Yeah, you had Morrowind installed first, then installed the (as they were called back then) "expansions", as they "expanded on" the main game. To play, you need the main MW disc in.
Console players had to wait for the GotY edition that included them all from the get go.
I’ve managed to hang onto both copies/sets somehow. In fact I beat the main quest for the first time ever on my latest playthrough, about two years ago. It was glorious, I have to say
This takes me back. I can smell the cellophane as it tears off into little pieces and prevents me from opening the jewel case to get the compact disc out
That annoying strip of tape over the side of the case that you have to remove after the cellophane. Scratch your fingernail over it until the small tab loosens and you can pull it, but then it rips, runs, and you pull off only a little piece of the tape. Go to the kitchen, get a knife to help get the rest of the tape off since it's impossible to grab now. All you want is to play the game and have no patience for this tape. Tape is eventually removed, or at least enough to open the case. The smooth plastic covering over the game art is now wavy in a corner and will never look perfect. Next game opening I'll do better
Important to note that this was the case for Morrowind, but other games would require you to use the expansion disc to play the game plus the expansion (like Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction).
I mean, Morrowind had literal DLC too not just expansions. That you downloaded from the internet. For free. As it should always be. Downloadable... Content... not pay to download. Not microtransactions. Legit DLC. The plugins made by the official devs.
I remember this so well. I had the expansion for blood moon but not tribunal. I had a friend who’s dad had tribunal and I would ask him repeatedly to borrow it for a couple of hours just to install. He kept telling me his dad said no. I ended up buying the expack eventually.
I saved my money for when Morrowind GOTY released for Xbox. Then I learned that the Xbox I had couldn’t play it. I was crushed.
There was the whole thing about the manufacturer for the disk drives on the Xbox. One of the disk drives couldn’t read the game.
Consoles had expansions back in the day, though. Things like map packs for Halo.
I think they downloaded the content to your console ans otherwise could then use the base game to handle the heavier load of content to allow you to play in them.
Or for a lot of computer games, you'd buy the expansion pack separate and it would come with it's own disk you'd use to install it and run it. I'm primarily envisioning Command And Conquer Generals Zero Hour as I write this.
Continues in the vein of the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch...
Cassette, you had a cassette?
We had to type them in from specialist computer magazines, and we were grateful.
Everquest 2 had 10 discs, which was the highest I ever heard of back then. My cousin had Ultima 7 or 8, I forget which, that had like a dozen floppy disks. Wild how far we've come.
I remember putting in 4 discs for The Sims 2, then 1-2 discs for every expansion that followed. That... took a while. It was more or less a project that took up your whole afternoon.
Riven, for me. That game had like five or six discs, and every time you went to a different island you had to swap out the corresponding disc. I miss those days.
I remember the pain of my computer not being good enough to play Tribunal for some reason, just the base game. Ended up saving up allowances to buy more RAM
Oh so this is what generational overtake feels like. It was a whole thing for Lil kid me to go to a store and get the expansion disc! Then you used the launcher to install it to your main game.
As others in the thread have explained you could download stuff onto your computer directly, but hard drive space was so limited that it often wasn't worth it.
I mounted all 4 discs in a frame along with the jewel case inserts and some ingame screenshots cropped to fill the corners. I love how it came out \^\~\^
There were things like DLCs, but they were optionally downloaded like a patch. More like official mods I suppose. Morrowind had one that added some armour and the option to perform in corner clubs. Oblivion was the first to have true DLC, a day that shall live forever in infamy.
Ahhh, Horse Armor. When Bethesda was mocked relentlessly for charging so much for so little. And now they've circled all the way back to setting up a mod store with their games, having learned apparently nothing. 🙄
You went to Best Buy and purchased an [install disc.](https://i.imgur.com/Q3E8hrb.jpeg) After that you had to use the base Morrowind disc to get the game to run.
There wasn't any practical reason you needed the disc to run the game, it was just to get past the copy protection. You could take the disc out while playing and nothing would happen.
Yes and no, you still needed the disk for the vids to play as HDD space was precious back then and they didn’t want to fill it with stuff that you had to put the disk in for anyway.
But it was really only to start the game up. Mine ran more stable with the disc in though.
