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LGNPC - Seyda Neen

Expectations

Seyda Neen is a hard place to start. The new dialog has to work for new players and set up the atmosphere of Morrowind, but it also has to provide some interest to players who have started a ton of new games and are looking for something new.

It's a small marsh village with a significant Imperial presence around the Census and Excise Office, but with smugglers, pirates and dangerous wildlife just outside the main body of houses. Some of this doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me (why isn't Ebonheart or Balmora the "Gateway to Vvardenfell"?), but it's a neat place to let the player start off in a run-down location with a limited amount to do and the main narrative conflicts of Morrowind set up.

I'm reviewing the text-only version because I can't be arsed to look at the quest scripting etc right now.

Less Generic?

I have to point this out first. It really bugs me. Every single character talks the same, and they all talk like Lieutenant Data.

Nobody uses contractions. Do you know any thief scouts who are likely to talk like this?

One cannot operate in the same region without eventually drawing too much attention. Some years ago it became necessary for me to leave Skyrim. The Thieves Guild was just getting established in Vvardenfell so it was not merely expedient to leave, but also very advantageous.

Sadly you cannot embark from Seyda Neen. If you are going to travel on food, some people say the trail west out of Balmora following the Odai River is less treacherous.

Here's some more. Can you tell anything about the speakers' race, class, sex, or job? Or do they all sound exactly like the same pretentious thirteen year old who thinks it's more literary to write like a robot?

You will see for yourself that we are stoic and hardworking - proud of whom we are, but not so proud as to prevent us from helping our neighbor or accepting help in return.

The circumstance that brought me to Seyda Neen is something that I prefer not to discuss.

In other settlements there is the Camonna Tong, and their kind is known to assault any outlanders not just my people.

I'm not going to confide in you - not after what you have done!

I guess it is not necessarily personal - they seem to look down upon anyone who is not of their race living in their land.

I could paste almost every line of text. As short excerpts this quirk might not look too bad, but the text turns into an awful uninflected machine-gun rattle in my head when I read it. This is the opposite of Less Generic. There's poetic language throughout Morrowind, but Tandram, the bard in Arrille's, speaks absolutely identically to everyone else. It's not just a missed opportunity, it's pretty much scuppering the entire point of the mod.

In fact, check out these instances of the base Morrowind text just being made worse:

We are the People of the Root, called 'Argonians' by the warmbloods. We go where we will, wet or dry, and the currents of blood magic run swift in our veins. In our native land, we hunt to live, masters of the marshes. Hunted and enslaved by softskinned enemies, we snare and slay them by stealth, spell, and steel.

becomes

Yes I am what the warm-bloods called 'Argonian', but we call ourselves 'the People of the Root'. We can swim faster and longer than any other race - that makes us very effective at hunting and fighting underwater.

and

My cousin claimed he saw a city in the water near Gnaar Mok. He's a drunkard, though, and spends too much time in the sun.

becomes

My cousin claimed he saw a city in the water near Gnaar Mok. He's fisherman and a drunkard though, and probably spends too much time in the sun.

Wow! He's fisherman! What a useful, Less Generic addition!

There's also no point in giving NPCs meaningless cruft dialogue, like they prefer not to discuss their background. That's a box-ticking exercise. You may as well leave "I am %name, %class" in place.

Whores, Prostitutes, Bitches and Females

Right, let's get into it. You probably already know LGNPC has some issues with creepiness. Seyda Neen has a population of twenty-six people. That's not many. You'd think the author could keep themselves from being horny on main while writing dialog for a mere twenty-six NPCs. Nope! Three of them hit on you! One's literally a prostitute!

To be fair, I think the prostitute is meant to be more humorous than sexy, but imagine a teenager writing it and you'll be pretty on the mark:

Yes we are a passionate race - passionate in our religious fervor, and in our fury to challenge an insult or perceived injustice - but also passionate in the common meaning. You may not realize to look at us, but behind these cold, red eyes is an ardor that if released can burn like wildfire - and in us females particularly.

(get cured) What?! I will have you know that I am very careful about that sort of thing.

While Morrowind society may appear to be dominated by the mer, you should not be too quick to dismiss the influence, the power really, that we females wield. In fact, the commonest among us can make her mer do whatever she desires, and the clever courtesan can make him think it was his idea in the first place.

[smiling mischievously] Please,,, a female's mystery is half her charm.

