Can exploring too much cause bugs?

[Freeed]

I’m on my first play through. I haven’t gotten far on the main quest, but my character is already quite strong from all the faction quests and exploring.

Yesterday I stumbled on a large cave called Ilunibi. I got very intrigued by it so I went on wiki pages to find out what it was, turns out it’s part of the main quest, and I’ve already raided it.
I also killed a Dagoth dude in a similar cavern near Balmora.

Now I’m wondering if I’m at risk of bugging the game after clearing and potentially killing quest enemies and areas before getting the actual quest.
Morrowind is an old game, and in my experience older rpg games are very prone to bug if you don’t do what the game intends for you to do.

Should I stop wandering about and instead follow the main and faction quests? Am I at risk of bugging the game and miss out on important things if I explore and go my own way too much?

[Lobo de hielo]

Do not worry about it. I have always adventured and never had a problem. (over 6000 hours).
Just save regularly, because if you are about to kill or kill an important character you will get a warning similar to: 'with this character's death the thread of the prophecy is broken. Load a save or continue in the doomed world you have created"

Although there is a crazy NPC in one Ancestral Home I believe where you get that message, think his name is "Crazy Batou" and it is actually okay to kill him.

[bad_fur_day1]

Not completely positive. Bug out, not so much. Ruin non main story related quests, perhaps yes.

[Greyskys85]

There are cheat codes that can fix a game no matter how broken it becomes. For example, lets say Vivic doesn't load fast enough and all the NPCs fall into the water and drown. Let's say one of them was needed for the main quest and now you are screwed. Let's say you were really dumb and saved after this.

Well fear not, cause you can reset all of the NPCS to there starting positions and revive the one you need.

Now let's say you did a quest out of order like maybe you freed all of the slaves in Caldera mines before getting the quest to do so. Well you can simply fix that by setting the quest stage to complete.

Go nuts, save often and you'll be fine.

[Freeed]

Originally posted by slayor3000:

Do not worry about it. I have always adventured and never had a problem. (over 6000 hours).
Just save regularly, because if you are about to kill or kill an important character you will get a warning similar to: 'with this character's death the thread of the prophecy is broken. Load a save or continue in the doomed world you have created"

Although there is a crazy NPC in one Ancestral Home I believe where you get that message, think his name is "Crazy Batou" and it is actually okay to kill him.

Thanks for the quick reply.
So what happens if I kill a quest enemy before getting the quest? Will the quest automatically complete instantly?
I remember I did run into an early quest involving a bandit near the starting village that, if you kill him before taking the quest, you simply don’t get the quest at all.

Now that I’ve killed the Dagoth guy near Balmora, will there be any consequences for any future quest? Can I literally raid any shrine or dwarven ruin, killing any named enemy etc without risking screwing up future quests?

[Lobo de hielo]

If you kill a NPC that is part of a quest either present or future then that quest cannot be started and/or completed.
If the NPC is required for the main quest you will get that warning dialogue appear on the screen : 'with this character's death the thread of the prophecy is broken. Load a save or continue in the doomed world you have created"

There are lots of Dagoth guys, you can kill most of them with no consequences, it just mucks things up a little if you kill Daguth Ur to early. Very difficult to do. So do not worry just go on adventuring.

I still remember some years back someone " accidentally killed caius cossades " on a thread, how on earth they missed the warning dialogue to go back to an earlier save I have no idea.

Raid and do any shrine, ruin, cave, just remember to keep some items if they look important. i.e "Shoes of Rilm". You only need the item to complete the quest, which is a quest for the Temple. Usually these items are in very difficult to get places or locked behind a 70 lock etc.

[psychotron666]

You're fine. You'll just have to back to ilinubi later. Most of the dagoth dungeons are optional, and when you kill the dagoth leader there, you will free a bunch of the dreamer people corrupted in the nearby towns.