1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 THE ELDER SCROLLS 3: MORROWIND GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION: Xbox Version Glitch/DDE FAQ Version 0.5 Copyright 2005 by Amarth (amarth9284@gmail.com) ================= TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= A. Introduction B. Revisions C. Contact Info. D. Glitches, DDEs, Crashes, and Loading Problems E. Disk Drives -1. Samsung -2. Phillips -3. Thompson F. Prevention -1. Saving Your Game -2. Close Doors Behind You -3. Take only what you need -4. Watch that File Size -5. Delete Unwanted Items -6. Dispose of Dead Bodies -7. Watch How Much You Carry -8. Don't Have Too Many Morrowind Saves -9. Perma-spells (Glitch Exploiting) G. Known Glitches -1. Trueflame's Flame -2. Quarra Clan Raw Materials Glitch -3. EEC Spriggans -4. Temple Informant -5. Telvanni Advancement Glitch -6. Sharn gra-Muzgob Disappearance -7. Moving/Disappearing Silt Striders -8. Legion Duel Dialog Glitch -9. Ahnassi Disappearance Glitch H. Legal Junk =============== A. Introduction =============== I'm writing this FAQ to help those playing Morrowind to avoid those glitches and crashes in the game. Bethesda may have fixed many of the glitches that where on the original version, but there are still some problems. Keep in mind that there isn't any real way to avoid glitches all of the time. No matter how hard you may try, you will get a: Dirty Disk Error, Freeze, etc. You may not be able to stop these problems entirely, but you can prevent them from happening as much as they can later in the game. I hope this guide helps you avoid problems while playing Morrowind. ============ B. Revisions ============ April 1st, 2005: just started putting this faqs together. June 29th, 2005: Been working on a new website and getting money for expenses. I finally decided to sit down and get this thing updated. I have some stuff to add that people sent me through e-mail. July 12, 2005: More detail on the Legion Duel Glitch and added the Disappearing Ahnassi Glitch. August 27, 2005: Added some info to the Legion Duel Dialog Glitch. I also removed the "to be confirmed" or whatever from the Legion Duel Dialog Glitch because I remember that this also happened to my brother. I have other stuff I'm may add later, but I'm not sure if I'll add it. August 29, 2005: Missed an e-mail with some info for the "Sharn gra-Muzgob Disappearance" glitch. Figured I'd hurry and add it now. ========== C. Contact ========== If you need to contact me, feel free to e-mail me at: amarth9284@gmail.com ================================================ D. GLITCHES, DDEs, Crashes, AND LOADING PROBLEMS ================================================ Morrowind has always had problems with glitches and DDEs. Luckily, many problems have been fixed in the GOTY edition of Morrowind. There are more than one type of glitch that you can encounter in the game. There are glitches, like the flame on the sword Trueflame appearing incorrectly while playing as certain Races and Genders. There are Loading Problems like entering a house to find yourself standing in and endless void or an entire city disappearing leaving only doors behind. Then, there are the most common and dreaded of all, the DDE (Dirty Disk Error). You know when you get a DDE when your playing Morrowind, the screen turns black, and you get a message saying that the disk is dirty and you should clean it. Another problem is your game Crashing, which appears to happen without warning. Lastly, a problem I've had before is things not loading correctly. You may enter a house where a section is missing or even nothing loading at all (an empty void). One thing you may run into is, after you pick up an item, the game will automatically save on it's own and then give you the Dirty Disk Error. I believe this is a safety the Developers have added for the GOTY edition. The save the game makes will be named "Restore" and, when loaded, will take you right back to the point just before you picked up the item. You may also notice that the game will remove any corpses that you have left behind. Please read F6 on this Faq as to why the bodies where removed. ============== E. Disk Drives ============== Disk Drives have been pointed at in the past for problems with Morrowind. When someone goes on the message board and says their Xbox will not read Morrowind or their game randomly crashes, people ask them if they have a Thompson Disk Drive...or they say they probably have a Thompson Disk Drive. The brand of disk drive in an Xbox is one subject people have debated on. The Xbox comes with 1 of 3 different disk drives: Samsung, Phillips, or Thompson. Your likely to hear mostly about Samsung and Thompson disk drives. If you search around on the internet, you can find websites that will show you pictures to help you determine with 100% accuracy which drive you have. 1. SAMSUNG: Samsung is considered the best disk drive. Many people have reported to experienced little to no problems with this drive. If you have a Samsung Disk Drive, pat yourself on the back because you got the best of the best. A Samsung Drive is easy to recognize because it has two small holes in the tray where you place the CD. 2. Phillips: Phillips is considered the second best. If you have a Phillips, don't sweat. Like Samsung, there haven't been too many problems. I personally have a Phillips Disk Drive and my Xbox has been working just fine. The disk tray for the Phillips disk drive has an upside down key-hole shaped opening. 