"i run it on a gf2 gts. no, i dont have the pretty water, but thats what they gave me and it runs fine. i also have a 1G processor, which helps."

"Not exactly. When the spell is cast, you're still in "ready magic" mode. You have to draw your weapon again manually (on the PC, this defaults to the F key)."

"bah - you never work - why just the other day you were sitting around, eating cake!!
anyhow- we are still deep in the mire that is playtesting. i tend to post while drinking my morning coffee, the amount of which has increased drastically lately. but i think the new forum got us all re-interested in this place - that and the fact that there has been less bickering lately."

"I think I've been posting less, actually. It may be because I've shared all of the limited knowledge I have with you all. Or maybe it's because I'm spending all my time being a fanboy on the Project Ego boards. No...that's not it. I think it's because MSFD answers every question w/in 6 seconds of it being posted. It's sad to be obsolete.... ;)"

"Ya, that MSFD was ducktaped to the chair and is only allowed to browse forums. We thought this a better strategy for development than having a working magic system. :p

The less programmers in development, the less things will break. *runs.... no, HOPS out the door before the programmers can pelt him with candy bars, donuts, and diet coke*"

"Well, it is going to be sad times for all of those who enjoy big, thick PC manuals. Those days have largely gone bye-bye.

Most retailers are only accepting the "mini-box" size for PC games, which is essentially the same height and width as a DVD case, but thicker. Soon, I'm sure the remaining retailers will do the same. There is NO way to get big manuals in these things. You are basically limited to the same size manual that will fit in a DVD case...with some leeway.

They will only accept larger box sizes if it is a Collector's Edition-type box. This is not an optional thing.

I'm wondering what the complicated flight sim games are going to do? "

"You could create a new blunt weapon in the editor using the torch artwork, but it would no longer be a light source. "

"Shriko, that's music from Daggerfall, the previous Elder Scrolls game. We haven't released any Morrowind music yet. The movies on the Belgian site are the first chance you get to hear any of it.

That said, the music is excellent. Very thematic and very fitting to the locale & situations. And remember, the Collector's Edition for PC will include a CD of the original soundtrack by Jeremy Soule!"

"There are several different "exploration" tracks, several different "combat" tracks, the title theme, and some special purpose music. "

"And don't forget - on the PC, they're all just MP3s. You can drop any MP3s of your own into the Battle and Explore directories (and exchange the music, using the same filename, for the special music). "

"You can't throw them, but you can place them wherever you want them, like on furniture, etc. "

"A cell is 8192 units by 8192 units. It works out to be approximately PI acres per cell "

"The combat doesn't suck. If you don't like your shield blocking your view when you block, either pick a smaller shield or don't use a shield. If you want to use your blocking skill, you'll need a shield, and in general when one holds a shield up to block an enemy's blow, the shield will at least partially obscure your field of vision. As far as "misses", it's all dependent on your character's skill with the weapon you're using. If you are using a short sword and your shortblade skill is low, or you're highly fatigued, then you're going to miss a lot. Also, the skills of the NPC or creature you're fighting come into play. They may be have a high unarmored skill, or a high block skill, or a high armor rating, and all those will have an impact on whether you hit them and how much damage you do.

When you actually PLAY the game, you'll see that there is feedback as to what is happening -- if you miss, there's a certain sound. If you connect, there's another sound, and the target will flinch and there'll be a blood splat. Similarly if you get hit there's feedback.

As others in the thread have said, this is not an action game, it's an RPG. If your character sucks at a skill you're trying to use, they're not going to be terribly successful at it. It's all about practice, and using the right skills at the right moments. If you want a game that's based entirely on YOUR skills with a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad, you probably don't want an RPG anyway. In an RPG, you guide your character through the world, making decisions that will impact how your character progresses, but it's primarily your character's skill levels that determine his or her success in using his skills. "

"When you summon a creature, it follows you around and will fight anything that attacks you. It will forgive a few accidental blows, but if you keep whacking it with your sword or a spell or some other hostile action, it will defend itself and turn on you. "

"Pretty much, up to a point. It won't continually charge up forever, just charge up to the maximum attack rating for the type of attack (chop, slash, thrust, and their hand-to-hand analogues) over a brief period of time. I believe that "brief period of time" is a game setting that can be modified in the editor. I do not know what it's set to currently.

So basically, suppose you have a claymore with a chop damage rating ranging from 1 to 60. If you click rapidly, you'll do the minimum damage. But if you hold the mouse briefly, you'll do a higher amount of damage up to the maximum of 60. Assuming you don't fail the die rolls against skill, fatigue, and the target's armor rating, block skill, etc. "

"That cuirass is enchanted. Enchanted items have a really cool shimmery effect on them, the color of which is governed by the enchantment's first spell effect."

"Don't worry about that, they are still a challenge! Monsters have a chance to resist the spell, so it's not always a sure thing. I don't like fighting in general as I'm supposed to be a healer, so in reality I hit the thing and run away. (Remember, this was a demo, and he wanted to see creatures...)I also have very few hitpoints. The paralyzation hammer is a good thing unless I want to reload a lot. I have no such compunctions when fighting undead however. I feel they are an abomination and must be destroyed with any means necessary. Walk into the light o my Brothers! "

"I had to find a soul gem, find a creature, cast soul trap on the creature -kill it within the alloted time thus capturing it's soul (don't worry I said a mighty prayer for the fallen, Pulp Fiction style) and then take this gem to an enchanter and pay him good money to embue my hammer with the paralyzation spell which I had already learned some time ago."

"Personally, I think one of the reasons this boring tactic was used alot in Daggerfall was that the magic skills didn't raise fast enough. Renting an Inn for 99 days and casting spells over and over was boring, but about the only way a pure mage could gain levels. I haven't felt that in Morrowind. I think I am gaining enough experience just wandering around doing stuff. Also, we *have* changed a few things to make it less of an exploit. I prefer to avoid forcing the player to play in a certain way. If you want to cast the same spell over and over and over, more power to you. "

"well, at the beginning you cant afford to purchase anything but the easiest spell, which then take a really long time to level up. i think on one of mine i had to cast restore close to 100 times before i got to the next level. as you progress, it gets easier. i found it way too boring to just sit in a room and practice casting spells, so i went out and found a bunch of low-level creatures to fire my very favorite spell "WormKiller" at. eventually i got levelled up and it was more fun. except now no one will talk to me.....

in short, it doesnt feel unbalanced to be able to sit and cast spells at nothing, im just impatient "

"It's all very possible, and with some effort, you can make the whole world a vampire haven. I chose not to, b/c it wouldn't make sense."

