With more than 100 hours of gameplay and a powerful editor that has spawned dozens of high-quality fan-made plugins, Morrowind was not a likely candidate for an official expansion. For this reason, I approached Tribunal with mixed feelings. I reasoned that Bethesda (the developer of the game) was either very foolish or had an ace up its sleeve, having the courage to release an expansion pack. I was wrong: Bethesda was not acting foolish, nor did they deliver a real winner. Tribunal is an excellent expansion, fully worth its price, but still falls short of expectations because of a few balancing and technical issues.
Playing the game
When you first launch the Tribunal expansion, you will be treated to a coffee break. Tribunal comes with changes to your journal, which will allow you to filter out unfinished quests. The operation of modifying your journal can take a very long time, depending how far in the game you have progressed. In my case, even my uber-powerful computer took over ten minutes to complete this procedure; enough for a quick snack and a fresh cup of coffee. Fortunately, this is only a one-time operation.
Once you are in the game, you will notice no changes to the gameplay. The same monsters will appear on the map, the same quests remain, and not even the sound or graphics change. The interface will be different, though. You will have an improved map and journal. In the case you didn't install some of the latest Morrowind patches, you will be treated to a slide bar that will allow you to adjust the game's difficulty.
All this changes when you decide to take a well-deserved break. Caught napping, you will be attacked by a mysterious assassin or two, who will make you work hard for your life. Even if you've finished the main quest and are able to strike down the all-powerful Golden Saints with two strokes of your mighty sword, these assassins will pose a much greater threat. If you survive, you may think of reporting the incident to a guard. However, maybe you were a naughty boy (or girl), and your backpack is full of stolen stuff the guards ought not to not see. In that case, however, you will quickly change your mind after subsequent attacks of growing difficulty. You consult a guard, and through a series of contacts, will end up talking to a mage who offers you free transport to Mournhold, the capital of Morrowind.
As soon as you arrive in this magnificent city, you will be thrust into the web of political intrigue of the highest grade, where a goddess and a new king spar over the future of Morrowind. Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, you will serve two masters, often on missions to weaken one another. You will explore the city, and the seemingly endless dungeons underneath the town. You will get to fight new, exotic beasts, but also find better equipment to aid you in the battles. You will have the option to take on a multitude of side quests. If you are diligent, you will get up to 60 hours of gameplay out of this expansion. Even if you concentrate only on the main quest, you will get up to 30 hours out of it, which is more than many full-priced games offer.
What's new
The expansion offers some improvements to the interface, gameplay, as well as some new content.
Interface improvements
As mentioned before, the journal got a makeover. One of the main complaints of most fans was that the journal was very confusing. At the time I finished the main quest of Morrowind, I was stuck with over 200 pages of notes, covering everything that happened to me. Finding quests in these notes was almost impossible. As a consequence, I often forgot about some quests until I triggered them again, by accident. The new journal offers a great improvement: from now on, the player is able to select all quests, or only those that are unfinished. However, this improvement should have been included in a patch instead of forcing gamers pay for it. The journal interface is still cumbersome to use, and quite buggy. For example: some of the quests that I finished prior to installing Tribunal have reappeared as unfinished, and quests from user-created modifications aren't recognized at all. The latter is an especially serious problem, as many gamers download and install multiple modifications at once. I am currently running six user-created separate storylines, and I still have to use a pen and paper to keep track of these quests. Finally, as my personal gripe, I would like to mention the inability to sort quests by location. Right now, whenever I arrive to a new location, I always scroll through the list of open quests to find out whether I can finish any on my current location or not. Being able to do it automatically would be a great bonus.
The second major improvement to the interface is the new map annotation system. When you double-click on a map, you will be able to leave a note at that rotation, which becomes visible as you position the mouse cursor over the note. This is a great addition to the game, especially in large cities where I used to visit the same locations over and over again, in a futile effort to find a particular item or person. This improvement should have been included in a patch as well, and works only on local maps, and not the global one.
You will notice the third interface improvement when you barter with somebody. A new "seller max" button will automatically allow you to set the sale price to whatever the trader has on him. Considering the fact that many traders in Morrowind are short on cash, and you will often try to sell high-priced items, this button is a lifesaver. No more holding the "price decrease" button for five minutes when you are trying to sell a 40,000 sword to a trader who has only 400 in cash...
Those who did not download Morrowind patches will be treated to two more improvements. The first is a sliding bar, which will allow you to set the difficulty (zero is the normal difficulty, -100 is the easiest and +100 the hardest difficulty). The second improvement is a health bar for your enemy, which appears every time you strike him. This allows you to finally keep track on how your combat is going.
Improvements to gameplay
There is one great improvement to gameplay: you will be able to hire sidekicks.
