Peter Strempel
2005-01-25 11:58:01 UTC
Now, this is a big one. A huge mod. Not huge in terms of new areas or
NPCs or the like, but huge in how it impacts your game. If you play with
this mod, life will be different. If it will be better is another
question, in my opinion yes.
Necessities of Morrowind introduces the requirement to eat, drink and
sleep. Simple as that. Unless you are a happy vampire bloodsucker, you
need to ensure a regular supply of water, kwama eggs, bread, cheese and
more, and lay your tired heros head on a pillow now and then.
So, where do you get all that food? NOM offers various sources. The most
simple way is to visit one of the new food merchants, or check with your
favourite Pub, and buy something to eat. The youngling hero might need
to live on bread and rat meat, while the Telvanni councillor should be
able to afford the more elevated meals.
If you are living on a real tight budget, or if you are looking for some
new things to do, you can also cook food yourself. While it is quite
possible to live on raw ingredients like rat and hound meat (uncooked,
YUCK!) like the Ashlanders do, you will find your intestines demanding
something more exquisite. So check with your favourite Pawnbroker to
obtain some cooking gear: Setup a campfire and use your portable grill
to prepare grilled meat from raw meat. Boil corn in a kettle. Roast
ashjams in a fire. Prepare the most exquisite food otherwise only
imported from the mainland. Receipes are learned from books, and a basic
cooking book is readily available for a starter character, just visit
the Balmora bookstore. The more extravagant receipes will be a bit
harder to find.
Each food has a different nutrition value. To satisfy your hunger, you
might need to eat 4-5 pieces of raw rat, or just one bread. After all,
you are not a born Ashlander used to the raw food. As NOM changes the
weight of some ingredients, it's much more convinient to stack up with
cooked or boiled food rather than the quite heavy raw stuff.
You find food merchants and Pubs selling food pretty much anywhere in
the game, unless an area was added by a mod. So unless you go camping in
the Ashlands, you should never run out of food. If you go camping in the
Ashlands, bring your cooking gear and live off the local animals.
To satisfy your thirst you need to drink, obviously. Water is readily
available from new wells or waterbarrels in pretty much any town,
Ashlander camp and more, or just drink from a spring or fountain you
pass by. There are waterskins or bottles to stock you with a reserve of
water. Alcoholic drinks also satisfy thirst, but have some additional
effects. Drinking too much beer and then going on a dungeon romp is
definately no good idea if you are a spellcaster. It might be a very
good idea if you think all you need is a big axe. Alcohol effects last
much longer than the default drinks, which last only 30 seconds or so.
A tired hero needs to rest. At least 6 hours a day. It doesn't matter if
you sleep during day or night, just get your 6 hours rest a day. This is
probably the most heavy impact on gameplay, as you occasionally need to
stop and look for a place to put your head on. A nap in a waterpond of
the Bittercoast won't have much effect, though. You need a bed or a
bedroll. There are portable bedrolls you can carry around and setup a
camp whereever you are. Make a fire with a portable firekit, roast an
ashjam or two, and nap on your portable bedroll. True adventurer life!
Now, what happens if you do not eat, drink or sleep? At first, nothing
too bad. You will receive some penalties, depending on how much you are
deprived from your necessities. Didn't sleep those 6 hours a day? Your
intelligence and willpower suffer slightly. Nothing bad, you can catch
up sleep the next day. Continue this lifestyle for a whole week? Your
intelligence and willpower will suffer badly. Now you really notice
something is going wrong. If you don't eat or drink, your strength and
endurance suffers. If you are just slightly hungry or thirsty, again
nothing serious happens. If you are almost starving, you will notice
this. And you will want to fix it.
So while the general penalties for not satisfying your human demands are
quite minor if you ignore them only temporary, the mod makes sure you
cannot ignore them completely. Just like real life. Didn't sleep or eat
much one day? No problem. Do it several days? You got a problem.
To make life a little easier for the upcoming Nerevarine, NOM adds a
spiffy feature: Tisanes. In short, you can live on drugs if you wish so.
Prepare tisanes to stay awake longer or reduce your demands for food.