3. Thompson: When many people hear Thompson, people usually start talking about how bad it is. There are some out there that say they have a working Thompson that hasn't failed them. For those with a working Thompson Disk Drive, you should feel very lucky! I've heard reports from people's Xboxes not reading disks, scratching disks, etc. I had a Thompson drive in my first Xbox. Over time, I had problems getting it to read Morrowind. I'd turn my Xbox on and I'd have to eject the CD and put it back in until it read properly. If this is happening, consider getting a new XBox or getting it repaired. Eventually, my old Xbox stopped reading several of my games and then all CDs. If you know your way around hardware, you can usually find stores online that will sell you just the drive. The disk tray for the Thompson disk drive has a smooth opening in the disk tray. The opening is shaped much like an arched doorway. ============= F. Prevention ============= The best way to avoid Crashes and Dirty Disk Errors is to prevent them from happening. Following these steps from the very beginning! These steps can help reduce the number of DDEs later on down the road. ---1. SAVING YOUR GAME:--- This is one step that is important to remember. NEVER save over an old save! The more you save over a save, the greater the risk of a Dirty Disk Error to happen. The effects of saving over an old save usually don't show until later in the game. Just remember to delete the old save and save your game as a new save. You should also have more than one save, so you'll always have a backup. I like having 3 saves for one character. I'll do some quests and make a #1 save. I'll do some more quests and make a #2 save and so on. Also, disable the Autosave feature. This can be disabled in the Options Menu. You want it disabled for the same reason that I've mention above. ---2. CLOSE DOORS BEHIND YOU:--- Hey, it's not just the polite thing to do, this also helps in reducing DDEs. If you go about a tomb and leave the doors open, the game has to remember that the doors in there where left open. If you close all the doors behind you, it helps reduce problems in the future. ---3. TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED--- In Morrowind, there are tons of stuff lying around that you could just run up and take. You may be tempted to, I know I was, but leave it be if you don't need it. If you pick up one item within a Cell (When you get a loading screen, then you know your entering a cell such as a house) you may as well take everything. If everything is left as is, the game doesn't have to remember that you moved stuff around. If things are moved around, the game has to remember it and that can increase DDEs. Hey, don't this keep you from taking things you want! If you see something you want, feel free to take it...unless a guard is nearby. ---4. WATCH THAT FILE SIZE:--- The file size of your game can increase glitches, DDEs, etc. Most people will suggest keeping the size around 200 blocks. The steps you are reading in this section of the guild will help reduce the file size and that helps reduce problems later on down the road. ---5. DELETE UNWANTED ITEMS:--- I know sometimes when you find some common items, you want to sell them and make some money. I suggest selling expensive items and not common items. If you have some common items like: Bowls, Cups, Cloths, weak armor, etc., you should delete it. I know that someone is actually going to look around for a delete button in the game so I'll say don't bother. To delete an item, dump the unwanted item on a dead NPC/Creature, leave the area (Go somewhere until you get a loading screen), and then sleep for 3 days. When you return to where the body was, it will be gone and everything that it had stored on it with it. This way, the game doesn't have to keep track of those items anymore and will reduce your chances of Glitches/DDEs later on. ---6. DISPOSE OF DEAD BODIES:--- To put it simply, a lot of dead bodies lying around are bad. If there are only a dozen or so, it's okay for now. If there are several dozen, get rid of them. You can ether