Elder Scrolls Let's fix Morrowind

Rincewind · Jun 29, 2022

Zed Duke of Banville said:
Head replacers, by contrast, not only offer high-polygon meshes and high-resolution textures but also the possibility of aesthetic improvements --- though, of course, whether they actually are artistically-improved while remaining faithful to Morrowind's overall aesthetic is dependent on the talents and intent of the modellers.

I get it where you're coming from, and I actually liked some high-quality head replacers for the elves, but I also like the goofy upscaled version; it just adds a lot of character.

Rincewind · Jun 29, 2022

Sigourn said:
I also echo what @Lemming42 said in the first page: the most insidious of Morrowind's issues haven't been fixed with mods to this day, because they would require a full rework of the game.

Yeah, ultimately it's akin to putting lipstick on a pig. Any game that requires extensive modding to "fix" its issues is essentially broken, I've said that before.
No amount of modding will get it close to Gothic anyway

Although I appreciate the efforts of those who tried (e.g. the Starfire NPC mods were quite nice that basically just added a bunch of random people roaming the streets).

When I'll revisit it, I'll just play it for the ambience and the sense of being in the world; some graphical improvements will suffice and maybe some light extra NPC mods. Plus adjusted expectations, of course, coming from Gothic.

spockthewok · Jun 29, 2022

Dr1f7 said:
Rincewind said:

Funposter said:

Your opinions on modded content here are pretty much bunk, since you seem to have not even engaged with it at all.

Click to expand...

I have, and I regret the day that foolish notion entered my mind... I hit weird issues after a while, and how do you exactly determine what conflicts with what exactly when more than a single gameplay/quest mod is installed? The Official Advice (TM) is to install one mod at a time, test it thoroughly, then when you're sure that it's working as intended, move on to the next... Um, hello, how do you exactly do that when any single mod can break the game 10-20-30 hours later? Unless you're willing to play through the game at least N times, where N is the number of gameplay changing mods installed, you can never be sure. And even doing that isn't a guarantee because you could take different paths during playthroughs, visit different places, thus trigger different issues.

Click to expand...

It took me a while (and MANY ruined playthroughs) to learn how to mod morrowind, it can be tricky. You need to really pay attention to what each mod does, and try to anticipate possible conflicts. Like, if you're installing two mods that mess with the same cell, for example. Being careful with load order can help a lot.

Giant mods that make sweeping changes to the whole game (like morrowind rebirth) are risky because really anything installed on top of it might conflict

And, some mods are just really sloppy but typically if they're sloppy there's comments on the download page with warnings, and generally might be a good idea to avoid them or be prepared to face the consequences

Or, another alternative is to use a tool like TES3View (a less developed version of xEdit for Morrowind, you may be familiar with TES5Edit/SSEEdit for Skyrim). Basically it offers a visual representation of which records are being overwritten by which mods.
As an example, below you can see that Patch For Purists changes the tooltip for one of the signs you can find posted on roads from 'Buckmoth Fort (main road)' to 'Buckmoth Fort (back road)'. Near Vanilla Road Signs Replacer conflicts with this and reverts the change (as denoted by the red colouring). This is obviously a very basic (and probably poorly explained) introduction to the power of this tool, but using it can make organising your mods significantly easier (the bar at the top of the image shows load order, i.e. Morrowind.esm -> Patch For Purists.esm -> NearVanillaRoadSigns.esp).

Using Mod Organizer can also make your life easier when sorting things like texture or mesh replacers as it gives clear, graphical representations of which mods are being overwritten by what, and you can even view a detailed description of which files in particular are being overwritten (example images are for FNV but the concept is the same):

Here, we can see that some of the files from Collision Meshes are being overwritten by NVMIM. Note the lightning bolt with the + & -. The + sign indicates that some files from this mod are overwriting files from another mod, and the - indicates that some files from this mod are being overwritten by another.

Clicking on the lightning bolt gives a detailed description of how many and which files are being overwritten, and by what mod (in this case NVMIM).

Dragging Collision Meshes below NVMIM now means the conflicting files from Collision Meshes overwrite the ones from NVMIM.

I suck at explaining things but hopefully this is useful to somebody out there who is still installing mods manually by dragging them into the Data Files folder.

Sigourn · Jun 29, 2022

Also worth mentioning spockthewok is that the TES3Merge tool developed by NullCascade solves many basic conflicts such as that one, so no need to solve them manually. It is in very rare ocassions that the fix is unintended (e.g. let's say Patch for Purists fixes the value of a piece of armor, but another rebalance mod intentionally uses the vanilla value, so TES3Merge doesn't know better and sticks with PfP's edit), and that can be easily fixed using TESAME to delete the unintended record fix from the resulting Merged Objects.esp.