Tisanes are prepared from herbs, so like mixing potions you need to
ensure a constant supply of certain herbs, depending on which tisane you
want to have available. Not a real problem, most required herbs are
quite common like kresh fiber or trama root. You won't need a fingernail
of Vivec to boil some tea.
This is an excellent feature, as when you are doing some lenghtly
Kogoruhn-like dungeon romp, you can temporary be released of sleep,
hunger or thirst penalties, as that "You are tired and need to rest"
message might just kick in when fighting a group of storm atronachs.
That is not a nice experience otherwise.
This reminds me of my occasional lifestyle of living on coffee and
cigarettes. Oh well...
Necessities of Morrowind is remarkably stable and bug-free, considering
the amount of things this mod modifies it is a very pleasant experience.
I found one problem with Illuminati Order, which was reported to the NOM
authors and promptly fixed in a new release. Excellent service.
The new food merchants might conflict if other mods also add stuff to
the same location (Balmora is too cramped with mods), but this is a
general mod problem and not specific to NOM.
One tiny thing which occasionally annoys me: If you are fast-travelling
by ships or silt-striders over a longer distance, you won't eat, sleep
or drink during your trip. As result you might unboard your ship in a
seriously shoddy state. One might expect, if you are travelling by ship
for a day (like to Korobal island for example), you'd get a nap on the
ship. I don't know if it is possible to work around this with the
scripting language. But having a good stock of tisane herbs available
can fix you up in no time.
Another annoying thing are mods which have no support for NOM. Havish is
one example. You can spend days in Havish doing the quests there, and no
access to a water source to refill your supplies. You'd need to teleport
to Vvardenfell just to pass by a well. Not a big problem, though, if you
know how to use Mark/Intervention/Recall. I cannot blame anyone for this
issue, though: The NOM authors are not responsible for other mods. And
the authors of other mods like Havish are not responsible for mods which
are released a year after their own mod. But one might expect future
mods being released with optional NOM support. For example Emma could be
convinced to do a NOM add-on for her Lokken mod.
A big review for a big mod. NOM certainly deserves a big review. It also
obtained a place in my list of always-installed mods.
Neccesities of Morrowind is available for download at the authors
webpage: http://www.tadnan-hideout.com/MW/main.html
NPCs or the like, but huge in how it impacts your game. If you play with
this mod, life will be different. If it will be better is another
question, in my opinion yes.
Necessities of Morrowind introduces the requirement to eat, drink and
sleep. Simple as that. Unless you are a happy vampire bloodsucker, you
need to ensure a regular supply of water, kwama eggs, bread, cheese and
more, and lay your tired heros head on a pillow now and then.
So, where do you get all that food? NOM offers various sources. The most
simple way is to visit one of the new food merchants, or check with your
favourite Pub, and buy something to eat. The youngling hero might need
to live on bread and rat meat, while the Telvanni councillor should be
able to afford the more elevated meals.
If you are living on a real tight budget, or if you are looking for some
new things to do, you can also cook food yourself. While it is quite
possible to live on raw ingredients like rat and hound meat (uncooked,
YUCK!) like the Ashlanders do, you will find your intestines demanding
something more exquisite. So check with your favourite Pawnbroker to
obtain some cooking gear: Setup a campfire and use your portable grill
to prepare grilled meat from raw meat. Boil corn in a kettle. Roast
ashjams in a fire. Prepare the most exquisite food otherwise only
imported from the mainland. Receipes are learned from books, and a basic
cooking book is readily available for a starter character, just visit
the Balmora bookstore. The more extravagant receipes will be a bit
harder to find.
Each food has a different nutrition value. To satisfy your hunger, you
might need to eat 4-5 pieces of raw rat, or just one bread. After all,
you are not a born Ashlander used to the raw food. As NOM changes the
weight of some ingredients, it's much more convinient to stack up with
cooked or boiled food rather than the quite heavy raw stuff.
You find food merchants and Pubs selling food pretty much anywhere in
the game, unless an area was added by a mod. So unless you go camping in
the Ashlands, you should never run out of food. If you go camping in the
Ashlands, bring your cooking gear and live off the local animals.