The first type of sidekicks for hire will be mercenaries, who will help you fight. You will have to pay them a fee every month, and assure that your adventures are profitable. You will be able to heal and equip them. However, they may prove to be more trouble than they are worth. Their main problem is inherent in the Morrowind engine - A.I. pathfinding. Often, the mercenaries will get stuck behind objects or will be unable to follow you because their jumping or climbing abilities are too low. In addition, you will not be able to check their status, and they may drop dead on you in any moment. The most frustrating thing for me, however, was that in their infinite wisdom, the designers neglected to mention to the mercenaries to stay out of my line of sight. I ended up killing one of my mercenaries by accident, while shooting arrows at an approaching enemy. Being able to issue basic commands, such as "do not engage until I fight in close combat" would help.
The second group of sidekicks are pack animals. One of the complaints players had was that they could carry a very limited amount of equipment. Fortunately, pack animals solve this problem. They range from rats, which can carry only a limited amount of equipment, to guars, which carry much more than that. Unfortunately, the same pathfinding problems plague the pack animals, and the rats are only cute when they are not stuck within an object, forcing you to reload the game or lose whatever they were carrying. I ended up having a guar for my travels across Morrowind, but even on the wide roads the animal would get stuck, especially when crossing bridges.
Both improvements to gameplay have been already available as user-created modifications, and thus should not be the reason to buy the expansion. The main reason to do so should be the new content offered by Tribunal.
New content
The game offers a whole new city, several dungeons, monsters, equipment items, quests and adventure objects.
The city of Mournhold is impressive, but not exactly what I would expect from a capital city. It houses only a few dozen people, and being unable to leave the city gates, I could not confirm the existence of endless slums behind the impossibly high walls, which I was expecting. The city itself is very nicely laid out, with vast open expanses that serve as public parks, huge palaces and some not-so-interesting houses. However, it has been build on top of older cities, which now serve as the hideouts for all kinds of nasties, and your ultimate destination.
You will spend most of the time underground. The dungeons range from the already familiar sewers, through tombs and temples, to vast underground lakes. The game offers several huge interconnected dungeons, and a few smaller ones, but still impressive enough in the context of Morrowind. People who've played Daggerfall (the precursor of Morrowind) were disappointed not to find the same large dungeons in Morrowind, but Tribunal changes this.
As far as monsters go, Tribunal is a godsend for everybody who likes to tinker with the game editor. While some monsters are used in great numbers, such as various ranks of goblins, their domestic animals, and fabricants (mechanical animal-like monsters), others are used more sparsely, but are now freely available to mod-makers. For example: I counted only two mummies, each of which gave me a run for my money. They offered probably the toughest fight in the game. One of the best-looking monsters, a phantasm (animated armor), was used only once, as far as I can tell. All of those monsters were in the game only to show them off to the mod-makers, which will most likely use them to great advantage.
New equipment items include some exotic swords, two full sets of new armor, and a few artifacts. Probably the most available new item class will be armor, as the game features two new armored guards - Royal Guard and High Ordinators. However, a player who finished the main quest in Morrowind will most likely have amassed a much better set of armor than both these classes offer. Probably the most interesting item, though, will be a brand-new sword you will get toward the end of the expansion. This sword (which always burns with a magical fire) is so powerful that I would encourage players to get it only after they've cleared Morrowind, because it tends to tweak the balance of the original game.
New quests are probably the most unique aspect of the expansion. In addition to your classic fedex, kill-the-monster and fetch-the-object quests, you will be treated to some really unique experiences. For example, one quest will put you in the role of an actor, give you only two minutes to learn your lines, and kill you if you get them wrong on the stage. Another quest will make you stalk a person, and yet another will thrust you in the role of a bouncer in an inn. In addition, some quests will branch out, allowing you several ways to achieve a given result. For example, you will be asked to eradicate a band of criminals. You will have the choice to confront them (and most likely die) or simply flood their hideout in the sewers and drown them. Or a beggar, whose further action depends on whether you give him some money or brush him off, will approach you.
The quest structure is very different from Morrowind. Whereas there the main quest was so open-ended that I often forgot about it, the main quest in Tribunal is as tight and linear as possible. While you will work for both sides in this conflict, you will not be able to choose sides, and at a certain moment simply switch to the other party. While many Morrowind enthusiasts may frown upon this idea, I found it very refreshing. The linearity of the quests has allowed the designers to develop a much more coherent and engrossing story, and a much better difficulty progression throughout the game. Where Morrowind allowed the players to stop playing for a month or two and pick up whenever they wanted, Tribunal will grip you and won't let you go until you finish.
Adventure items are yet another godsend to mod-makers. The expansion uses them quite freely, but many of them are still novel enough to allow the fans to create some original plugins. The game finally offers a set of traps, ranging from blades that would decapitate you, through spike and electrical traps, to proximity mines. This has allowed the designers to abandon the pure hack-and-slash gameplay and add more adventuring, with the help of more devious dungeons. In addition, there are other objects, such as explosives with a timer, which will make for great additions to some of the mods I have played.