Rincewind · Jun 29, 2022

Sigourn said:
Merged Objects.esp

Dr1f7 · Jun 29, 2022

Jarmaro said:
Just the other day I've read something about mod that reimplements music according to situation and the place, i.e. dungeons have have their own music etc. Supposedly it's part of Tamriel Rebuilt, but I found this: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46200

THIS IS GREAT!
Thank you!
Will be added to the list.

luj1 · Jun 29, 2022

Rincewind said:
No amount of modding will get it close to Gothic

No need, Gothic is like a bum version of Morrowind anyway

Funposter · Jun 29, 2022

morrowind and gothic are very different types of games

Jarmaro · Jun 29, 2022

Morrowind and Gothic are as close in their type as it gets, the difference is one has a pre-made character and more focused world, while the other relies on character creation and total freedom. It's just that Gothic does its thing noticably better than Morrowind. Which doesn't mean that Morrowind is bad, just worse as a game.

Rincewind · Jun 29, 2022

Jarmaro said:
Morrowind and Gothic are as close in their type as it gets, the difference is one has a pre-made character and more focused world, while the other relies on character creation and total freedom. It's just that Gothic does its thing noticably better than Morrowind. Which doesn't mean that Morrowind is bad, just worse as a game.

Gothic = good overall game
Morrowind = excellent world building, mediocre game at best

luj1 · Jun 29, 2022

Gothic is not unlike Morrowind as both have freeform design and biomes, and janky combat

except instead of an original setting, Gothic is a brown nothingburger

furthermore Gothic doesn't have Kirkbride tripping on mushrooms and writing the lore and backstory. Also lacks modability

These are big minuses

Jarmaro · Jun 29, 2022

luj1 said:
except instead of an original setting, Gothic is a brown nothingburger

furthermore Gothic doesn't have Kirkbride tripping on mushrooms and writing the lore and backstory

Also lacks modability

1. Gothic is an excellent brew of classical medieval setting combined with magical elements. It's so well made as to be practically seamless. This is not just basic 'fantasy medieval' setting, it has so much 'soul' in it, Oblivion looks like a mockery in comparison. It's the opposite of a bland fantasy setting Bethesda tried with TES IV.

2. Talking shit about Gothic modding is hillarious considering that despite any official tools made for modding the game, it has had dozens of great mods over the years, probably the same if not more sizable mods than Morrowind's had over the two decades of its existence. It's downright ridiculous how good Gothic modding is, despite lack of any official support.

Sigourn · Jun 29, 2022

I don't think they are comparable.
They are both open world RPGs, and that's about it.

Gothic doesn't let you create your character, Morrowind does.
Gothic's combat is purely action combat, Morrowind's is stat-driven.
Gothic's progression is calculated (limited training, limited experience), Morrowind's isn't.
Gothic's world is calculated (limited exploration), Morrowind's isn't.

Those are the four key difference between the two as RPGs. I prefer the Gothic approach myself. I just wish it was a longer game because it was very fun.

LJ40 · Jun 29, 2022

Maybe just call them contrastable, even though it's only marginally a word at best.

I'd rather read more about the guy who thinks modding Morrowind is some kind of Mensa level endeavor.

rusty_shackleford · Jun 29, 2022

Morrowind is the better RPG, Gothic is the better video game.

rusty_shackleford · Jun 29, 2022

spockthewok said:
I suck at explaining things but hopefully this is useful to somebody out there who is still installing mods manually by dragging them into the Data Files folder.

I'll add my 2 cents since I've worked with OpenMW and understand the formats it uses rather well.

People who discuss modding without handling record conflicts probably unknowingly have many record conflicts.
Everything in the engine is described like a database and has a group of records contained in forms.

If mod 1 alters record A on form K and mod 2 alters record B on form K, there is no conflict.
If mod 1 alters record A on form K and mod 2 alters record A on form K, there is a conflict.

A record is a container of fields, meaning that mod 1 and mod 2 can alter different fields on the same record but still have edited the same record and therefore conflict and you therefore need to resolve this conflict. Sometimes this can be done as simply as merging the edits together.

So as we can see here:

NearVanillaRoadSigns is loaded last(0xB = 11), therefore it will win the record conflict.
If you wanted to revert that change, you could create an override patch and load it after NearVanillaRoadSigns.esp.

luj1 · Jun 30, 2022

rusty_shackleford said:
Morrowind is the better RPG, Gothic is the better video game.

technically Morrowind is an action-adventure with character elements

Dr1f7 · Jun 30, 2022

PROGRESS UPDATE

Ok guys, after following a decent chunk of Sigourn 's TRULY AMAZING, (seriously, wow, and THANK YOU), guide to patching, mod tools, etc... for the normal Morrowind engine..
I'm firmly in the camp that OpenMW sucks ass and I'll never use it unless I want to make a multiplayer server
Victory for luj1 Funposter and all the OpenMW haters

I'm surprised at how much has changed since I last modded morrowind like 10 years ago, it's WAY easier to do now (again, very much due to Sigourn 's guide), MO2 really is great.

