Morrowind and Oblivion

[Azreal]

The version of the game reviewed here is The Cave of Woe 1.3b Edition, released on the 30th December, 2002. This is the intro, taken straight out of the readme file that comes in the archive :

Explore the haunted caverns of Lorogh and Lagorn. Retrieve three lost weapons of legendary power. Escape with your life! To begin this adventure, visit the Razor Hole in Balmora and search for a clue. The Cave of Woe is a challenging dungeon adventure suitable for level 8 - 12 characters.

Features

- Type : medium-sized interior dungeon
- Landscape : na
- Buildings : na
- Rooms : 9
- NPC's : na
- Monsters : 25
- Items : many
- Loot : fairly abundant
- New Content : three books; various parchments; ghost; modification; new weapons
- Best Feature(s) : three "artifact" weapons; new books
- Helpful Skill(s) : thief or mage
- Dungeon Location : near Seyda Neen; go to the Razor Hole in Balmora to find the clue

The Cave of Woe is a mod for The Elder Scrolls 3 : Morrowind, and comes in the form of a .zip file that contains the .esp file together with a readme file containing some of the information shown above.

first impressions

Loading is a piece of cake with no loading errors. As with Prophesy of The Lost Heir, Cave of Woe starts with a message, but in a slightly different context - you have to find it. The message explains the quest, and this message eventually leads you to some large caves where the journey begins. Simple, straightforward and to the point. Good start.

onto the game..

The action begins at the entrance to an expanded cave system within the main cave. You've been directed here by the message you found, and now another message gives further details. This type of quest evolution turns out to be quite simple and effective as I'll go onto explain in the conclusion. As stated in the info, there is plenty of treasure to be had and monsters to slay, and all within the scope of a character whose abilities are those that the game is aimed at, i.e. it is just about right for level 8 to 12 characters. The caverns are in keeping with the rest of the original cave, suitably stocked with items, and have just the right amount of atmosphere. Acquiring the weapons of power results in a feeling of achievement, like all quests, so the mod achieves what it sets out to do.

conclusion..

This is a good mod, with a reasonable amount of gameplay for the novice that achieves a high satisfaction value. What I find most attractive about this mod is it's simplicity, not in gameplay terms, but in technical terms. A believable, playable mod has been constructed from nothing more than scenery, creatures and miscellaneous items. It's a quest that even the most novice modder could knock-up easily, with no complex dialog, few NPC's that need to be involved and no scripting. I would recommend it to novice modders as a training aid to simple, but effective modding.


df rating.. 90%
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Dave Foster

[r2d2]

for a small game, it's very difinately a good one. it only took me a few hours to complete but it gave plenty of satisfaction.

and i agree that it's very simple in construction - i think i could probably write it if i knew how to use the cs