"Young vamps will have it tough. First, it's gonna be tough for a low-level player to survive a vampire encounter long enough to get the disease that causes vampirism. Assuming the player does, it won't actually be tough to find someplace to hide during the day. Just find a house, slaughter the occupant (you're a vampire...don't get squeamish on me now), and stay there during the day. I really wouldn't suggest low-level players try to become a vampire. Although you'll be fairly powerful, even at a low level, you won't have the opportunity to buy new weapons/armor, or to get most of the quests that would allow you to obtain these items. It'll be a bit tough. However, I expect many of you will do so anyway, and will find ways around my devious methods of making life difficult for you. For that, I congratulate you. "

"You can pull back and hold the bow. Obviously the longer you hold it back the farther/more powerful the shot."

"my 2 cents.

The decision to hold or not hold a finished product and wait for localization to do a simultaneous release is a business decision. It has nothing to do with disliking certain markets or countries. Every company (not just us) in all industries (not just computer games) has to make similar decisions.

I can tell you that localization is underway for Morrowind in French and German (thank god for Babelfish -- MW has blossomed to almost a million words of text!), and possibly other languages that I can't tell you about. We're extremely pleased with Ubisoft; they are a terrific partner to have in Europe, they're going to do a great job with the European launch.

I know how you all feel. I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan. His first novel came out in the UK first. It was later edited for "American English" and released in the US months later. I couldn't wait so I ordered the UK version when it came out, read it, then months later, purchased the US version when it came out to see what the differences were.

(just kidding about the Babelfish part-- in case anybody from Ubisoft reads this!) "

"If you can beat Morrowind in 6 hours -- or even level up more than a few timesin six hours using this technique -- I will be amazed. Considering the mainquest alone takes around 100 hours to complete."

"Also, this isn't an action game, you don't hit every time you click on acreature, as others have mentioned, your hit percentage is based on your skillwith the weapon you are using."

"They are each coded as separate spells. And I agree, it would have made it moreflexible to make one spell and then have a way of specifying which creature tosummon. However, you can't just summon anything -- you can only summon daedraand undead. Allowing you to summon additional creatures, like rats &netches, would 'break' that design.

However, the summon spells load creatures with specific ID's that ARE set inthe editor, so you could change the 'Summon Scamp' spell to summon arat instead, if you were so inclined, simply by making the corresponding IDpoint to a rat instead of a scamp."

"Your copy of the game will, in fact, contain nothing but treasure you can'tuse. :)

In reality:
It's going to depend on where you go, and what you do (and maybe who youkill...). You won't always find things you'll be able to directly use, butthat's why there are plenty of vendors in the world."

"'The final build' will be the one that goes onto the gold master. Wemake new builds ever day, and will continue to do so until we go gold."

"It's not really an exploit. As with any skill, if you want to improve it you doit a lot. You can ramp up your athletics skill if you jump around everywhereyou go, too, but that can get old after a while.

The way I see it, if a magic user cloisters him or herself away in a roomsomewhere and spends a few months practicing spells, they're going to getbetter at it in a few months, whereas if they simply used the spells as needarose, it would take them longer. Doesn't seem unbalanced or unrealistic to me."

"How dark it is outside at night is really up to your gamma setting, plusthere's a setting in the .ini file that indicates nighttime ambient light. Asfar as dungeons go, the amount of lighting is up to the designers. Parts ofsome dungeons are so dark you can't see without a torch. Others have eerieglows from luminescent rocks or mushrooms, lava, torches, and other lightingsources."

"There are INI settings for the nighttime ambient light for the different kindsof weathers. The moons affect directional light, which is also a setting foreach weather type in the INI. You can completely customize your weather stuff(specific colors/timing, not behavior - that's coded) in the INI, though wehave our color whiz Noah tweaking all of them out, so you really won't want to.

If you don't feel like it's dark enough, you can change the INI settings orchange the gamma setting in the in-game preferences menu (or if you feel it'stoo dark)."

"Regarding the combat system, I think you should reserve judgement until you'veactually played it. We'ver heard feedback from game testers that the combat isa lot of fun."

"About a month ago, there was a 'problem' with making enchanted items-- it was way, way too cheap. So Christiane exploited that and made a hammerwith an extremely long paralyze effect. I did something similar with severalswords -- I had a poison one that did 100 points of damage per strike! We'veadjusted things so that you can't make such unbalanced weapons unless you haveTHOUSANDS of gold and a huge soul gem with a high-level soul in it. It's allpart of the testing, tweaking and game balance we've been involved in for thepast couple months. Anyway, it's fixed now. Paralysis is still powerful, butit's not so cheap any more :)"

"Sure. No reason why not."

"actually the armor replaces the body part. so the glove replaces the hand, etc.you would have to make armour with wings"

"Morrowind is FAR from being an arcade game. Everything -- the character'sspeed, the chance of successfully hitting a target, how much damage they dowhen they do connect, what happens when enemies try to hit them, is stat based.There's a die roll against your skill, taking fatigue into account. So while itmay visually look like an action game, it's very much an RPG.

There are many ways you can do combat in the game. You can click rapidly, butyour swings will be weak. If you hold the attack button briefly beforereleasing it, the attack is 'charged' and you'll do more damage. Ifyou're highly fatigued, your hits will be less effective. You can configure thegame to always use the weapon's best attack, or select an attack by hitting amovement key while attacking. Every weapon has 3 attacks -- chop, slash, and thrust-- and has damage ratings for each attack. There's actually a lot of strategythat can be employed here.

For example, when my character uses a claymore, it does the most damage with achop attack. So when I'm still a distance from my target, I'll hold down theattack button to raise the sword above my head. Then I'll run up to the enemy,jump in the air and release the attack button on my way down. The jump doesn'treally add anything to the attack damage, but holding down on the attack buttondoes, and I can sometimes get a critical strike that way. And it looks cool,too. Anyway, then I'll strafe and do some slash attacks, or back off and chargein again with a thrust attack. It's really up to you how you play it, butfeedback from the people testing the game is that combat is a lot of fun and'feels' very very good.

I'm sure that everyone will find a fighting style that suits them."

"100% of the people questioning the size of the game have not played it.

100% of the people who HAVE played the game (this includes playtesters, press,etc) say it's freaking enormous. They can't believe how big it is and how muchthere is to do.

I'll go with the responses from the people who have actually been playing thegame."

"Even if it didn't you could always go into menu mode before alt-tabbing out.That pauses the game."

"there has been blood for awhile now."

"But you don't KNOW how it is. You're judging the combat system from a briefmovie, as played by someone who probably wasn't playing the way you'd play. AsI said in another thread, the combat system is a lot more complex than it looksfrom the movies."

"We are definitely not doing a 'bare-bones' Xbox manual. We put a lotof effort into cramming as much information as possible into the Xbox manual. Ithink everyone will be very happy with the amount of information and quality ofthe manual."