bring up the inventory of the dead body and press the dispose of corpse button, or just sleep for 3 days. ---7. WATCH HOW MUCH YOU CARRY:--- If your carrying a natural amount of items, you don't really need to worry. For those like myself, who like using the Perma-Feather custom spell to help you carry more, you should read this. If your carrying a lot of times, 2000 pounds and up, you should REALLY drop some of that stuff off or get rid of it. I have experiences many crashes and DDEs when carrying too much stuff. ---8. DON'T HAVE TOO MANY MORROWIND SAVES:--- Having 10-15 Morrowind Saves is okay, but if you have 30 and above, I'd suggest getting rid of some. I had about 40+ saves and often had trouble loading everything in homes and loading entire villages. Sometimes, I'd enter a home only to find myself standing in an endly void. Sometimes, an entire village would be gone. If you experience these rarely, don't sweat about it. However, when I had a bunch of saves on my XBox, I got these problems several times in an hour. This problem has been fairly new to me and I've looked into it and it appears to be true. You can look into this if you want, but I'd suggest keeping the number of saves down to about 15 or so. ---9. Perma-spells (Glitch Exploiting) For those who like using spells to make permanent effects, this can become a thorn in your back if your not careful. For those who may not know what a perma-spell is, it's a spell that, when cast at the ground, has it's effects last permanently. For example, my favorite perma-spell: Fortify Strength 0pts for 1 second on target + Feather 100pts for 1 second on self Cast that directly at the ground for the effects to be permanent What the above spell does is take 100 pounds off your weight. This allows you to carry much more than you can normally carry. This can be quite useful, but has some risks. I have noticed that when I had Perma-Feather to help carry 10,000+ pounds of stuff, my game locked up on loading screens. After removing the perma-feather effects from my character, the amount of crashes dropped drastically. To remove a permanent effect, like perma-feather, you will need Hercine's Ring. To get Hercine's Ring, just follow through with the Bloodmoon main quest and you will get it at the end. Hercines ring turns you into a werewolf and removes a few spell effects. I noticed, when my character transforms back into his humanoid form, the perma-feather effect is removed. This may also work on other perma-spells, but I haven't tested it fully. ================= G. Known Glitches ================= There are a few glitches in the game that are more well known that others. If I missed one, please tell me so I can put it up (Of course, I'll give credit to those who help out). ---1. TRUEFLAME'S FLAME:--- Trueflame is a scimitar you can get in the Tribunal Expansion. It's the only weapon in the game that has a flame buring on the blade, which doubles as a torch! However, some Races/Genders show the flame's position incorrectly. The flame should be on the blade, but for some, the flame shoots out ahead of the blade in 3rd person view. Here is a list of those that it happens too: -Male Nords -Possibly Orcs (If there are other Races/Genders that this happens to, please e-mail me at amarth9284@gmail.com) ---2. QUARRA CLAN RAW MATERIALS GLITCH:--- There is a quest for the Quarra Vampire Clan to collect some Raw Materials. When you get this quest, the topic about Raw Materials ether doesn't appear or appears and then disappears from the topic list. There appears to be no way around this glitch. ---3. EEC SPRIGGANS:--- There is a quest for the East Empire Company where you have to kill some Spriggans that are getting too close to Raven Rock. Sometimes, they don't appear to spawn where they should be, if they do at all. If you can't seem to find them all, just search everywhere nearby the town or reload a previous save. (Anyway, I've heard on the boards that there are 4 specific spriggans that need to die to complete the quest. Killing the first 3 in the wrong order will prevent the 4th from spawning (other spriggans spawn as a part of the quest, but aren't necessary and look just like the other ones). The first one is straight east from where you start the quest. After you kill that one (or sometimes a little before?), a second one spawns near you and attacks. You do NOT want to kill it yet. Look North of the bar nearby for another spriggan and kill that one first. Now you should be free to kill all of the rest in any order you wish and complete the quest.) -Anthony Petre- ---4. TEMPLE INFORMANT:--- There is a quest you get from the Head of the Royal Guard in Mournhold to find a Temple Informant. If you have already finished the Mournhold Main Quest before starting this quest, you will not be able to finish this