Game balance
That said, I have to admit that the expansion is relatively unbalanced. Not only that, it can significantly change the balance of Morrowind as well. Bethesda has said that players can start Tribunal at any level, and I am inclined to believe it. With the exception of the assassin attacks, Tribunal is isolated from Morrowind, allowing you to progress through the main quest without touching Tribunal until you feel you are ready. However, these assassins are enough to skew the balance of Morrowind. Their strength depends on the player's level, so every fight with them is challenging, but not impossible. However, they wear armor that players should not have access to throughout the first third of Morrowind, which is not only far better than what is available, but also can fetch a hefty profit. I have already heard reports of gamers who were exploiting this issue, in order to advance through the game much faster.
Once you arrive in Mounrhold, you are up for even less balance. With the exception of several initial quests, the player will have a very tough time beating all the enemies. However, due to the very linear main quest, some characters are more suited to beat the game than others. There are very few monsters you will be required to kill, and as a consequence, a stealth-based character will find the game very easy. My Level 27 Assassin finished the main quest in Tribunal without breaking a sweat, while my Level 53 Mage got killed several times in the process. My fighter finished the game with some problems at level 48, but I could hardly imagine a lower-level fighter to survive the expansion. Considering the fact that Morrowind offers almost opposite balancing issues, many players may find Tribunal a little frustrating. Whereas Morrowind was still exciting for my Assassin when he went to Mournhold, I ended up hacking, slashing and frying countless low-level monsters with my knight and mage, only to advance to a level where I could successfully complete Tribunal.
Finally, as a personal gripe of mine, I would like to say a word or two about the goblins, which are the most common enemies in the game. In Morrowind, Bethesda used very non-traditional role-playing animals. As such, I would never question the designers on issues, such as why a Golden Saint was stronger than a Winged Twilight. However, in Tribunal, Bethesda has included one of the most common RPG monsters - the goblins. Goblins are usually the first humanoid monsters a new player encounters, right after he slashes his way through rats and bats, and maybe the occasional snake. As such, they serve as cannon fodder - anybody but the lowest-level character uses them for practice and the occasional loot. In Tribunal, however, goblins were anything but practice targets. Even the lowest class of goblins was as tough as some of the nastiest monsters in Morrowind, and the goblin leaders were stronger than anything I encountered in the previous game. This may raise some objections among role-playing enthusiasts.
Gameplay - 7
I must admit I prefer a more linear storyline than that offered in Morrowind. The gameplay in Tribunal is much more engrossing, and the new content, especially various traps and puzzles, make dungeon crawling much more enjoyable. In addition, the game offers a multitude of new, refreshingly different quests and lots of tough opponents to try your luck on. However, the fact that the interface improvements should have been released in a patch, makes me count them out of the expansion. I had to subtract some points for the balancing issues as well; Morrowind offers enough exploits, more of them weren't necessary.
Graphics - 9
When I first heard about the expansion, I was very skeptical about possible improvements in the graphics. The expansion was supposed to add more content, and not modify the engine, and I could hardly imagine the Morrowind graphics to be improved. I'm glad to admit that I was wrong. Bethesda has paid meticulous attention to the detail, and came up with some unique textures and architecture. The expansion is much more colorful and bright than the original game, which helps to keep your interest up. In addition, the Tribunal offers a few new, unique graphics, such as cascading sparks, which serve as lights. However, a single problem for the owners of ATI Radeon cards, which forces them to edit Tribunal in the construction set (an operation that took me half an hour, even though I found a walkthrough on the Internet), has forced me to subtract a point from the otherwise perfect graphics.
Sound - 7
Owners of Tribunal will be pleasantly surprised by new voiceovers. Most players got bored with the same greetings they always received from non-player characters; these greetings have now been expanded dramatically, not only in variety, but also to reflect your current status in the gaming world. However, the game offers no new soundtrack tunes, and as much as I like the original soundtrack, a new tune or two would have been refreshing. The main problem with the soundis a bug that sometimes drastically increases the volume of the sound. So, for example, your footsteps will be louder than a thunderstorm overhead, or you will hear the sound of animals that are half a continent away. The latter problem is especially annoying, forcing you to look around for the source of the sound and find nothing. Bethesda has addressed this issue in a patch, unfortunately without any success, at least for me.
Replay value - 8
For its price, Tribunal strikes even on my worthiness scale, offering at least an hour of gameplay for every dollar spent. However, if you want to finish all side quests, the length of gameplay doubles. The bulk of the replay value lies elsewhere, though, in the slew of new monsters and adventuring objects. These have started to find a way into various user-created modifications, and will do so in the future.
Overall - 7.8
Tribunal is probably the best game expansion released in 2002. It offers more gameplay than many full-priced games. It greatly expands on one of the greatest role-playing games of all times. It tweaks the gameplay in some interesting ways, allowing for more adventuring and less action, and for a more tightly controlled main story. However, some improvements could have been released in a patch instead, and some balancing issues may make the game a little too easy or too frustrating, depending on the playing style. These problems somewhat diminish the quality of this expansion, but I would still recommend it to anybody who owns and enjoys Morrowind.