"You can switch between first and third person on both the PC and Xbox versions."

"characters are 128 Max default units tall and a story is 256 max units tall.128 units is approx. 6 feet"

"You could enchant the gauntlets to do things like fortify your hand-to-handskill, your strength, your stamina, your unarmored skill, stuff like that. Thatway while they wouldn't actually inflict more damage to opponents themselves,they'd help you inflict more damage with your fists (or claws)."

"The bound daedric armor & weapons that you can summon may look like other daedric armor you'll find in the game, however, the items themselves are separate objects from the "normal" daedric armor. They're set up in the editor with special identifiers and different properties -- they have no weight, they have specific enchantments, etc. The "normal" daedric armor is in the Heavy Armor class, and has no enchantment on it."

"It's a moot point -- the game's almost done, so voting whether or not you think werewolves should be in is a waste of time. Instead, you should vote for whether you want them in a later game, because it's impossible for them to be in Morrowind. I mean, it's not like you're going to change our minds at this late date :)"

"Throwing daggers are not among the items that can be summoned. There are no projectile weapons (daggers, darts, throwing stars, crossbow bolts or arrows) that can be summoned."

"Well, basically you can just duplicate and move the pieces of any town to another location. That's what is so great about the editor. You can copy an existing Fort and then create your own modified castle fairly easily."

"No.... random ..... dungeons."

"Basically being underwater works a lot like FPS games in that you have a limited amount of air before you start taking real damage. Of course there are spells and potions that can make exploring the underwater dungeons more convenient."

"NDA? What NDA? Oooooooh, that thing we signed with our blood. My bad. :p

Without giving much away, remember Moria (LoTR)? Gimli had quite a fear of going there to learn the thruth of HIS people, but he did, and found out what had gone on. Tough luck for them Dwarves. That situation makes me wonder about the Dwemer. Could there be a sort of "Gimli" Dwemer? Could he know something? Could it have been a occured on a much greater scale in Morrowind than in LoTR?

Man, I cant stress enough, how much you will learn about the Dwemer in Morrowind. That much alone kept me extremely involved in the game. It still does because even as a dev, I learn more and more about them by the day."

"The only limit on the number of items you can carry is weight. Arrows have a weight, so eventually you could exceed your maxmium encumberance and have to drop something. Just as an example, I found a barrel that had 250 arrows in it. I was able to grab all of them."

"The biggest problem with heavy armor is that it weighs a significant amount. This means you will end up devoting more of your encumbrance to armor than someone that is wearing light or medium armor."

"Just to clarify one thing -- you can't choose to become a vampire at the outset of the game. It's not a character class, it's not a race. It may happen to you if you encounter Vampires. But it's not going to be something that you can choose to do when you first start playing."

"There will be Strongholds in the game, though you will have to perform quests for the Great Houses to be awarded them.

The Telvanni wizards tower that you mention in your message is only ONE of the strongholds available. So they are not limited to only spellcasters."

"Woah, "charged for cast when strikes on projectiles"? The charge ALWAYS comes from the enchanted item, not from anything else. If an arrow is Cast When Strikes, the charge is going to come from the enchantment on the arrow, and nothing else. You can't be "charged" for its use, other than the fact that it's gone once you fire it (enchanted arrows can never be recovered).

Yes, you could remove the enchantment from the summonable items using the editor."

"Yeah, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions on this one guys, this video is from a pretty old build. We did this for Milia maybe? It was probably 6+ months ago."

"close - its actually a mesh. think of it like a piece of cloth - you pick a tiny bit in the middle and pull straight up. the higher you lift it, the more of the cloth gets pulled up. so you cant just take one cell and make it higher than the rest - you pull one vertice up, the others nearby will get higher, too."

"sorry, but no."

"You can summon shields. Summon spells have a duration -- usually a minute. Once you learn a summoning effect though, you can create spells with longer duration (assuming you have enough gold to buy it and enough magicka to cast it)."

"Actually all three versions of Morrowind will include the full color PAPER map."

"----------
Will there be different types of arrows? can you enchant arrows? do crossbows use the same arrows as bows?
----------

yes,yes,no. :)"

"We make no guarantees about when the product will arrive. Why? We aren't UPS or USPS. Once we hand that package over to a delivery service, it's up to them to get it there right away. If you pre-order and get regular ground UPS, then it's impossible to say exactly when it'll get there. We will offer the ability to pay extra for next day and 2nd day delivery.

Generally speaking, if you pay for expedited service, you should get the game on, or sometimes before, the game shows up in stores. We try to send out the game to all pre-orders the same day it ships to stores."

"Not an easy question actually. We make more $$$ per unit on direct sales to consumers, but sales through retail stores generates re-orders, something that direct-to-consumer sales do not.

So, we like lots of both."

"The game is set up so that no two plugins edit the same object. That means that you and I can both have a plugin that alters Balmora. If we both edit the same object (ie, part of a house, an NPC, etc) then it will load the change of the most recent plugin. This doesn't mean if my plugin is older it won't load any of my other changes, it's done on an object-by-object basis.

Landscape is a little tricker, as landscape is done on a wider scale. I believe the landscape in one whole cell is considered a single object."

"This week? Well, so far brand new forums that took a bit of time and effort, and four different interviews. The point of doing weekly updates was to make sure that the fans had new information on a regular basis, particularly when it wasn't forthcoming from other sources. Recently, there has been a whole lot more info coming out on a regular basis from other sites, in addition to what we try to do on the official site.

Whether or not we put things up on the site has nothing to do with our respect for you guys. You should all know that. We have tremendous respect and appreciation for our fans, which is evident in our constant interaction with them on these forums despite the very long hours and glaring lack of days off. Understand that anything we do on these forums, on the site, or on other sites is time one or more of us has to spend outside of things we're doing to get the game finished.

I actually don't think we have to prove anything.

Birthsigns are next week. "

"I understand the concept of what you were trying to say. What I didn't understand is why you'd want to enchant summoned items, since they are already enchanted when you get them. Also, it's not like you get to keep them forever -- you have them only as long as the spell lasts (usually about a minute, although you could make them last longer).

All of the summonable items -- weapons and armor -- have enchantments that enhance your ability to use the item or are in some other way appropriate to the item. A bound dagger, for example, fortifies your short blade skill as long as it's equipped. That fortification goes away if you unequip the item, or once the spell expires and the item disappears.

Since you can't re-enchant items that already have an enchantment, there's no way for you to replace the enchantment in the game.

As far as summoned creatures, yes you can soul trap them.

And many of us refer to The Elder Scrolls Construction Kit as "the editor". Sorry for the confusion. "

"You don't need to buy a strategy guide for this kind of info. Pretty much everything you need to know is told to you in-game. Where necessary, we explain them in greater detail in the manual.

