From Eurogamer: "If there's one example of video game flavour text that adds much more than flavour, it's the in-game books of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. I remember the first time I entered one of the libraries of Vvardenfell (17 years ago!) and was overwhelmed by the ancient tomes; not just the sheer amount of information, but more importantly their evocative strangeness. One work stood out to me even then: The 36 Lessons of Vivec, composed by the hermaphrodite warrior-poet Vivec (aka Vehk), one of Morrowind's living gods. They seemed like complete gibberish to me back then, and it didn't help that the Lessons, contained in 36 volumes and dispersed across Vvardenfell, are often encountered out of their proper order."
Morrowind, the Bethesda RPG game and ancestor of Skyrim and Oblivion, gets new maps and 200 refreshed quests as an Elder Scrolls mod rebuilds Tamriel
From TheGamer: "One Elder Scrolls super-fan just put together an incredibly detailed map of Morrowind. Best of all, the artwork is free to download, includes editable text, and the creator is in the process of translating the work into other languages."
Easily the best in the series.
20 years old, and still there's a diehard fanbase behind it.
From Eurogamer: "In the past few weeks, the problem of sexual harassment in the games industry has entered public conversation once again, provoking serious questions about the underlying culture enabling this sort of behaviour. While vital, the discussions involved in the Me Too movement can often be painful for those who have experienced sexual abuse or harassment by re-surfacing memories of past trauma. And now, someone in the modding community has identified this as a problem within games themselves - and has created a mod to help sexual abuse survivors enjoy Bethesda's 2002 fantasy RPG Morrowind."
I don't think that by censuring a game sexual jokes and innuendos will do anything. As if you could end sex on people's mind.
Eurogamer you can do better than this.
There are many real problems in the world to do with abuse in the gaming industry. But this foppish article is grossly misguided as it hopes to kick off a crusade games where the art is considered ‘inappropriate’ so it can then be deleted. Eurogamer has no right to champion this or edit the work of others because it doesn’t fit your values. Many old novels or movies are controversial, but we judge them to be of their time and their foibles are reflective of their age. It’s also irresponsible because it heralds to similar minded websites like Kotaku, Polygon and Vice to do the same.
It is supremely arrogant and privileged to expect historical art (which is what games are) be changed to fit the opinions of bloggers and developers who do not believe in the expression of different ideas and stories.
So, do you not like any OPTIONAL mod, or is it just ones which go against your personal agenda ?
BUT, think about it, it's a good thing. By having more of these mods, game developers can actually make the games they want to without censoring themselves for the few sensitive minority. Then this minority can remove whatever triggers them with these mods.
@Christopher. You’re right that Eurogamer didn’t make the mod. My concern is that if it champions it, it then it becomes the norm for people to make mods as political statements. I have no issue with individuals’ freedom to create mods, my concern is that mods rather then just being an optional extra for a niche group in fact become a method by the games media to dictate to the gaming community which games are acceptable. So creators might see their work sidelined for being inappropriate and a revised version is recommended against their wishes.
I know this all is an extreme look at how things might develop! But I can think of two high profile games (rightly and wrongly) changed by publishers concerned about negative press coverage.
Bad things happen in real life and depicting them in movies or games doesn’t mean it’s an endorsement.
Didn't realise gamers were so sensitive nowadays, thankfully I'm old school so I can handle things sexual references, and historical events or figures without needing a safe space or counselling of any kind.
Do you say the same thing when they make nude mods for these games to play the game how they want? Or is this just a one-way street where we act like someone modding a game to be more to their liking is only approved when it adds mature/sexual content instead of removes it?
Really interesting read. I absolutely loved reading all the book in Morrowind, there's never been a game that quite matches the weirdness of Morrowind.
I was really blown away from Morrowinds books. I recall entering homes and checking their libraries to see if there were any good books for me to steal or that I hadn’t read yet. I also did that with Oblivion and Skyrim but I was already expecting to do that.
Though I never really looked too hard into the books like this though. There are plenty of religious references in a lot of the books mostly because it’s meant to resemble religious books in real life, so I appreciate the actual research!