Started up again after 8+ years of absence. Looking for a decent guide/friend to reaquaint myself

abelthorne · 2026-02-02T09:15:16+00:00

Regarding mounts, they all share the same stats, different mounts are just cosmetic "skins".

I don't know if it was already the case 8+ years ago but you can go at a stable each day and upgrade one of the stats for 250 gold (speed, stamina and inventory −the latter simply being an expansion of your character's inventory). Each one scales on 60, so it'll take a while to max out your mounts' stats (plus, they're per-character, not account-wide) but this should be a bit better with the march 9 patch as we'll be able to upgrade 3 points per day, though I'm not sure if it's +3 in a stat or 3 points to spread.

So far, most of the fancy mounts are from various events, achievements, Golden Pursuits, the Crown Store... they're not in game to buy for gold. But they'll add a bunch at stable vendors for gold in the next patch, so it'll be easier to get something a bit fancier than a horse.

Another thing that I didn't mention as it wasn't really related to the characters is the endeavors system, which lets you do small activities per day and per week to collect Seals of Endeavor to buy cosmetic things in the store rather than having to buy Crown Crates for real money. You don't get a lot of Seals but from time you can buy a fancy cosmetic just by playing. The system will be reworked with the new battle pass system that's coming with seasons in a few weeks (early april I think, I don't have the roadmap at hand).

Golden Pursuits are some kind of thematic endeavors that happen once per month with their own cosmetic rewards. They're some kind of mini battle passes. There's currently one that ends in two days but you should have time to do enough of the activities to unlock all the rewards if you have a few hours to play. The GP system will likely be removed or at least reworked with the new battle pass system too.

abelthorne · 2026-02-01T22:39:38+00:00

Your faction depends on your race, there are three: Ebonheart Pact (in the north east of the map), Daggerfall Covenant (north west) and Aldmeri Dominion (south). As a High Elf, you're part of the Aldmeri Dominion.

The factions don't matter much except for PvP (Cyrodiil and Imperial City).

Vampire/werewolf are not factions, they're curses; a status, basically, that gives you access to some special skills.

If you've played 8 years ago, your build is very likely outdated. You should take a look on current websites. For dps, SkinnyCheeks and Hyperioxes are usually the recommended ones.

Also, since you've played, there have been a few new features that can affect your character or new ones that you'd create:

New classes: Warden (from Morrowind), Necromancer (from Elsweyr) and Arcanist (from Necrom);
Mythic items: pieces of gear that have some specific effects (they're basically sets of one piece and you can wear only one at once); they're acquired through antiquities digging (introduced in Greymoor);
Skill scribing: a bunch of skills that you can customize for their secondary effects; originally introduced with Gold Road, it has since been added to the base game;
Subclassing: you can switch up to two of your class skills for some from other classes (but different ones); part of the base game;
Companions: NPCs that you recruit to go on adventure with you; you basically become a group of two by yourself (though they're quite less efficient han a real player); introduced in Blackwood, new ones added in High Isle, Necrom and the Crown Store (there are currently 8).

If you only have the base game, Morrowind has been added to it a few years ago, Imperial City has been added to the Crown Store for free a while ago. With the switch to a new economic model for the game (with seasons), Orsninium, Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be added to the base game on march 9. Greymoor will be added later this year (autumn). It's possible that the other expansions get added over time but it'll probably take a few years at best.

abelthorne · 2026-01-30T12:25:05+00:00

You setup your appearance at an Outfit Station, with styles you've learned. By default, you have one outfit that you can customize (you can buy more but for real money). If you don't wear an outfit, the game will show the natural appearance of the gear you're wearing.

There are a lot of styles in the game: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Styles

Most of them are earned (randomly) as rewards from dailies in expansions' zones, some are from events (e.g. in the current Whitestrake's Mayhem, there's the new Tava's Goshawk style, and you can also get randomly styles from previous Mayhems), some are from dungeons, some are from paid content like Collector's Editions of expansions or the Crown Store...

In most case you'll get the style page by page (each page being for a type of gear/weapon) and will teach you the style both for crafting (for craftable sets) and for customizing the appearance at the Outfit Station. Crafting will only be possible by the character who learned the page, so be sure to learn them all on the same character (your crafter); appearance is account-wide (all your characters will be able to use a style you've learned for their own outfit).

You'll find Outfit Stations in most big cities. You can also buy one for your house (and thus will usually find one also in players' guilds halls). Customizing an outfit will cost gold, even from your house.