The purpose of the strategy guide is to tell people how to finish quests and give them ridiculous amounts of behind-the-scenes info on where to find things, etc. "

"there are several ways to get around - fast travel is provided by siltstriders and boats. if youre in with the mages you can pay them to teleport you cheaply. of couse, theres always by foot, but i tend to wind up spending all afternoon wandering aimlessly in the wilderness (hey, i wonder whats over there.....THUNK! oww.......). "

"The only way you can learn specific magic effects is by learning spells that contain them. There are exactly two ways you can learn new spells:

1. You can learn them from NPC's who sell Spells. Go up & talk to an NPC, and if they can teach you spells you'll see the word "Spells" in their service menu. Click on that, and a list of the spells they can teach you appears, along with how much gold it'll cost you to learn the spell.

2. You can also learn new spells as quest rewards. For example, you might complete a quest and the quest-giver says, "OK, now I will teach you how to levitate", and then you learn the spell.

Of course, you also know the magic effects that comprise the powers, spells and abilities you get based on your character's race and birthsign.

You do NOT learn the magic effects from enchanted items you find or purchase. Nor do you learn the magic effects from ingredients or potions you consume.

Basically what it means to "learn" a magic effect is that you can then use the magic effect when you make new spells or when you enchant items."

"Be careful who you kill... certain spells are sold by only one or two NPCs in the world.

In fact, you'll have to search for more than just certain spell effects. Some items are limited to only a few vendors, too."

"Yeah, some of them are really rare. Also, not every magic effect is available for making new spells in the game. There's a checkbox in the editor."

"When reading material covering the magical arts, it is sometimes possible to gain new insights into the nature of a particular school of magic. This would not, in and of itself, impart specific knowledge of a particular spell effect.

The only way I am aware of to actually learn a new spell effect is to have someone show you the working of it. Though once one understands how a particular effect works, any skilled magic-worker can incorporate that effect into new and unique spells and enchantments.

Of course we're talking about magic here, so I suppose anything is possible ;)"

""10 Square Miles" is meaningless. You'll spend hours & hours just exploring -- it's not like the island is a flat plain, with straight roads and no obstacles. The game is huge. You'll get lost. You will be grateful for the map and the roadsigns sprinkled around."

"It is indeed possible. But I don't think you can "learn" the Fortify Magicka spell, so you won't be able to make enchantments if that's the case (at least I haven't found anyone selling spells with that effect in my travels). So you'd have to either a) find a potion that does it, b) find an enchanted item that does it, or c) create something in the editor."

"There's a game setting in the editor for how often they respawn, IF you set that creature up in the editor to respawn (I think the current setting is 3 days in gametime or something close to that)."

"Some of these have been answered already, but here:

1) If you can sleep, then you're not near enough to any monsters for them to be disturbing you. I think that's the way it was left.

2) No. See 1.

3) Yes, there are. No kiddies, though (see old posts on this topic).

4) Ashstorms and other similar weather do affect animation and movement speed. They greatly affect how the world *looks* to you (colors and such, and fogging).

5) There are rivers, but no currents (so no dangerous rivers). I don't know what you'd be able to script, though, so my answer may or may not be definitive on this point.

6) As of right now, there are two maps - your local area map, shown in detail, and a world map. The map that comes in the box helps a lot, too (and it looks amazing).

7) Things you leave should stick around, but they probably won't show up on the overhead map. You shouldn't need to do this, but there's nobody stopping you.

8) No.

9) Not to the best of my knowledge, though scripting could make it possible. I didn't consider Wood Elf's Beast Tongue ability non-magical.

10) See #9. I think stuff like that would be possible.

11) Not right now, no, but there's nothing stopping you from doing something like that in the editor, I suppose.

12) No tracks. Nor are there scorch marks from fireballs, etc.

Enjoy!"

"We've done a lot of testing and tweaking to make sure that this isn't the case in Morrowind. And it isn't. :)"

"And you thought that at 4am, this topic would avoid my call. I was swiftly, and unexpectedly awakened with alert. For, I knew there was a Dwemer topic that popped up, and I had to intervene. I sprang like a Cadillac Bat out of the sheets and ran for my silicon God. Finding the post, I sighed with relief. It was not a question, but more of an idea. Tha bats.... had not been stirred.

To reply to your idea, anything is possible since little is known. Perhaps in Morrowind, you will learn more. As a matter of fact, I am sure you will. ;)

Back to bed....."

"I know when I made the Dremora and the armor I was told to create it in such a way that it COULD be used as armor, if they decided they wanted to. The Dremora's armor though IS part of him. You can't whack 'im and steal it. It might, however, crop up elsewere. (Looks like the same pieces, but is really another 3D model)
Not sure what was decided eventually though."

"At this point, no. The more realism that has no gameplay added to a game, the more the game begins to lose its purpose. We could do a ton of things in the game that would improve the looks, but that doesnt really make the game any bey\tter. We are very pleased with the visuals now and adding to them would possibly draw the mind and eye away from gameplay. I know, this probably sounds crazy, especially coming from and artist, but I see much sense in it. Personally, if I wanna have fun in a fantasy world, I play a game. If I want to be awed by eye popping visuals, I go to an art gallery. Sounds a little odd reading back over what I just wrote, but it makes sense to me in a gameplay manner. "

"currently you can set both the starting cell and the plugin in the ini file"

"No movie button. Just print screen.
You can turn that crosshair off, btw."

"I just answered this in an interview the other day. I don't believe it's gone up yet. We cap skills and attributes at 100, although they can go above that due to magic effects, etc."

"You ARE completely wrong. You haven't played the game yet. You only have the vaguest idea what it's about. You haven't read any of the hundreds of books in the game, talked with any of the NPC's, or been in any of the situations you get into with the game.

The game world may be smaller, but it's still huge. You WILL get lost -- but you'll be a lot more interested in what you find when you do. There may not be random quests, but there are hundreds of quests. The main quest alone will take you a very significant amount of time to complete. There are fewer towns, but they're all different. There are hundreds of dungeons, caves, and tombs to plunder. This is NOT a small game.

And add to that the fact that we're shipping the TES Construction Kit with the game, meaning there'll be a virtually limitless number of plug-ins to download, with new areas to explore, new quests, and new items.

Replay value? Try 10 different races, 2 genders for each, all the built-in classes and the ability for you to create custom classes. The game plays VERY differently if you're a mage vs a fighter vs a healer vs a thief.