Note a couple of things here:

"females". Not once did I see the author use the word "woman". Seriously. Not once. It's always stuff like "I cater to the needs of the customers upstairs, manage the store's inventory and generally keep the place orderly - you know, give it a female's touch." He does use "my bitch of a wife", though! Cool!

The author bafflingly uses "mer" to mean "male elf" - I guess trying to be equivalent to "man" meaning both "male human" and "mankind". Since it's not used this way in the base game, as far as I can tell, it's just confusing. It's especially funny here because it implies "females" are a different race than mer.

Weird chatroom emotes. [smiling mischeviously] has a real "I put on my robe and wizard hat" vibe, right? This turns up in a few other places too.

If you choose to play a feeeeemale character looking for love (and why else would you play one?), don't worry! The two eligible bachelors Hrisskar Flat-Foot and Raflod the Braggart are waiting for your call:

That's right, lass. Maybe you were thinking it was time you learned what it is like to be with a real man.

You know what they say, "Once you go Nord you'll never be bored"

This shit doesn't make any sense

I get the feeling they didn't plan out the characters that well. Some examples:

The silt strider operator, Darvame Hleran, apparently has great "interest in the strider's well being". Leaving aside wellbeing being written as two words (ugh) - striders have their shells cut open and controls shoved in their bodies. Somehow this dialog doesn't seem quite right.

Darvame came to Seyda Neen to support its growth via the Imperials. But she also feels sad about the Imperial growth in Gnisis. Which is it? Or is she just a hypocrite?

The Altmer of the village are written as being "close and supportive of each other", "loyal and responsible". This is such a weird choice for a race that other dialog and lore describes as proud, snobbish, refined, and elitist.

Tolvise says that Tandram (the bard) speaks on the subject of Red Mountain, and scares her. You cannot ask Tandram about Red Mountain.

There's a guy who used to be in House Hlaalu. He's retired here. You'd think someone in a Great House would be able to retire somewhere else, but I guess not. It's not addressed. His NPC is just a Commoner with no faction affiliation. Eh.

There are some cool character ideas in the base game, like Hrisskar being a Nord Rogue in the Imperial Legion - an unusual combo. But it goes pretty much unused, apart from other characters having a bit of dialogue about how he's a bully and gives the legion a bad name. If I hadn't looked at his NPC, I still wouldn't know what his class was. The mod is happy to fall into stereotypes (retired guy with injury, sex-mad Dunmer, well-travelled bard, good guard, bully guard) and leave it at that.

Some characters have been made into strange sort of happy-clappy mouthpieces. The bard says "What I have learned is not all Dunmer are the same and the differences between races are not that great." (We're all one, maaaan!). The door guard has been made into a Good Guy Guard who's there to protect the inhabitants, etc etc. I really don't like this. Morrowind is about a hostile atmosphere. You should not be able to encounter lots of friendly, happy people by wandering about Seyda Neen. One of the great things about Morrowind dialog is how impenetrable and unfriendly it is. Nobody wants to speak to you. At best they'll try and give you some advice on how not to accidentally kill yourself. They probably shouldn't be talking about how, like, they really admire the Dunmer, dude, and maybe the Ashlanders just haven't met enough outlanders, maybe you should go make friends with them?

Dumb Typos

Before I wrap up, here's some shit that really should have been caught:

Syeyda Neen

I'd suggest you don't pull people by tongue in order to hear from them something they would rather keep silent about.

Seyda Neen has a little offer by way of services.

Teleri Helvi is not very choosing about the company she keeps

Whenever Hrisskar gets leave he has me conduct him to Suran so he can slate his thirst for debauchery.

the Imperial Legion is an invading army that they conduct a dishonorable war by striking cowardly from the shadows.

Some of these mistakes, and stuff in the other LGNPC mods, makes me think the author's first language wasn't English.

Is there anything good about this mod or do you just like complaining

Yeah, I guess there are a couple of things.

Raflod has some dialog added to show you to Gnaar Mok and Gnisis.

It's nice to have responses to things that weren't acknowledged in the base game, like talking to Fargoth after taking his stash, or talking to Sellus Gravius after completing the main quest.

Elone has some new dialog that points to a master in Molag Mar. It's decently written.

They didn't totally fuck up Fargoth's or Socucius' dialog with dumb memes or overtly out-of-character stuff

Uhhh that's about it

Should I install this one

Nah. It's not very good. Do you really give a shit that some guy in Seyda Neen has a bad knee? Do you really want to waste your time reading stuff like the snippets here? Naaaah.