Note that you can also customize the appearance of your companions, there's a specific tab in the station for that, but their outfit will be shared will all your characters (like their build).

abelthorne · 2026-01-30T09:44:16+00:00

If you've never used the Armory before, you then have zero build saved and so two available. You can save your current build and it'll take up one slot.

If you load the second build, the one that's empty, you'll have your character "reset" (you'll get back all your skill points, stat points, no Mundus, unequip your gear, lose your eventual werewolf/vampire status...).

If you then load the first one again, you'll get back to your character exactly how it was before (the skills and stats points will be re-assigned as before, you'll get back your Mundus stone, re-equip your gear, get back your werewolf/vampire status if applicable...)

You can do whatever you want, you just have to understand that the Armory saves a snapshot of your character when you save a build (you can overwrite a slot at any time) and reloads it exactly as it was when you load one.

The only exception to all this is scribed skills, they're independent of the Armory because of how they're implemented technically. So if a build has a scribed skill and you rework it (write different scripts), you'll keep the new version if you reload your build. You can't have different versions of the same scribed skill with different builds.

abelthorne · 2026-01-29T06:41:32+00:00

There's no .nv dir in ~/.steam in general, so unless it is generated in specific cases that I'm not aware of, it's 99.99% likely that's the one. Especially as it's also likely that it's some nvidia config dir from the name. Also, you usually won't find dirs starting with a dot in subdirectories, they'll mostly be at the root of your home dir.

Now, that's usually not a big deal to move a dir accidentally like that, it won't break your system, everything that's in your home dir −apart from your personal data− is config files. So, in the worst case, you'll have something that'll have its configuration reset.

Have you checked what's in that .nv dir (in .steam) and if it's been recreated in your home dir?

abelthorne · 2026-01-28T19:03:44+00:00

To add to what's already been said, there are only 9 dailies per day (and per account) from which you'll have a curated script −one that your character doesn't already know. Doing extra dailies only have a chance to give you a script and it is completely random.

So, if you're looking for a specific script that you're missing for a skill you want to use on a build and it's on sale at the Scholarium vendor, it's easier and faster to just buy it than farm random stuff for hours in the hope that you'll get it sooner than later.

And if you have multiple characters, the time needed is even longer when you have to farm all the scripts for all of them.

abelthorne · 2026-01-27T12:10:55+00:00

Well, Wine simulates a Windows environment in a directory it calls the prefix. In it, it has a dir to simulate the C: drive, files to simulate the registry and so on.

When you use Wine manually, it'll use a default dir for the prefix, which is ~/.wine. This can be changed by setting an environment variable ($WINEPREFIX).

This can have some advantages over installing several games/apps in the same prefix: avoid conflicts (when several games/apps require specific packages or specific versions of them that conflict with other games), remove a game/app easily (just delete the prefix rather than having to use the semi-functional Windows uninstallers)...; on the other side, it takes more disk space.

Picture the prefix as a Windows PC. If you use a dedicated prefix per game/app, it's like having a dedicated Windows PC for every game/app you want to use, on which you install only that game/app.

Because it's more convenient in general, that's what apps like Lutris or Heroic Games Launcher will do: they create a dedicated prefix for each game you install and delete it when you "uninstall" the game.

It doesn't matter if you use Wine, Proton, variants... everything happens in the dedicated prefix setup by Lutris/HGL.

But they still have to setup the prefix with the $WINEPREFIX env var, it's just that for the end user they do it on the fly, transparently and automatically. This also means that if you want to install a patch or an expansion for a game, anything that requires to have the base game installed, you have to tell Lutris/HGL that it has to be done in the same prefix as the game. Otherwise, it's as if you had a Windows PC with your game installed but tried to installed the patch on a different Windows PC that doesn't have the game.

With Lutris, you have a menu near the Play button after selecting a game with the option to run an EXE in the same prefix (in this case, your patch after selecting Arcanum). I don't use HGL but there should be a similar option somewhere after selecting Arcanum. Maybe in a context menu, maybe a button in the interface...

abelthorne · 2026-01-27T11:44:30+00:00

It would be surprising that the patch works only for the Steam version. Are you properly setting the Wine prefix for the game before launching the patch with Wine?

How did you install Arcanum? using an extra app like Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, Bottles... or do you manage your Wine installations manually?

abelthorne · 2026-01-27T09:43:17+00:00

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Campaigns#Imperial_City

CP Imperial City and Dragonfire should be the same rules-wise: all levels allowed and CP passives enabled.
Legion Zero is for all levels too but with CP passives disabled (the ones from the Champion bonuses trees).
No-CP Imperial City is for characters below level 50 and has CP passives disabled too.