As far as your concerns about "missing" features -- the features that are in the game have been put in with the utmost regard to realism, interactivity, graphical fidelity and variety. Could we have included the things you mention? Sure. But we would have put the same effort into those features as we have the many, many features we HAVE included in the game, and this would have significantly increased the amount of time it would have taken to finish the game, and dramatically increased the cost of producing it. So instead of "Spring, 2002", you'd be looking at "some time in the indeterminate future, if the company can somehow generate revenue long enough to keep everyone paid until the game is out".

So put aside your fears. I think you'll find Morrowind is a great game in and of itself, and that it is indeed worthy of the title "The Elder Scrolls III"."

"Your machine is better than mine. What do YOU think?

Also, it's not "taking forever". A couple years ago, we had hoped to get the game out for this past Christmas, but we had to push that back to this Spring. That's not too bad compared to many, many other games. Duke Nukem? Team Fortress 2? Daikatana?

Morrowind will be out this Spring."

"quote:
----------
Originally posted by Argonian Warrior:
(1)When you become A vampire iz it still possible to join one of the great houses or guilds?
(2) People in MW won´t have anything to do with you if you are a vampire (most of them), will it help if you have the skill "Speechcraft" to make people talking to you?
(3) Which race do you considering to be the best vampire?
(4) I´ve heard a rumour that argonians can´t get infected by vamp-itis, iz it true?
Thanks.
----------

1) Doubtful with the Great Houses. Most likely not with the guilds.
2) It will help with some people. Others simply won't talk to you.
3) Just a matter of personal preference.
4) No."

"I wouldn't call them evil. Amoral, maybe, but not evil. I kinda like them."

"quote:
----------
Originally posted by orochi:
First of all, can a conjured item/weapon/armor be enchanted? If it can, what would happen when the conjured weapon expired, would it take your embeded soul gem with it, or would the gem be left when the item disapears?
----------

No, because summoned weapons and armor are already enchanted. Also, when you enchant something, the trapped soul is transferred from the soul gem to the enchanted item, and that process destroys the soul gem. Same thing when you use a populated soul gem to recharge an enchanted item.

quote:
----------
Can I enchant a disposable type item with a cast once spell? For instance, say I want to enchant an arrow, or a throwing knife. Would I be able to give an individual knife a cast once effect that would be used uppon contact with an enemy, or would I be required to enchant a group of disposable items, and give them a cast when strikes effect that drained a certain amount from the gem each time I used one. If I enchanted a group of arrows, when the arrows where exhausted would the gem disapear with them? I would assume that a cast once item would take them gem along with it, seing as how it is destroyed upon use.
----------

Right now you can only enchant arrows one by one, not in a group. When you hit an NPC or creature with an enchanted arrow or thrown weapon, the enchantment is cast and the arrow/weapon is destroyed. Non-enchanted arrows & thrown weapons have a chance of being placed in the target npc/creature's inventory when they hit the target. And again, whenever you make any enchantment, the soul gem is destroyed.

quote:
----------
Can I enchant disposable items that allready have magical or alchemic properties? For instance could I enchant a thrown potion of explody goodness with a use once enchantment of paralysing happiness?
----------

Potions cannot be thrown. The only way a potion can be used is to consume it. However, most of the spell effects available in ingredients are also in spells that you can learn, and therefore you can use those effects when you enchant items. So if you learn a spell that has a poison effect in it, you can enchant a sword with a cast when strikes poison effect. Same for paralysis"

"quote:
----------
Originally posted by orochi:
I am saddend to hear that conjured items wont be enchatable, IMHO it would have added an interesting dynamic to enchantment...
----------

I don't understand -- you only have them for the duration of the spell anyway (usually about a minute by default, although you could make longer/shorter spells in-game if you wanted), and they're already enchanted. If you want to use a different enchantment on a weapon, enchant a different weapon. Or modify the bound weapon's enchantment in the editor.

quote:
----------
Can I counter balance enchantments with negative effects the way you did in daggerfall. For instance could I make a sword that sapped a little bit of mana everytime it struck, so that it could make a more potent attack.
----------

Not really -- you could make a sword that grabbed magicka from the target, but it wouldn't be added to the sword's damage ability. You could put an absorb magicka spell effect in the enchantment, and then your PC will absorb the magicka from the target. The enchantment could also enhance your player's strength and/or skill with that type of weapon, and that would make your character more capable of doing damage with the weapon. You could also put a "disintigrate armor" effect on the weapon, which basically damages the armor reducing its effectiveness. There's a lot of options.

quote:
----------
Ok, can I enchant thrown items so that they will return to me, or always be available for reclaiming? For instance, Im not going to want to use the soul of a daedra lord to give an arrow that I have a 60% chance of never seeing again every time I use, a cast when strikes enchantment.
----------

The only way you can make arrows and thrown items always return to you is if you do two things: 1. change the game setting that governs the probability to 100%, and 2. never miss your target. Arrows & thrown items that don't hit their intended NPC/creature target are -always- lost. And enchanted arrows and thrown items are also -always- lost, regardless of that probability -- the enchantment going off on contact with the target destroys the arrow/thrown weapon.

quote:
----------
Can I enchant something with a cast when struck effect? For instance, say I want to make some enchanted armor that automaticaly teleports me if I am struck. Furthermore, can I put contingencies on such an enchantement. Like, teleport when I am struck by a telling blow, poison, or paralasys, but not otherwise.
----------

No, no "cast when struck" enchantment type. You could script something like that, though.

quote:
----------
Ok, heres a stickier one. What about enchanting something with a soul trap spell? Say I do run across one of these ever so rare gems capable of making a, cast while worn, item. Could I use it to make a talisman that automaticaly absorbs the souls of slain creatures into any unpopulated soul gems in my immediate inventory (as opposed to ones I have hidden away in a bag or something)?
----------

Soul trap works like this: 1. you cast Soul Trap on a creature. 2. while the Soul Trap is still in effect, you kill the creature. 3. If you have an empty soul gem with a large enough capacity, the creature's soul is placed in the soul trap.

