Wednesday 2 July 2003
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Pic of the day: Is it a toad? Is it a frog? Is it the Human Flea? No, it is a screenshot from Morrowind! Jumpy in MorrowindOf course I did not actually get anything done yesterday. I was much too occupied bouncing, leaping and jumping around in Morrowind. After more than a year, Morrowind is still a good game. In fact, it is better than ever. I haven't got the second expansion yet, the arctic / werewolf Bloodmoon; but my current computer is powerful enough to display all the major features of the original game without lagging or going "slide show". I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts ... Most games have a limited time window before the computer evolves too far. Daggerfall and Master of Magic are two of my favorite games that were made for MS-DOS and won't start at all under WinXP. (Right now, I still have them on my drain-bamaged old Toshiba portable. "The junkyard of history" as they say.) Others, like Origin's beautiful Wing Commander series and the Privateer sequel, I abandoned even earlier because on new machines they ran too fast for a human to control (and there was not enough free memory to run a slowdown utility). Anyway, jumping in Morrowind. Among the good ideas from Arena and Daggerfall that got upgraded in Morrowind was the Jump spell. Unlike the magical skills of Alchemy and Enchantment, the Jump spell has largely languished in the shadows. This despite it being featured early in the game in the Tarhiel mini-plot (The Man who Fell from the Sky). Perhaps the sad fate of that young magician turned most players away from magical jumping forever. That would be a shame really. I have made a habit of looking for Hoptoad rings at the magic stores. Galberdil, the lady(?) upstairs in Balmora Mages Guild, usually has them after a while. I am not sure whether there is a minimum level involved (she seems to get more stuff over time, or at least new stuff). Perhaps these rings just are quite rare. I have bought 9-10 of them, and am usually jumping all the way when I am out traveling. It improves my jump skill (and thus also strength) and gives a moderate training in Enchantment (intelligence). And it is fun.
Reading about the different levels of jumping in City of Heroes
(if that game ever gets finished) made me long for something more than
the bouncing of the Hoptoad ring. Since my character had amassed over
40 000 gold, I decided to get an enchantment done. First, I visited all
the Mages Guilds to get Tinur's Hoptoad spell, but in vain. I know it
is out there, and the only pre-defined jump spell; but eventually my
patience gave out, and I added it with the console command Once you have one Jump spell, you can make more variants, or even combine it with other spell effects. Slowfall seems like a good idea ... But I did not go quite that far. I found my exquisite shirt, taken from some over-confident lawless mage I think (but you can also buy them in fine shops - the tailor in Aldruhn under the giant crab shell is pretty good). From Galberdil I bought first a 6000-gold soul gem, as my mysticism skill is still too low to make my own. Looking back at it, I guess the 60 000 gem would have been better, but I did not have that much gold till I started hunting Dremora lords in the Daedric ruins. (Another long story, involving super-charged healing potions.) The shirt would hold a 40-point spell for 10 seconds, or a 30-point spell for 13 seconds. So obviously I took the 40-point spell; after all, the ring of Hoptoad is 20 point for 10 seconds, and I wanted something more impressive. Well, I got that for sure. I put on my shirt before the bridge just outside Balmora, started to walk forward, and invoked my Shirt of Leapfrog. Then I jumped. To my amazement I cleared both of the bridges, and landed so hard I saw red for a moment. In the 10 seconds I made it to the crossroads between Caldera and the Fort. I had also lost a few points of health. Nothing I could not cure with a few uses of Balyna's Belt or a standard Life Ring, but still ... Those extra 20 points sure made a difference. I am glad I did not have a better item to enchant, or I might have been in serious trouble. The under-powered soul gem means I can only leapfrog 1-2 times per game hour. Once I have the skill to collect my own soul gems, there will definitely be a new leapfrog item powered by a Dremora or Winged Twilight at least. Even though I have supercharged potions of Levitation that let me fly at pretty good speed. There's just something about super leaps ... or perhaps that's just me! ^_^ |
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