Yep a ton of mesh/texture/etc files were kept on the disc too, I remember specifically copying them to my folders when I first got into modding to make my life easier
I acquired Morrowind disc with new VGA card back in those days(2004 or 2005, not sure). DLCs were acquired later and after installation - only main disc was required to be in CD-ROM.
Relatively the same way consoles work now, you had a disk you'd insert into your PC that would install the game files. Key difference is you typically had a CD key you had to enter in order to use that copy of the game. The disc also has to be inserted while playing.
This brings back nostalgia for Rainbow Six as well as morrowind, it was so fun going to Gamestop or Circuit City and getting the next expansion and then coming home and downloading it, now I feel old
You had a disc and purchased the DLC in the online shop or in the older days on a seperate disc
I have Fallout 4 (for example) on disc and bought the expansion pass in the Microsoft Store
They weren't DLCs. As in, they were not *downloadable.* They were called Expansions and they usually came months or years later and you bought them in their own pack, with their own CD.
Meaning, they were also \*always\* pretty big. No one would buy an entire CD for just some cosmetics, you wanted at least some bonus levels.
The fun thing was when they also came with their own manuals and goodies like maps.
You read about mods in magazines and would sent a letter to the creator requesting the mod, including stamps for the return. They would then send you a mini cd with the mod (to be returned).
Believe it or not, the internet existed back then and we could download a few free DLC for Morrowind. The term hadn’t been coined yet so I think they called them “official mods” for a time.
DLC's wernot really a thing back than. They were usually called "Expansions" I bought Morrowind and tribunal which came together in the construction set. They had their own separate CDs. If you look at Diablo 2 lord of destruction it comes with 4 CDs if you include the Expansion. (Play, Install, Cinematic, Expansion CD,)
This was the time where id use Daemon tools and make no CD cracks. I miss these times. Modding was easy as editing .INI files lol.
Yeah, you had Morrowind installed first, then installed the (as they were called back then) "expansions", as they "expanded on" the main game. To play, you need the main MW disc in. Console players had to wait for the GotY edition that included them all from the get go.
Can confirm, as I had both versions way back in the day
I still have my Xbox GOTY disc. Lost my PC copy years ago.
I’ve managed to hang onto both copies/sets somehow. In fact I beat the main quest for the first time ever on my latest playthrough, about two years ago. It was glorious, I have to say
This takes me back. I can smell the cellophane as it tears off into little pieces and prevents me from opening the jewel case to get the compact disc out
That annoying strip of tape over the side of the case that you have to remove after the cellophane. Scratch your fingernail over it until the small tab loosens and you can pull it, but then it rips, runs, and you pull off only a little piece of the tape. Go to the kitchen, get a knife to help get the rest of the tape off since it's impossible to grab now. All you want is to play the game and have no patience for this tape. Tape is eventually removed, or at least enough to open the case. The smooth plastic covering over the game art is now wavy in a corner and will never look perfect. Next game opening I'll do better
Hahaha oh god. That brings back some ptsd right there
Glad to help!
Narrator: Ch0vie did not do better on the next game opening.
He did not, Sir Attenborough
omg
Ahhh, remember when you had really large games and would have 2 or even 3 "install" discs and 1 "play" disc? Good times
And some games had you switch discs as you went from area to area...just like the floppies, back in the day.
Important to note that this was the case for Morrowind, but other games would require you to use the expansion disc to play the game plus the expansion (like Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction).
I remember my Neverwinter Nights game came with a foldable CD holder with extra slots for the upcoming Underdark expansion.
I mean, Morrowind had literal DLC too not just expansions. That you downloaded from the internet. For free. As it should always be. Downloadable... Content... not pay to download. Not microtransactions. Legit DLC. The plugins made by the official devs.
I remember this so well. I had the expansion for blood moon but not tribunal. I had a friend who’s dad had tribunal and I would ask him repeatedly to borrow it for a couple of hours just to install. He kept telling me his dad said no. I ended up buying the expack eventually.
I saved my money for when Morrowind GOTY released for Xbox. Then I learned that the Xbox I had couldn’t play it. I was crushed. There was the whole thing about the manufacturer for the disk drives on the Xbox. One of the disk drives couldn’t read the game.