You can definitely create an enchantment that includes Soul Trap. You could even have a ranged Soul Trap spell with an area effect that lasts for 60 seconds, and have a poison effect in the same spell that does 20 points of damage per second for 30 seconds, and you'd most likely kill and trap every creature in the area, as long as you had enough empty soul gems with large enough capacity. It'd be an expensive spell, but you could do it.

quote:
----------
Ok, about bows, and any other items that may serve as a means of delivery for secondary items. Can I enchant them with a "cast when used" spell. For instance, something that would drain the soul gem the same way a cast when strikes enchantment would, only it would make the arrow fly more true, faster, or with more force. Could I enchant a pair of gloves to do something similar for thrown items? Could I enchant items so that they effect your attack regaurdless of weapon used? For instance, could I make a ring that added poison to any melee attack made?
----------

No. You can't have one spell affect an unrelated item, except that your enchanted ring could fortify your weapon/armor skill, for example. That'll make you more likely to successfully strike and damage your opponents. But your ring cannot increase the magnitude of a fire damage effect on an enchanted arrow, for example.

quote:
----------
What about items enchanted to conjure other items. For instance, could I create a ring, that while worn, conjured a daedric katana, or a vest that conjured armor?
----------

Yes. If it's constant effect though, it'd be REALLY expensive to make the enchantment.

quote:
----------
One more general question about enchanted items, is there a way to recharge them directly with your own mana, with perhaps a spell of sorts?
----------

No. You have to have a populated soul gem in order to recharge enchanted items quickly. Otherwise, you just have to wait, and the charge will come back over time.

quote:
----------
Ok a couple non enchantment question. What is the relationship between action/recovery and wait time? I would assume that it would be determined by speed and endurance (when recovering from a blow). If I have a dagger in one hand, can I use the other to throw items without having to re-equipt? While recovering from an attack with the dagger hand could I throw with the other hand?
----------

There's no dual-wielding at all. But there are hot buttons to cycle between your weapons, and between your spells, so you can switch quickly."

"You enchant the ARROWS to do poison damage when strikes. The bow doesn't have anything to do with it. Your Marksman skill will dictate how successful and how much damage your arrow strike does, not counting any enchantment on the arrows."

"There may be a few big, bad arse cats you gotta take on throughout the duration of the game within quests and such. I wouldnt exactly call any of them BOSSES, but they can probably be considered something similar."

"All races can become vampires. It'll be harder for some, due to disease resistance, but no race is 100% resistant to disease. Your Argonian vampire fantasies can still come true."

"everything new that is added also has a possiblity of breaking something. fixing that bug could cause something else not to work. then when all thats fixed it has to be tested. now the game wont come out till summer. then theres not enough memory to fit in the xbox. now the game wont come out until fall. how bout we just fix whats already in the game instead? believe me - there are PLENTY of quests. it took me a week just to play through one small section."

"Cast when equipped/worn is called "Constant Effect". You can make Constant Effect enchantments, but you need an incredibly powerful soul to do it (as in, only the most powerful creatures in the game will do). Good luck. The soul gem good enough to hold such a soul is very rare and very expensive. You might be able to find one that's already populated, but it'll be even MORE expensive.

Anyway, Constant Effect enchantments don't use charge at all. They're just always on, as long as you have the piece of clothing/jewelry/armor equipped. So you can see how incredibly powerful these things can be. That's why they're so rare and so tough to make.

Enchantments ONLY fail to cast if there's not enough charge (which isn't applicable for Constant Effect enchantments). The condition of the item you enchant has no bearing on the success or quality of the enchanting, but as with all valuable weapons & armor, make sure you keep them in good repair so they don't fail you at a crucial moment.

You can find Armorer tools at Armorer and other shops all over the place, and buy repair services too.

Soul Trap -only- works on creatures. If a creature reflects your soul trap spell, it won't have any effect. Also if you cast soul trap against an NPC, it will have no effect."

"quote:
----------
Originally posted by ManaUser:
Cast when used works alot like casting a spell yourself, only the spell you put in uses the soulgem's magic points instead of yours. It would have charges equel to it's magic points divided by the cost of whatever the effect(s) you pick.
----------

And, there's no skill roll involved, so you don't have to be skilled in magic to cast an enchantment.

quote:
----------
With a constant effect. You need a soul gem worth X times the cost of the effect(s). I donno what X is but it must be fairly high if only a very powerful creature can supply the needed points.
----------

One thing to note as well -- a creature's "soul" value is not the same as the amount of magical charge that you'll get when you create an enchantment. There's a game setting that's used as a multiple in order to determine what the available charge will be. So if you have a "150" soul, you won't necessarily get a 150 charge, depending on what the multiplier is set to. (I'm not going to say what it is because it could change before the game ships).

quote:
----------
Cast once, I assume works someone the reverse of the above. The soul only needs to be worth the cost of the effects divided by Y. Since an item that can be used once is worth less.
----------

Yes, it's much cheaper to make a cast once enchantment. Also, cast once items don't depend on a charge, since they're only cast once. The only restriction is, the cost in spell points of the enchantment effects you choose has to be less than or equal to what the charge would be. For example, if a particular soul allowed you 200 magic points, you could not create a cast once enchantment that used 210 spell points. The user interface wouldn't let you.

The MONETARY cost of the enchantment is calculated similarly to what you describe, though (if you buy enchanting services).

Remember also that cast once enchantments destroy the enchanted item when you use them."

"As far as comparing graphics goes, I suggest that when the game comes out, you play it for a while. Explore, see what there is to see, watch a few sunsets, etc., and THEN come back and tell us what you think. The screenshots we've provided do not represent everything there is to be seen in the game."

"There are no proximity mines, which is basically what you're describing.
There are three target types for spells:

Ranged spells - you cast a fireball/projectile at your intended victim

Touch spells - the target has to be right in front of you, and within your reach

Self-targeted spells - the spell affects the caster

You could use the editor to create objects that behaved in this fashion, though."

"I currently (at home) play it on...
Dell P4 1.5
512 RAM
Gf3 video
SBLive sound
4point surround sound
19" monitor
1024x768 res

Plays great!"

"Gotta disagree with you there. Hand-to-Hand is, if anything, a bit overpowered right now in my opinion. Hardly useless."

"we dont use a terrain generator- its all done by hand. kathode was right by saying its just an unformed landmass underwater. and yes, we use a brush to pull up the vertices. the larger the brush, the longer it takes. it is timeconsuming to do a large land mass - it took months to create all the mountains and valleys and doing all of tameriel would be a fairly huge undertaking, i would think. it all depends on your level of patience.

i would not recommend using geometry to create a landmass for the simple fact that it is already there. why have duplicate polygons?
i hope this clears things up for you "

"its currently around 75- i cant say how much of that is landscape ie, the actual ground. there are thousands of objects in the world so i would think that would take up alot more space than just the landscape"

"Yep."

"Nope.

It was a 'yep' to, is there wind in the game. Sand/ash storms. "

"Without going into details that are irrelevant at this point, it was written back when Morrowind was planned for the 2001 holiday season, and the Xbox version of Europe was going to come out 5-6 months after that because of the European release date for Xbox.
All of that went out the window when we changed the release date to spring of this year.

Everyone take a deep breath. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming."

"We can either upgrade to a new version of the software that runs this forum, or scrap this forum entirely and start all over with new program that does more cool stuff, but loses everything here (insert Impy's scream here)."

"Vampire=yes
Werewolf=no"

"*Puffs up with indignation* NPC's and the player do too breathe!