quest. ---5. TELVANNI ADVANCEMENT GLITCH:--- This is one of the first glitches I've encountered. When you go to get your own Mouth to represent you in Sandrith Mora, you are promoted a rank. If your a wizard, you'll be promoted to Master. If your rank is Master, you will not be able to advance to Archmagister. If your do this chore at Spellwright, you will be promoted to Wizard and will not encounter this annoying glitch. (Said to have been fixed in the GOTY version (Pending Authentication)) -Anthony Petre- ---6. SHARN GRA-MUZGOB DISAPPEARANCE:--- For a Main Quest mission, you have to go and see Sharn gra-Muzgob in the Mages Guild in Balmora. She's on the bottom floor and is the only Orc in the place. She's not suppose to disappear in the game, but sometimes she appears to. What really happened is that she fell through the floor. All NPCs move over time and they move to the right. Some NPCs will fall through the floor, like Silt Striders for example. Suposidly, there is a way to get her, but I haven't confirmed this. Fortify your speed to around 1000 and run towards a corner of the wall. You should go right through it and find yourself outside of the walkable area of the guild house. Levitation may be needed once your through the wall. Hopefully, you can reach Sharn and cast a command humanoid spell strong enough to work on her and a leviate spell on her. After that, you should be able to drag her back. (I've found playing the game about the Sharn Gra-Muzgob Disappearance Glitch. On Xbox (obviously) if you make a save file in the Mage's Guild standing where she should be, then load that file, she will be there (although she has disappeared when I've left the Guild a few times, other times she's remained where she should be). I've heard it works with other NPC's (silt striders, guild guides, boat captains, etc.) but have not yet tried it with them. I've done it with Sharn Gra-Muzgob several times, and it has worked every time.)) (Thanks to Jeff Kurpiewski) ---7. MOVING/DISAPPEARING SILT STRIDERS:--- Like Sharn, some Silt Striders seem to Disappear out of nowhere. This has happened to me before in Ald'Ruhn. All NPCs drift around over time and they move to the right. Sometimes, they will fall through the floor and you can't reach them anymore. (I've found that if you use Command Humanoid on a travel NPC (silt striders, guild guides, boat captains, etc) and then use their service while they're under the effect, they will reset to their original position (instead of following you to the destination like they would if you used a different NPC's travel service). I have not yet confirmed this works if they've moved long distances though.) (Pending Authentication) ---8. Legion Duel Dialog Glitch:--- I remember running into this a while back and was reminded by an e-mail. Supposidly, if you have had "Duel" as a topic in a dialog with another person, it can appear on Varus Vatinius' topic list. You see, to accend to the head of the legion, you have to challenge Varus to an honorable duel to the death. Thing is, this is only suppose to appear later once you have done some quests for him. Apparently, somewhere down the line, you can get the "Duel" topic to appear and challenge him before you even join the guild! Don't think this is good yet! I don't know if you'll advance to the head of the Legion or not, but you will not be able to do any of his quests. (Thanks to Thoughtcast88 for telling me) It appears that this also can happen with Archmage Trebonius (Mages Guild in Vivec). (Thanks to Richard Scinto?) I also got an e-mail from Anthony Farina about this glitch as well. He said that when he ran into this glitch, he was a Knight Protector. After he finished this glitch, he found he was advanced to "Knight of the Garland." Thus, he was only advanced one rank. (Thanks to Anthony Farina for the addictional info) ---9. Ahnassi Disappearance Glitch:--- In case you don't know her, she is the Kajit in the Halfway Tavern of Pelagaid. She is right in front of the staircase up. When you talk to her about the special dialogue topics she has ("Smooth moves", "Share a care", etc.) you'll agree to run a few errands for her. After you do a few, she'll tell you she won't be in the bar anymore, and that she wants to meet you at her house. She gives you a key to her house so you can get in, but sometimes when you do go to her house, she isn't there. She isn't at the bar either. I don't know if you can find her off in a void or not, but you can still finish every other guild without her. Without her, you can't finish her quests, which give you some cool stuff (Redoran Treasury Key, Ebony Shurikens and the location of Elvul's Black Blindfold). -Anthony Farina- ============= H. Legal Junk ============= Please don't copy this Guide and put it up on a website without my permission.