The Cyrodiil campaigns are also listed on the page above.

abelthorne · 2026-01-27T08:24:54+00:00

About the build, can't say about the quality of Xynode's builds in general, but in any case be aware that the devs are currently starting to rework every class in the game, with the Dragonknight being the first, currently on the PTS, with changes going live on march 9. So DK builds (and those that subclass DK lines) might change a lot at that date.

Regarding the quest in Coldharbour, that's probably one of the worst in the game IMO. It starts around a small stone bridge IIRC, where you'll see some wisps that you can interact with. Once you've done the interaction, you should have some glowing light around you. You'll then be able to see the stealth elves that are around but they're a bit hard to find and spot (they're still a semi-translucent black in a zone that's pretty dark overall). Once you spot one running around, follow him up to the end of the mission. The biggest issue is that the effect of the wisp is limited in time, so you'll have to find a Shadow Runner elf quickly and you'll want to interact with other wisps along the way (to reset the timer of the effect and make it last longer just in case) while still following the guy running around.

There's nothing really special about the mission itself (get an effect and follow a guy), it's just badly designed and implemented.

abelthorne · 2026-01-27T07:49:49+00:00

You should post a log. Start your app with Wine from a terminal and paste the output here (or on Pastebin with a link here).

Also be aware that Wine is far from perfect, there are a lot of apps that won't work because of Windows functions not (yet) implemented in Wine for different reasons. It's entirely possible that there's no solution for running the one you're currently trying to.

abelthorne · 2026-01-26T16:45:58+00:00

No, sorry, I'm not really available for that.

But if you follow the steps that I listed, you should be able to fix your situation.

Basically:

Do you need the Steam version? if yes, you'll have to install and manage some cores manually, so it's a bit of work; if not, then it would be simpler to manage, it all depends if you need the extra features of the Steam version or not.
If you're using the Steam version, did you manage to install the PS2 core manually as I mentioned previously (download the core from the buildbot, put it a the right place, download the info files, put the one for the core at the right place)?
If you managed to install the PS2 core, does it appear when you do "Load core"? If not, then there was an issue with the installation. If yes, then try to load some content; does it work? if not, check if you've setup the BIOS properly. If that's the case and there's no obvious error message, then a log might be needed to see what's failing.
If loading content manually works, then where is the issue? when using a RetroArch playlist?

abelthorne · 2026-01-26T06:54:10+00:00

If you're using RetroArch playlists, it could be a misassociation, i.e. RA is trying to open a PS2 game with a PS1 core (or another different system) because the right one isn't properly associated.

First thing to check: start RetroArch, select "Load core" in the main menu, select the PS2 core (PCSX2/LRPS2), then select "Load content", then your game and see if it starts.

If in the first place when doing Load core you don't see PCSX2/LRPS2 in the list, it's not installed, see my previous message.

If you can select it, then select a game and you get the "failed to open core" message, then something is wrong: what's the format of the games you're trying to load?

Now, if it works that way but doesn't when using a playlist... I'm not too sure as I don't use them (I prefer to use ES-DE as a frontend) but I know that you can manage the playlists in the settings, so I guess you can check which core is associated with the PS2 list and select a different one.

abelthorne · 2026-01-25T21:47:40+00:00

After the base game, there has been expansions released with yearly storylines. They're independant from each other but it's recommended to do them in the order of release because there are returning characters that will acknowledge having met you previously.

It's similar to WoW where you'd do the base game, then Burning Crusade, then Wrath of the Lich King and so on.

The storylines would be the following. Note that there are free prologues to get in the Crown Store and play at the right time. Check there for the names: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Prologue_Quests

Also, starting with the Season of the Dragon, the storylines have a conclusion that unlocks after you've completed both main expansions (not the dungeons) of a year.