And no, you don't have to follow a god to receive blessings. The Dunmer are rather more practical about these sorts of things. For a modest donation at any temple, you can receive a blessing or a cure. Sure is handy when you get that nasty boil on your... yeah, well anyways. However, if you do wish to be the church going type, the donation is considerably less
There are some rumors in Morrowind that a certain god wants all the beings as his children...
So, some deities may hold your cards. Or your lifeline, or whatever.

Respectfully,
Mav"

"while you may be totally braindead (or not) you will not find the plug no matter how long you look it will ship with or after the game. i think with, but dont hold me to that. at any rate, you cant download it yet."

"it has a help section, which ive never actually used, and there are devs on this thread frequently who are not too snotty to answer questions.

its quite simply the best editor ive used - drag and drop format. theres a snap to grid toggle to help align the pieces. i think theres still a movie floating around where todd howard MRBIGPROJECTLEADGUYWHOIHAVETOBENICETOCUZHEJUST
BOUGHTUSPIZZA (tm) did a little horse and pony show about using it."

"No. Not unless you enchanted your pants "

"Sorry. I got my 4s and 3s and 2s mixed up and forgot what I was talking about. The effect was done to show off the GF4. I should work on a GF3. I've only ever seen it run on a GF4 here and at NVIDIA. It won't work on a GF2. In an effort to get all of that out in as few words as possible, I muffed it."

"It's also cool to be under the water looking up at what's above you.
It's ever more cool to be under the water looking up at what's above you and then suddenly be attacked from behind by a Slaughterfish."

"There are a number of screenshots with the non-GeForce3/4 water in them. Go to http://www.elderscrolls.com, you'll find them. Basically it's an animated translucent texture, and it looks pretty good."

"Despite my goof on the other forum, GeForce4 rules, and I am going to buy one to play Morrowind (and everything else) at home.
Speed is speed, and the presentation they gave at the GeForce4 launch convinced me I want a GF4.

Now if only they had included a presentation on how to convince my wife to cough up the dough...."

"Any flame-based light you're carrying will go out if you get too deep in the water, accompanied by a nice "whoosh" sound."

"You can only cast self-targeted spells when you're underwater. Spell projectiles cast at the water from above will collide with the water's surface.
[edit] -- you can also cast touch spells underwater."

"They'll LOOK the same, but when you hit them there's a hit animation and a blood effect."

"When you get the game load up the editor. Go to the Classes window, and change the name from "Scout" to "Ranger". Save out a plug-in. Whenever you run the game, make sure you choose to load your plug-in, and voila -- no no Scouts, only Rangers."

"It is a daedric mace. The daedric axe looks different. Look closely; you can see one of the bladed parts edge-on towards you."

"It's a cliffracer."

"Personally, I think the default time scale feels right. The days and nights are neither too short nor too long. We messed around with it quite a bit to get what felt best. "

"There is an option to invert the mouse Y axis."

"Door bashing would completely invalidate the Security skill. It's all people would use to open locked doors. Therefore it's not in. If you don't want to work on your Security skill, there are plenty of Unlock scrolls around. If you don't want to use those, and you can't find a key for the lock, then your character simply will not be able to get past the lock.

We can't do anything about you not wanting to practice Security or use scrolls, but we're also not going to put essential quest items/destinations behind doors without keys, so that's not that big an issue anyway.

You probably want to work on your Security skill anyway, even if you don't make it a major or minor skill. There are lots and lots of lockpicks of varying quality throughout the game. And if you're bashing a door down, you're probably intending to steal what's inside anyway, right?"

"Well, chances are the door isn't locked. If it is, there's either a key around, or you can use a scroll or try to pick the lock, or just pick some unlocked castle to plunder."

"There are separate casting animations for touch, range, and self-targeted spells."

"Hah! this is one of those difficult things again. The bow is a mix of MORPHING and bone structure. And each bow is animated individually to sync with the character drawing animation. If we release a MAX file, all you would have to do is make sure you match everything up and all will work well. However, I'm not sure if we will be allowed to do that, (insert legal yada yada here)."

"the insides are separate cells, so you could have a tiny outside and a giant inside. they are not automatically generated, so you could make a house of wood, and have the inside be a lava cave, for example, or even have separate rooms in one house be different."

"quote:
---------------
Originally posted by MrBeAr:
But what about your involvement with a particular guild? If there are a totalt of 200-300 quests in MW, maybe only 20 of these will be given by f.ex. the mage guild.
---------------

First, there are more than 300 quests.

quote:
---------------
Does this imply that you will move quicker through the ranks in the MW mage guild (after completion of all 20 quests you`d be a grandmaster)? What about after those 20 quests, will the archmagister just say that the guild has no further use of your services, thus forcing you to join another guild to get more guild quests?
---------------

You move up the ranks faster. What happens at the end of a faction is not the same for every faction.

quote:
---------------
Could it be that even though there is no longer an infinite number of randomly generated quests, there might still be some random variable applied to the quests?
---------------

There was originally a feature kind of like this, but it didn't work out. There is no randomness to the quests at all. In the future, I'd like to move to a hybrid system with hand-crafted quest as well as what I would call "reactive" quests which are generated based on the state of the world or the way you interact with NPCs. Not quite the same thing (and much harder on the programmers), but this second type of quest would never run out.

quote:
---------------
The alternative to reusable quests, would be "cyclic" quests that never ended, a good example would be caravans that need protection on their way back and forth between Vivec and the northeast of the Island where the netch breeders live.
---------------

Quests that go from state 1 to state 2 to state 3 and back to state 1 are possible with some scripting, but not easy. You can even keep a "counter" of how many times you've run through the quest and place different enemies that way. By the time I figured out how to do these in Morrowind, it was too late to add any. There are a few wierd things you'll need to be aware of. Remind me a few weeks after the game hits the shelves and I'll see about explaining how to do it."

"yes"

"You can't bash down doors. But there are plenty of lockpicking tools around, plus scrolls and enchanted items that'll open locks for those not skilled with a lockpick, and Magic users can learn the Open spell as well. So there are plenty of ways for all classes to get past locked doors."

"Your alchemy skill most certainly affects the success or failure of potion making. Other things that affect the success or failure of potion making is the number of ingredients with matching effects and the quality of the alchemical equipment you're using.

Successfully making a potion will give your alchemy skill a decent sized boost.

Eating ingredients will give your alchemy skill a much smaller boost.

Each ingredient can have up to four magic effects. When you get info about an ingredient, you can see more of the effects if your alchemy skill is higher. This will help you make potions because it'll be easier for you to select ingredients with matching effects. But even if you know what all the ingredient effects are from a site like the Codex, if your alchemy skill is low you'll still fail at potion making more than you'll succeed."

