its games—but of course that would have excluded newcomers to the series. Still Looking Good, Baby Morrowind, at only six months old, is still one of the prettiest games out there—especially among RPGs, where only Arx Fatalis can hope to equal it—so Tribunal doesn't need to add big technology to the graphics. It's just as good-looking as ever, and I was pleased to see that designers flexed their creative muscles by making Mournhold and surrounding regions visually different from Vvardenfell without making it seem like you were in another country or something. The province of Morrowind is a grim, bleak place filled with cranky people, but Vvardenfell is more gloomy than the mainland. While on the subject of graphics, one thing I neglected to mention in my Morrowind review but will mention now is that the game doesn't run on a proprietary engine—Morrowind, like Star Trek Bridge Commander, Freedom Force, and Dark Age of Camelot all licensed NetImmerse engine technology from NDL—a testament to the tremendous breadth and versatility of that game engine, considering how different those four titles are. By the way, GeForce owners would be well advised to crank nVidia's proprietary "Digital Vibrancy" control as high as they can stand. Morrowind and Tribunal, gorgeous as they are, look even better with this set high; digital vibrancy makes subtle gradations of color more obvious to the human eye and, though it may be annoying while using the Windows desktop, it really adds to most games. Sadly, no new orchestrations came with Tribunal to complement the game's already breathtaking score; composing and recording such would probably have taken too long and interfered with the timely release of the expansion. I know people who have downloaded Morrowind's music to play while they work or prowl around their homes—it is incredibly good, and my only complaint is that they weren't able to get more of it. Balance: More than the Art of Not Falling Over The one standard complaint about Morrowind carries over into its expansion pack. The game is not adequately balanced for later levels. Once you reach the 25th level or so, your character is essentially so tough that even the most powerful creatures pose little threat. Even the mightiest Daedroth, the chilling Golden Saints and horrifying Winged Twilights are nonetheless just a sword-flick away from the afterlife once a powerful character comes upon them. While it's better to be skewed in favor of a highly powerful character than it is to be too hard when the character is just starting out, I know plenty of people who grew bored with the game and either quit or will not play through again just because they know that the challenge would end around the halfway point of the game. I suspect the solution to this is a new expansion pack that adds creatures capable of dealing with high-level characters and scatters them not only through "new" areas, but through Vvardenfell as well. Also, I note that it is still difficult to locate really fancy items of certain sorts. Glass, Ebony, and Daedric items are easily found when you're high-level, but they tend to be swords or spears rather than more exotic weapons. This doesn't encourage players to expand their horizons by playing an expert in the mace or tanto. I know the above statement contradicts an earlier remark from my Morrowind review, but it is true and only a lot of playing made it clear. I propose that the next expansion add more item compositions to go along with the standard Dwemer, Daedric, Ebony, Glass, Iron, Orcish, Steel, and so forth; also, perhaps an algorithm in the code to determine the player's highest primary weapon score and offer powerful weapons based on it. City of Light, City of Magic Generally speaking Tribunal is a great expansion pack. It fixes bugs, adds new places to explore, enhances the capabilities of the game, and is very well written and designed. Though the plot is fairly straightforward compared to some of the more devious story arcs that Bethesda writers are known for, it nonetheless kept my attention throughout and was deeply enjoyable to play. Sadly, it does little to correct the underlying complaints about
Morrowind. Make no mistake, those complaints are few and
for the most part quite paltry, but I would love to have seen them
addressed here. Also, I would rather Tribunal had been cleanly
integrated into the world of Morrowind rather than seeming
like an expansion pack due simply to the amount of effort involved
in physically getting to the new locations. Next time I want horses,
carts, better journal controls, balance for high-level players,
and more accessible exotic weapons. When all that is provided, we
may well have the near-perfect CRPG. |
The Verdict
The Lowdown Developer: Bethesda Available for: Four Fat Chicks Links Screenshots
System Requirements Windows 98/ME with 128 MB RAM Where to Find It Gogamer
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