To satisfy your thirst you need to drink, obviously. Water is readily
available from new wells or waterbarrels in pretty much any town,
Ashlander camp and more, or just drink from a spring or fountain you
pass by. There are waterskins or bottles to stock you with a reserve of
water. Alcoholic drinks also satisfy thirst, but have some additional
effects. Drinking too much beer and then going on a dungeon romp is
definately no good idea if you are a spellcaster. It might be a very
good idea if you think all you need is a big axe. Alcohol effects last
much longer than the default drinks, which last only 30 seconds or so.
A tired hero needs to rest. At least 6 hours a day. It doesn't matter if
you sleep during day or night, just get your 6 hours rest a day. This is
probably the most heavy impact on gameplay, as you occasionally need to
stop and look for a place to put your head on. A nap in a waterpond of
the Bittercoast won't have much effect, though. You need a bed or a
bedroll. There are portable bedrolls you can carry around and setup a
camp whereever you are. Make a fire with a portable firekit, roast an
ashjam or two, and nap on your portable bedroll. True adventurer life!
Now, what happens if you do not eat, drink or sleep? At first, nothing
too bad. You will receive some penalties, depending on how much you are
deprived from your necessities. Didn't sleep those 6 hours a day? Your
intelligence and willpower suffer slightly. Nothing bad, you can catch
up sleep the next day. Continue this lifestyle for a whole week? Your
intelligence and willpower will suffer badly. Now you really notice
something is going wrong. If you don't eat or drink, your strength and
endurance suffers. If you are just slightly hungry or thirsty, again
nothing serious happens. If you are almost starving, you will notice
this. And you will want to fix it.
So while the general penalties for not satisfying your human demands are
quite minor if you ignore them only temporary, the mod makes sure you
cannot ignore them completely. Just like real life. Didn't sleep or eat
much one day? No problem. Do it several days? You got a problem.
To make life a little easier for the upcoming Nerevarine, NOM adds a
spiffy feature: Tisanes. In short, you can live on drugs if you wish so.
Prepare tisanes to stay awake longer or reduce your demands for food.
Tisanes are prepared from herbs, so like mixing potions you need to
ensure a constant supply of certain herbs, depending on which tisane you
want to have available. Not a real problem, most required herbs are
quite common like kresh fiber or trama root. You won't need a fingernail
of Vivec to boil some tea.
This is an excellent feature, as when you are doing some lenghtly
Kogoruhn-like dungeon romp, you can temporary be released of sleep,
hunger or thirst penalties, as that "You are tired and need to rest"
message might just kick in when fighting a group of storm atronachs.
That is not a nice experience otherwise.
This reminds me of my occasional lifestyle of living on coffee and
cigarettes. Oh well...
Necessities of Morrowind is remarkably stable and bug-free, considering
the amount of things this mod modifies it is a very pleasant experience.
I found one problem with Illuminati Order, which was reported to the NOM
authors and promptly fixed in a new release. Excellent service.
The new food merchants might conflict if other mods also add stuff to
the same location (Balmora is too cramped with mods), but this is a
general mod problem and not specific to NOM.
One tiny thing which occasionally annoys me: If you are fast-travelling
by ships or silt-striders over a longer distance, you won't eat, sleep
or drink during your trip. As result you might unboard your ship in a
seriously shoddy state. One might expect, if you are travelling by ship
for a day (like to Korobal island for example), you'd get a nap on the
ship. I don't know if it is possible to work around this with the
scripting language. But having a good stock of tisane herbs available
can fix you up in no time.
Another annoying thing are mods which have no support for NOM. Havish is
one example. You can spend days in Havish doing the quests there, and no
access to a water source to refill your supplies. You'd need to teleport
to Vvardenfell just to pass by a well. Not a big problem, though, if you
know how to use Mark/Intervention/Recall. I cannot blame anyone for this
issue, though: The NOM authors are not responsible for other mods. And
the authors of other mods like Havish are not responsible for mods which
are released a year after their own mod. But one might expect future
mods being released with optional NOM support. For example Emma could be
convinced to do a NOM add-on for her Lokken mod.
A big review for a big mod. NOM certainly deserves a big review. It also
obtained a place in my list of always-installed mods.
Neccesities of Morrowind is available for download at the authors
webpage: http://www.tadnan-hideout.com/MW/main.html