"It depends how you set it up in the editor. Marking it as Spear or Blunt simply indicates which skill will be checked/increased as you use the weapon and how the character holds it. You separately set the min & max damage range for the three attack types, chop, slash, and thrust.
So you could make your tipped staff primarily a blunt weapon, but set the max thrust attack damage high to account for the tip."

"We have already published an estimated release date. Spring 2002. No sarcasm here, but that's all we've released. It can be fun to speculate on what the exact date will be, but until Bethesda Softworks actually says the game is coming out on a particular date, you should view any release date you see -- even on retail websites -- as a guess."

"To be fair, I never said I thought it would be weak. I just didn't think it'd come in quite so handy. Not being much of a spellcaster, when I do get to play with magic, I frequently look for the biggest flash, and the most bang for my buck...

This was actually a really tough question to answer, since over the past few weeks I've repeatedly come across spells that have made me stop and say "wow, that's really cool! I can't believe I haven't been using this all along!" (Of course, when I actually say it, it sounds far more "macho" and "hip""

"I thought they should use the marsh itself as their primary musical instrument like the Baka Forest People use rivers. And play lots of odd percussion instruments like water drums and bohdans and djimbes and udus. And make slowed-down bird-call noises.
I wanted the Khajiit to be arrhythmic jazz musicians."

"I'm a dev but not a FAQ, and the Khajiit do swipe with their claws, like dalin said. So do Argonians. "

"I just played around with this yesterday. Here's the deal:

1) The Dunmer aren't real keen on summoning daedra to do your bidding. Summoning is one of those bad things that it's better not to talk about. Like your crazy uncle.
2) Guards in towns are trained to kill any monsters that enter town. And their friends.
3) When you summon a creature, he's your friend.
4) Don't summon creatures in town. "

"1) Some big, some small. That's the honest answer. You can run through some in a couple minutes; others will take you hours to find all the good stuff we've hidden away.
2) Look for NPCs to give you directions on how to get to places based on landmarks. Some landmarks will be marked on your world map by NPCs to make navigation easier. And with the weather, it is easy to get lost, even with the best directions. That's not a bad thing, though. You never know what you might find when you're heading completely the wrong way."

"I'm playing a healer right now! I do not fight unless attacked, and then I pull out my ol hand to hand and watch the little rodents of unusual size scamper away...
keep in mind though, that once their fatigue has regenerated, they will not have taken kindly to their beating and come run after you! It is possible to escape - if you pour a lot of points into speed (which I do). Sometimes, though, I reason that even a healer needs to eat and I say a little prayer of thanks as I finish the beast. Alchemy is one of the sources of income for a lowly healer that does not wish to skulk about peoples houses or pick pocket them
And there can never be too many restore health or fatigue potions...no there can't.
Ah, mother's milk to the unarmored, poverty stricken pilgrim.
Respectfully,
Mav"

"Nope. You cannot drop or barter summoned weapons or armor. You can unequip them and switch to different equipment, but they'll stay in your inventory until the spell expires."

"No, they're not translucent, but they are daedric, and daedric weapons are very rare so they have a unique look to them anyway, and they are enchanted, so they have a visual enchanting effect on them as well.

But if you happened to obtain a daedric dagger and put your own enchantment on it, it would be pretty much indistinguishable from a summoned dagger (assuming the enchantment was the same)."

"There's a "Get Info" button in the file selection screen in the editor. Press it and you get a list of all the things added & altered, and you can even bring up statistics on item counts & stuff like that. And, you can get that info without actually loading the file into the editor."

"OK, each ingredient can have UP to 4 effects. Just like spells and enchantments can have up to 8 effects. Sorry I wasn't clearer in the article "

"Good job Locklear
That "Always Succeeds" checkbox is indeed used for Lesser Powers. Regular powers are a different choice in the "Type" dropdown box to the left. The difference is, regular powers can only be cast once in a 24 hour period, while lesser powers can be cast any time you want (as long as you have enough magicka). With both types of powers, assuming you have enough magicka you never fail to cast them.

BWS2K:

1. As soon as a summoned creature dies, it is returned to Oblivion, so you don't have a corpse to loot. You can soul trap summoned creatures though, very handy And as others mentioned, the summoning spells have a duration -- once the spell expires or the creature dies, the creature goes away.

2. Argonians and Khajiit can't wear full, face-covering helmets, but they can wear hats and partial helmets. Neither race can wear any kind of shoes or boots.

3. That'd be telling!

4. Ditto

5. I'm not sure what the respawn period is by default, but you can configure it in the editor. I would think that speeding up the timescale would affect respawning, because respawning is based on the passage of time. If you find a plant that has ANY spell effect, you haven't learned the effect -- the only way you can make use of ingredient effects is by making and consuming potions, or by eating ingredients. Also, potions and ingredients can only cast their effects on you -- they're all "self"-targeted spells. So you couldn't use ingredients or potions to affect others (although if you found an ingredient with a Reflect effect, spells cast against you would have a chance of being reflected back at the caster.)

6. Again I'm not sure what the respawn rate is. Not every creature/NPC will respawn though. There could be dungeons that once you wipe clean, stay empty. It all depends how the designers set things up. Dungeons do indeed have names. As to the rest, there's a map and that's all I'm going to say about that.

7. You can make your own birthsigns in the editor.

8. Not sure about range, but the success or failure and effectiveness of the strike is based on your skill.

9. Telekinesis is not levitation. It simply extends your reach, so you can grab stuff that's farther away than usual. A handy skill for a thief! This only applies to picking things up. It won't extend your combat reach.

10. Just put an enchantment on the weapon that contains an "absorb health" effect.

11. Guards will come after you if they are alerted by the NPC you get into combat with. If you're in the middle of a town with guards everywhere, you'll probably get in trouble. But if you're out in the countryside with nobody else around but your victim, nobody will ever know. How long NPC's and creatures stay unconcsious depends on how long it takes for their "fatigue" level to raise back up to the point where they can stand again.

12. You click on the plant, and a window comes up listing the ingredient(s) you can take from the plant. You can then get info about each ingredient, and how many of the ingredient's effects you see depends on your alchemy skill.

13. Not going to say much about shadows. "

"No -- the only way for you to learn spell effects is for an NPC to teach them to you, either by you paying them or as quest rewards.
The effects provided by ingredients can ONLY be used in potions. You haven't learned the effects for your own casting -- all you learn with a high alchemy skill is what the ingredients themselves can do."

"You only have one Mark. When you cast Mark, it places the mark where you're standing, and Recall will take you back there.
However, you could definitely script some more interesting behaviors in the editor based on game objects, locations, etc."

"Yeah, it's there forever until you cast it again."

"Identical items stack in your inventory window (there's a little number next to the icon that shows you how many you have). There are also buttons that let you show everything or just items of particular types."