This is a developer diary for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition for Xbox. The diary was originally posted to the old elderscrolls.com website on 6 November 2003.[1]
Ashley Cheng - Producer
Can you believe it's been over a year since Morrowind first appeared on store shelves? Two expansion packs later, here we are -- still going strong, especially Morrowind Xbox.
Earlier this year in May (exactly one year after launch), Morrowind became an Xbox Platinum Hit and immediately appeared as a top 10 Xbox title again and remained there for the next three months.
How's that for showing the love? What other year-old titles -- Platinum Hit or not -- do you see on that list from May through August (See the lists for yourself).
During that time, the Xbox titles on the top 10 are all less than a few months old. Except for Morrowind…one year later. In fact, the only other game the Xbox loves more than Morrowind is Halo, also released prior to 2003.
That's it. Just Morrowind and Halo.
To thank the Xbox for all the tender loving care it's given us, we decided to do what no other console game has ever done before.
Morrowind Game of the Year includes the entire original game plus our two expansion packs, Tribunal and Bloodmoon. That's an additional 80-100 hours of game play, or more. All the new weapons, armor, cities, creatures, characters, dungeons, and quests from Tribunal and Bloodmoon are available, including the ability to become a werewolf.
Implementing the expansion packs on the Xbox was not quite as simple as it first appeared, but having played the GotY Xbox for the past month during testing, it was well worth the effort. Playing as the werewolf on the Xbox ended being more fun than we thought it would be.
We also included features that Morrowind PC owners have enjoyed for the past year. The Enemy Health Bar lets you see how much health your opponent has left during combat. In the Options menu, you'll find a Difficulty Slider to make the game harder or easier. Plus, there are many behind-the-scenes optimizations and tweaks.
But the best feature is that you can play Morrowind Game of the Year with your old characters. Your original Morrowind save games will appear in your Game of the Year Load game menu. The only caveat is that you will not be able to delete any original Morrowind save games while in Morrowind Game of the Year -- you'll need to go to the launcher or load up original Morrowind.
Otherwise, the transition from original Morrowind to Game of the Year is seamless. We hope our Xbox fans will want to experience the expansion packs as much as our PC fans have. We even priced it at $30 to encourage everyone -- whether you played the original or never tried it -- to buy it and try it out. Consider this our thanks to our great Xbox fans.
References
- ^ TEAM DIARY. (6 November 2003). elderscrolls.com. Archived from the original on 25 October 2006.