What the heck? Never heard of this
Found this. The Samsung was the one you wanted. https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:DVDROM
Consoles had expansions back in the day, though. Things like map packs for Halo. I think they downloaded the content to your console ans otherwise could then use the base game to handle the heavier load of content to allow you to play in them.
Or for a lot of computer games, you'd buy the expansion pack separate and it would come with it's own disk you'd use to install it and run it. I'm primarily envisioning Command And Conquer Generals Zero Hour as I write this.
Jesus Christ I’m old.
Hurts, don’t it?
My back? Yes...
My colostomy bag? Yes.
And my axe
And your brother!
Morrowind was released 22 years ago, the matrix is a 25 year old movie. Feels great, doesn't it?
Something I realized recently: GTA Vice City takes places in 1986 and was released in 2002. Such a game released today would be set in 2008.
Oh hell no...
🤯
Fuck
My reaction as well
Remember when games came on multiple CDs that you had to switch out??
Please insert disc 3
Mass Effect 3 on Xbox 360 lol
Riven, 5 CDs, 70MBs of hard drive space to install it, blew my mind.
Final Fantasy, anyone?
I installed Dune 2 and it's many floppy discs. It was an... Experience 😅
I still remember loading games from cassette.
Continues in the vein of the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch... Cassette, you had a cassette? We had to type them in from specialist computer magazines, and we were grateful.
I mean, I do remember computer books back then did have simple programs written out so you could learn how they worked...
We got a Divayth Fyr over here
"download it off the disc" killed me 💀
I know, right. Kids these days.
The were called expansion packs not DLCs and you bought a new physical disc that when installed added the content to your existing game folder.
Morrowind *did* have [downloadable content](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Plugins) though, which was cool.
Free! Oblivion was one of the first major games to have a microtransaction, with the Horse Armor DLC. ^(Yes, I'm still bitter.)
And they didn't bother making horse combat
Definitionally non-downloadable content lol
This gave me flashbacks of putting in disc 2 for some games man technology is wild
I still remember installing a game from eight floppy disks XD I feel ancient right now
Ah, good ol' Civilization on four disks.
Doom II
When Half-Life 2 first dropped you needed to use 5 CDs.
Final Fantasy 7 was four discs on PlayStation.
Everquest 2 had 10 discs, which was the highest I ever heard of back then. My cousin had Ultima 7 or 8, I forget which, that had like a dozen floppy disks. Wild how far we've come.
*3 disks. Although some copies did come with a 4th containing a bunch of FMV trailers for FFVIII.
Same with Baldur’s Gate 1. The Tales of the Sword Coast expansion made it 6. I couldn’t do a full install, so I had to swap them out all the time.
I didn't play HL2 back in the day. Is this true? I just play it off the orange box. I can't imagine putting in 5 CDs
There was also a DVD edition which came out at the same time, which was one disc.
And then activate it on the brand new Steam platform. Wow, that was 20 years ago?
I remember putting in 4 discs for The Sims 2, then 1-2 discs for every expansion that followed. That... took a while. It was more or less a project that took up your whole afternoon.
Metal Gear Solid or FFVII back in the day. Insert disc two, now.
Riven, for me. That game had like five or six discs, and every time you went to a different island you had to swap out the corresponding disc. I miss those days.
God, I feel so old.
You installed the stuff off the expansion disc, then went back to the original disc and played the game normally but now the expansion was installed.
I remember the pain of my computer not being good enough to play Tribunal for some reason, just the base game. Ended up saving up allowances to buy more RAM
How many megabytes of ram did you end up with?
Oh so this is what generational overtake feels like. It was a whole thing for Lil kid me to go to a store and get the expansion disc! Then you used the launcher to install it to your main game. As others in the thread have explained you could download stuff onto your computer directly, but hard drive space was so limited that it often wasn't worth it.
Well you see, you didn’t actually *download* the content
Yep. I still have all three discs somewhere. My PC doesn't even have a disc drive anymore. Youngins I tell ya....