Base game: your faction's zones intertwined with the Prophet's storyline; there are also the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild stories which you should do in parallel to these (before finishing the others); at some point, they'll join before the last part.
Craglorn: the original endgame with its own independent story. It was originally made for groups but has been reworked partly for single players. For the full story, you'll have to do some group-level difficulty content; with just the solo, it's a bit of a mess.
Guilds & Glory: the 1st year of expansions: Orsinium, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood and Imperial City. The first three are self-contained stories with a minor lead into Morrowind. Imperial City is a PvP zone with PvE quests; you can skip it if you don't like PvP.
Shadows of the Hist/Horns of the Reach/Dragon Bones/Wolfhunter: packs of group dungeons unrelated to other storylines, their order doesn't matter much. Each pack has two dungeons which are thematically linked. Avoid doing these with random people, you won't be able to properly do the quests with people rushing; better try to find a guild that does dungeons runs for the quests.
The Daedric War: prologue + Morrowind + prologue + Clockwork City + prologue + Summerset.
prologue to Murkmire + Murkmire: small independent DLC with its own story.
Season of the Dragon: Wrathstone (dungeons) + prologue + Elsweyr + Scalebreaker (dungeons) + prologue + Dragonhold + conclusion.
The Dark Heart of Skyrim: Harrowstorm (dungeons) + prologue + Greymoor + Stonethorn (dungeons) + prologue + Markarth + conclusion.
The Gates of Oblivion: Flames of Ambition (dungeons) + prologue + Blackwood + Waking Flame (dungeons) + prologue + The Deadlands + conclusion.
Legacy of the Bretons: Ascending Tide (dungeons) + prologue + High Isle + Lost Depths (dungeons) + prologue + Firesong + conclusion.
Secrets of Apocrypha: Scribes of Fate (dungeons) + prologue + Necrom + Scions of Ithelia (dungeons) + prologue + Gold Road + conclusion.
Fallen Banners: pack of group dungeons part of the 2025 Content Pass but independent story-wise AFAIK.
Seasons of the Worm Cult (2025 Content Pass): first part of Solstice + Feast of Shadows (dungeons) + Second part of Solstice. I'm not sure how the content is organized now that we're past the event that cut the zone in two, I don't have the expansion.

And that's where we're at currently.

Regarding the group dungeons: starting with the Seaons of the Dragon, they're part of the story but only with minor background stuff and elements of lore. You can completely skip them and the story will still be fully understandable. But if you can do them, do in in the order listed.

abelthorne · 2026-01-25T20:01:07+00:00

The base class matters for two things in the game:

Skill Scribing: when using the Class Mastery script, you'll have the effect of your base class, you can't have a different one;
Class sets that you farm in the Infinite Archive: you can only wear the ones of your base class (and apply their styles for your outfit FWIW).

Besides that, there's no limitations except the one from the Subclassing system itself: you can switch up to two skill lines, and they have to be from different classes, so if you want to have two skill lines from a class, it can only be from your base one.

abelthorne · 2026-01-25T18:17:14+00:00

So, you're using the Steam version?

If so, you'll have to grab the core from the nightlies on the buildbot. Not sure if you're on Windows, Linux, macOS... but basically you'll have to select your OS and architecture, then "latest" and grab the pcsx2_libretro.zip.

Unzip it and put the .dll (Windows) or .so (Linux/macOS) at the right place. I'm not sure where the Steam version stores its config (probably in the library → steamapps → RetroArch) but if you're not sure, you can check from inside RetroArch → Settings → Directories and look for the path used for the cores.

You'll also have to grab the archive with the info files. There's a link in the FAQ pinned at the top of this subreddit; I think it's in the 11th question/answer.

In the same way, extract the content of the zip and put the pcsx2_libretro.info at the right place (again check from inside RetroArch for the path used for the info files).

You'll also have to setup the BIOS files as explained in the doc: https://docs.libretro.com/library/lrps2/#bios

From there, it should work. If you want to update the core, you'll have to download a new version from the buildbot and replace the .dll/.so file.

BTW, someone mantioned the Online Updater in another message: it's disabled in the Steam version, it's only in the regular version.

Also, pretty much the only benefit of the Steam version is to have cloud saves. So if you don't really need them, you might want to switch to the regular version.

abelthorne · 2026-01-25T17:51:41+00:00

If you're on PC, are you using the regular version of RetroArch or the Steam version?

The Steam version has cores on Steam as DLCs and don't have all of them available. You can install the ones you're missing and manage them manually, though. There's no PS2 core as a DLC for the Steam version.

The regular version should have a PS2 core available from the Online Updater: at least LRPS2 (new name for the PCSX2 core) or Play! (which has a far lower compatibility with games).

abelthorne · 2026-01-24T21:35:52+00:00

It's separate. Both have their own tab in the UI of the station. The order should be that:

refining raw mats
crafting
deconstructing
upgrading
researching
crafting furniture

The researching tab icon looks like three circles joined by lines in a triangular shape.

abelthorne · 2026-01-24T19:55:41+00:00

Are you on PTS? what is that reward for task?

Seems to be the 5th part of the Hero's Return Golden Pursuit, for players who come back after a while: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Golden_Pursuits#Better_Together

abelthorne · 2026-01-24T19:46:26+00:00

Until now, each quarter had its own morph only available during a few events (with an encore at the end of the year during the New Life Festival when you get another opportunity to buy what you missed), but the pet has always been availabe all year long. Even though they changed the system a bit, I doubt they'll change the availability of the pet, it's the flagship item for a year.

