Haldenshore v1.2 (Created by JOG) - Reviewed by Zenogias - Updated 3/4/04

And now it's time for Haldenshore. This review was written for Korana and for the benefit of Korana, with the hopes that others may find it useful too. Read on for an overview, details, discussion of balance, bugs/issues etc.

 

Synopsis
Haldenshore adds a new town to the east of Seyda Neen, on a small island close to the mainland and connected by a bridge. The town contains a new Thieves Guild with quests, an armourer selling parrying bracers, and some new concepts such as betting on fistfights. It requires Tribunal.

Design
The town of Haldenshore covers a small surface area, but contains quite a number of buildings due to their method of arrangement (mostly orderly rows). The buildings include a Tradehouse, Alchemist, Armourer, and Tavern, as well as several houses. One of the houses can be bought as part of a quest, and subsequently becomes the town's Thieves Guild hideout. All buildings are Imperial style, and the architecture and attention to interior detail is strong. Interior detail is also at a reasonably consistent level with existing towns in the game, thus the town feels less a mod and more a part of Morrowind.

There are quite a few unique things happening in Haldenshore. You can buy parrying bracers from the Armourer, which work like a shield(using the Light Armour skill) in bracer form. Over time, he will also develop and make available better kinds of parrying bracers, so it is worth checking back at the store from time to time.
There are also several unique events you can participate in, which make use of excellent and well-written scripting. A bar room brawl (and later, fistfights which you can bet on), Blackjack gambling, and inhaling Moon Sugar. There is also a loanshark who works in a similar way to a bank (for example the one in JOG's other mod Havish).

Regarding balance, the mod overall seems well-balanced. No powerful items are given as rewards for quests (most often you will get small-reasonable amounts of gold in usual Thieves Guild tradition). There are no unbalanced merchants. Some of the parrying bracers are strong, but they only become available after a period of time. Also, they aren't really stronger than anything you can buy in some shops in the normal game, and their prices are appropriate.

Oh, and a cameo appearance is made by Neuman's Black Leather, which is worn by two female NPCs, a dancer and one other.

Quests
Within Haldenshore there are 4 misc quests and 16 Thieves Guild quests. Upon first arriving, the Thieves Guild is non-existent, and it is up to you to discover and solve a quest which will lead to you meeting other thieves and establishing a new hideout. This aspect of the story I found intriguing, and it was especially interesting watching the conversion of a certain building into the new hideout.

Once all has been established, you can accept Thieves Guild jobs as you would at any other guild. The Haldenshore guild is a part of the existing Thieves Guild, thus completing its quests will contribute to the advancement of your overall Thieves Guild rank. Many of the quests are non-generic and imaginative: No abundance of 'fetch X for me' here. Some examples: Sneaking into a place with a quill, ink and paper to make a copy of a document, helping out a fellow thief who is about to be searched by guards for incriminating evidence, etc.

One problem with Haldenshore's quests are that there are very few of them that can be completed by non-thieves. Haldenshore is dominated by the Thieves Guild, once it is set up it is the main reason a player will have to go there. If you are a non-thief, there is not much else for you to do in Haldenshore.

I should also mention that some of the quests are timed: You will have a certain amount of time to complete them. Some people like this, some don't, but none of the timed quests in Haldenshore seemed to be particularly hassling (most are rather quick).

Bugs/Errors/Oversights

1) The rowboat for me only works for one or two trips, after which it vanishes from Haldenshore (though can still be used from Seyda Neen). This however only seems to effect some players, not all. This has been commented on by JOG: “There is only one boat which is moved between Seyda neen and Havish. If the boat doesn't move in your savegame, you have TWO boats, both in seyda neen and the scripts conflicts prevent the boat you're using from being teleported to Haldenshore. To get two boats you just need to remove or change any other plugin. Or add a plugin that does changes to Seyda Neen and load a savegame where you're also in Seyda Neen.” - JOG also suggests this fix: “To fix your problem with the Haldenshore-boat, open the console, click on one of the boats, and use "disable" and "setdelete 1" to remove the double from your Savegame.”

2) The same as above except with the Nord who ferries you to Ebonheart. Like the rowboat, once he had taken me to Ebonheart, he would never reappear in Haldenshore, but would stay at the Ebonheart docks forever. This only seems to happen to me and no-one can figure out why it happens, but it seems fine for everyone else so it is not likely this will happen in your game. If by some chance it does, it luckily does not effect any quests or cause any other problems, all it means is that you’ll have to find another way to Ebonheart!

3) JOG also provided information on this problem: “You forgot to mention that the treasure-ship quest is buggy with Bloodmoon installed. The NPC Animation-AI was changed, and the way I made unconcsious NPCs no longer works. Well, I doubt that I'll fix it, Maybe in the 2nd Aniversary Edition.”

Conflicts
Haldenshore is a highly compatible mod. The town itself is on a small island just off the mainland southwest of Seyda Neen, and I have yet to see a single mod which alters this same spot. Some of Haldenshore's quests involve new NPCs and objects in existing towns. However, JOG has (very considerately) made all such additions to other existing locations happen through scripting, thus none of those other cells are actually modified.

I have tested Haldenshore with the following island adding/landscape altering mods, with zero conflicts:
Havish
Beyond YsGramor
Sorefoot Enterprises
The Twin Lamps
Siege at Firemoth

This list of course is in no way exhaustive, just an example of mods I have used with Haldenshore and detected zero conflicts with. Many other users have reported zero conflicts with a wide range of other mods. There are however two reports of landscape conflicts with the following plugins:
FTG (Five Toes Guild): A hill from Haldenshore is on top of Bert Sagbottom's house (thanks to MeghanAJH for this information). This can only be fixed by moving the house in the editor, or worked around by using the console to get inside the house.
Seyda Neen Docks 6.0: A large amount of terrain from the two mods overlaps (thanks to Arathrax for this information). It seems that this cannot be fixed.
Overall
The good:
- Excellent quests
- Excellent design and architecture
- Unique scripted concepts: Bar room brawl, betting on fistfights, playing Blackjack, inhaling Moon Sugar
- Unique Parrying Bracers
- Balanced: No unbalanced items, merchants etc
- Clean
- Highly compatible
- A real lot to do for thieving-oriented characters

The bad:
- Some dialogue errors (spelling, punctuation etc)
- Boat bugs
- Not much for non-thieves to do

What I think
An excellent new town. Fits in and feels like it was always supposed to be there. Doesn't conflict. The unique scripted concepts and events (especially in the thief quests) are very well-done. I never consider playing a thief character without this mod.

Download link
JOG's Morrowind Corner

Have fun!

 

 

- All images from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Copyright Bethesda Softworks -

This site developed, maintained, and Copyright Hired Goons, Ent., 2000-2003.

All trademarked and copyrighted works reserved to their respective owners.  The Hired Goons are a group of young men and women celebrating freeform creative artistry and pop culture, and as such are not seeking professional or financial gain from the copyrighted material of any known entity.  The Hired Goons Entity assumes no responsibility for lost, stolen, or damaged intellectual property.

 

Questions or comments go here.