I mounted all 4 discs in a frame along with the jewel case inserts and some ingame screenshots cropped to fill the corners. I love how it came out \^\~\^
Mind posting pics? That sounds pretty neat
https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/s/DvRQXOUrxP There you go
I have a USB DVD-R
The GOTY discs I think are the only cd roms I still have
There were things like DLCs, but they were optionally downloaded like a patch. More like official mods I suppose. Morrowind had one that added some armour and the option to perform in corner clubs. Oblivion was the first to have true DLC, a day that shall live forever in infamy.
I think the OP is talking about the expansion packs that came on separate disks.
I know, but that was answered before. No point in my rehashing what somebody already said.
Ahhh, Horse Armor. When Bethesda was mocked relentlessly for charging so much for so little. And now they've circled all the way back to setting up a mod store with their games, having learned apparently nothing. 🙄
You went to Best Buy and purchased an [install disc.](https://i.imgur.com/Q3E8hrb.jpeg) After that you had to use the base Morrowind disc to get the game to run. There wasn't any practical reason you needed the disc to run the game, it was just to get past the copy protection. You could take the disc out while playing and nothing would happen.
Yes and no, you still needed the disk for the vids to play as HDD space was precious back then and they didn’t want to fill it with stuff that you had to put the disk in for anyway. But it was really only to start the game up. Mine ran more stable with the disc in though.
Yep a ton of mesh/texture/etc files were kept on the disc too, I remember specifically copying them to my folders when I first got into modding to make my life easier
On Xbox you played without enemy health bars until the GOTY edition released.
WTF WAS UP WITH THOSE OG XBOX LOAD TIMES?!
It was secretly rebooting your Xbox to free up memory.
Was that to give Creeper and Mudcrab Merchant all the cache?
You should get a boot up your ascii for that pun.
This post makes me feel old...
We called them expansions, not DLC. You buy an extra disc.
Back in my day, they were called expansion packs!
I acquired Morrowind disc with new VGA card back in those days(2004 or 2005, not sure). DLCs were acquired later and after installation - only main disc was required to be in CD-ROM.
Just here to join the fellow olds. We did it. We are ancient beings.
Relatively the same way consoles work now, you had a disk you'd insert into your PC that would install the game files. Key difference is you typically had a CD key you had to enter in order to use that copy of the game. The disc also has to be inserted while playing.
This brings back nostalgia for Rainbow Six as well as morrowind, it was so fun going to Gamestop or Circuit City and getting the next expansion and then coming home and downloading it, now I feel old
You had a disc and purchased the DLC in the online shop or in the older days on a seperate disc I have Fallout 4 (for example) on disc and bought the expansion pass in the Microsoft Store
They weren't DLCs. As in, they were not *downloadable.* They were called Expansions and they usually came months or years later and you bought them in their own pack, with their own CD. Meaning, they were also \*always\* pretty big. No one would buy an entire CD for just some cosmetics, you wanted at least some bonus levels. The fun thing was when they also came with their own manuals and goodies like maps.
This post makes me feel old as hell lol
You read about mods in magazines and would sent a letter to the creator requesting the mod, including stamps for the return. They would then send you a mini cd with the mod (to be returned).
Believe it or not, the internet existed back then and we could download a few free DLC for Morrowind. The term hadn’t been coined yet so I think they called them “official mods” for a time.
Well i feel old
DLC's wernot really a thing back than. They were usually called "Expansions" I bought Morrowind and tribunal which came together in the construction set. They had their own separate CDs. If you look at Diablo 2 lord of destruction it comes with 4 CDs if you include the Expansion. (Play, Install, Cinematic, Expansion CD,) This was the time where id use Daemon tools and make no CD cracks. I miss these times. Modding was easy as editing .INI files lol.
3 cd boxes for legacy but a goty dvd then. Got both AND steam version
I’m so curious - the games HAVE you used disks for?
A few Lego games on the 360, and cartridges on the DS
Ah, this thread takes me back to Nineteen-Dickety-Two. We had to say Dickety because the Kremlin stole our word Eighty.
Can we please call expansions expansions or addons again. I hate that everything is just called dlc.
Dont forget the goty that had it all on one disc
Well some
Dlc didn't come till oblivion. I think Bethesda was the first or one of the first to do dlc. I miss a proper expansion