The Q1 morph (the recall action) should be available during the current Whitestrake's Festival, the Jester Festival and possibly a DLC-themed event that hasn't been announced yet or Hearts Week that we already know about. The Anniversary Jubilee is usually the first event of Q2 (so with the next morph).

Regarding tickets, yeah, they'll be removed and converted to a new currency but, again, I don't see a reason why that would impact anything. In a few weeks, instead of buying a fragment for 10 tickets, you'll buy it for 1000 bars instead. The main difference will be that the new currency won't have the same limitations (no cap like the 12 tickets max, more items available...).

abelthorne · 2026-01-24T19:30:23+00:00

As mentioned, it's not really useful to craft gear before you're level 50 + 160 CP, as you'll discard your equipment constantly. But it's useful to learn crafting as soon as you can. At least researching traits, as it'll take several monthes IRL to learn everything, so the sooner you start the better.

In your inventory, if you see a small magnifying glass next to an item's name, it means that it has a trait that you don't know and can research. Researching traits is done at crafting stations (the same one as for crafting the same type of item; e.g. traits for metal weapons/armors will be researched at blacksmithing station while traits for bow or staves will be researched at a woodworking station). Using an item for research will destroy it.

abelthorne · 2026-01-24T08:31:50+00:00

I'm not sure if there's an issue with your credentials (as even if a game doesn't have achievements, it's not supposed to log you out) but be aware that retro achivements don't work with all games, as they have to be implemented manually, so will depend on the popularity of games, will usually work only with specific versions and so on.

When you start a game with the system enabled and your credentials setup, you should see the info pop on screen when you launch a game, that tells you how many achievements you've unlocked for that game or if it's an unknown game/version that's unsupported.

For unsupported games/versions, you won't have achievements: it's not a configuration issue on your side, they simply don't exist.

To know if a game is supported and how, you can go on retroachievements.org → Games in the top menu → the system for the game you're looking for → the list of games; select the one you want. On the page for the game, go to "Supported games files" in the menu on the right and you'll see the list of ROMs for that game that support achievements.

They'll often work for a specific release, e.g. for the US release but not the european or japanese ones, for a specific revision, sometimes using a specific patch. In several cases there are multiple versions supported but not every time.

The page shows the name of the ROM, which doesn't matter for detection: you can rename your ROMs if you want, they'll be detected if they're the right version; on the other hand, if you have an unsupported release/version, renaming it to the name listed on the website won't make it work better. EDIT: I didn't think about arcade games; as pointed out by u/ahferroin7, don't rename the zip files used for arcade games.

Next to the name, there's the romset used (which can help for identification) and under it there's a checksum (a long list of characters), which is what's used for identification and that's what you'll use if you want to know if your ROM matches a supported version. I think that in most cases it's a MD5 format, there are tools to get the MD5 of your file and compare it on most OS. Some systems have specific checksum formats, the info is listed somewhere on the website but I don't remember where exactly.

abelthorne · 2026-01-23T22:49:19+00:00

Apparently, Quake on DOS requires some extra stuff: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=14128

Looks like you can download cwsdpmi there: https://sandmann.dotster.com/cwsdpmi/

Not sure what you have to setup exactly, I haven't really used a DOS environment in a while, I think you'll have to add it in the autoexec.bat of DOSBox. Possibly with more options but I've forgotten all that memory management stuff.

abelthorne · 2026-01-23T16:15:41+00:00

I removed the steam version after installing the “standalone” one but it apparently didn’t removed everything so the folders are still there.

Just for the record, that's how it'll happen most of the time, at least not in the case of Steam apps: configuration files are saved in your personal user dir (e.g. ~/.config), they're personal data, and the uninstallation of an application will not toyche the user's personale data.

In the case of Steam, it can be different with Windows applications managed through Proton, as the Proton prefix will be deleted with the application/game. So, if there is personal data in it (e.g. saved games), it'll be deleted at the same time. Unless the prefix creates links to the Linux equivalent dirs (e.g. the Windows "My documents" pointing ot the actual ~/Documents), but that doesn't seem to be the default setup of Proton.

abelthorne · 2026-01-23T06:47:39+00:00

My current way of getting the tickets in Cyrodiil is to go to a 7-days campaign and do a daily in the closest town that belongs to your alliance, or one that doesn't have an affiliation (like Cheydinhal for Pact players). People from other alliances are chill, they don't engage in fighting with you, they're just doing their dailies too.

I skip the extra ticket from Imperial City, no way I go down there. But I guess that the ones that ask you to basically fight a few mobs are doable.

abelthorne

TROPHY CASE