Anyway, my install is currently at the point where I've finished patches, ui, and weather mods (basically just copied Sigourn 's list for these), the graphics mod (MW watercolored is my go-to), and city overhauls per Lemming42 's recommendation:

Lemming42 said:
Interested in the eventual modlist, but honestly the worst and most crippling problems with the game lie outside the mechanics. Dungeons would have to be overhauled to not be incredibly boring, quests would have to be rewritten or outright restructured to include some kind of player engagement beyond "deliver this to here/kill these guys here", Vivec City would have to be completely removed and rebuilt from the ground up, and much much more. I don't know of any mods that begin to fix any of this - there's a few decent city and town redesigns and there's LGNPC to try and breathe some life into the deadness of the world, but nothing really works.

The game is running INCREDIBLY SMOOTHLY literally everywhere, it's amazing. No mod conflicts or issues anywhere. No game randomly crashing. No pop-ups "you're missing such-and-such.nif" while noclipping through the landmass at 6000 speed. Blowing my mind.

=======================
=======================
To-be installed are the gameplay overhauls listed in my post on pg. 2, then immersion mods and probably a bunch of dungeon/quest mods (I'm kinda a nut for those)

Any recs for dungeons/quests and immersion mods would be really great!!!!

luj1 · Jun 30, 2022

Dr1f7 said:
Any recs for dungeons/quests and immersion mods would be really great!!!!

Best immersion mod I used was Darknuts First Person Enhanced + DoF shader

Dungeons - Anything by Remiros, Resdayn Revival team, Nwahs & Mushrooms team

Quests - Anything by Lucevar, Caeris, Gavrilo

Seek these profilic modders who have a consistent quality standard and never made a mod that is less than excellent

luj1 · Jun 30, 2022

Dr1f7 said:
MW watercolored is my go-to

disgusting

Intelligent Textures or Vanilla Plus Textures > watercolored

Rincewind · Jul 1, 2022

Dr1f7 said:
I'm firmly in the camp that OpenMW sucks ass and I'll never use it

What sucks about it, objectively?

luj1 · Jul 1, 2022

Rincewind said:
Dr1f7 said:

I'm firmly in the camp that OpenMW sucks ass and I'll never use it

Click to expand...

What sucks about it, objectively?

luj1 said:
Jarmaro said:

Dr1f7 said:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

And Ill tell you why you should NOT use it

Due to OpenMW using a different scripting pipeline (its a whole different engine) you're forfeiting:

MCP

MWSE and MGE XE

PfP

90% of mods

Lua, which are the best mods ever made for Morrowind

99% of shaders

And the REAL reason you SHOULD use OpenMW:

Multiplayer

Better framerate in distant cells of TR and P:T

volumetric fog

Let me add OpenMW has higher system requirements and doesnt work so well on older systems/machines

As you can see, the situation is very clear. All the best modders and projects are ignoring OpenMW. The OpenMW team didnt want to cooperate with the rest of the morrowind community for a decade, and now its too late to migrate cuz no one cares

OpenMW is the true plebeian choice, of people who arent well informed and easily hyped

Rincewind · Jul 1, 2022

luj1 said:
Rincewind said:

Dr1f7 said:

I'm firmly in the camp that OpenMW sucks ass and I'll never use it

Click to expand...

What sucks about it, objectively?

Click to expand...

luj1 said:

Jarmaro said:

Dr1f7 said:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

And Ill tell you why you should NOT use it

Due to OpenMW using a different scripting pipeline (its a whole different engine) you're forfeiting:

MCP

MWSE and MGE XE

PfP

90% of mods

Lua, which are the best mods ever made for Morrowind

99% of shaders

And the REAL reason you SHOULD use OpenMW:

Multiplayer

Better framerate in distant cells of TR and P:T

volumetric fog

Let me add OpenMW has higher system requirements and doesnt work so well on older systems/machines

As you can see, the situation is very clear. All the best modders and projects are ignoring OpenMW. The OpenMW team didnt want to cooperate with the rest of the morrowind community for a decade, and now its too late to migrate cuz no one cares

OpenMW is the true plebeian choice, of people who arent well informed and easily hyped

Click to expand...

But most of what you wrote is untrue, as Rusty explained...

luj1 · Jul 1, 2022

Then listen to retards

Rusty knows shit about modding and OpenW

Its 5 years behind in scripting functionality compared to vanilla engine extensions

Its incompatible with 80% of the historic body of work of Morrowind modding

its completely in a vacuum from the rest of the Mw community

its never gonna be worth migrating to because 90% of stuff is never gonna get ported

Rincewind · Jul 1, 2022

luj1 said:
Then listen to retards

Rusty knows shit about modding and OpenW

Its 5 years behind in scripting functionality compared to vanilla engine extensions

Its incompatible with 80% of the historic body of work of Morrowind modding

its completely in a vacuum from the rest of the Mw community

its never gonna be worth migrating to because 90% of stuff is never gonna get ported

Well, if Rusty has worked on OpenMW, I'd rather listen to him than to some random gamer's opinion who doesn't know anything about coding or how the engine works...

Then what are those YouTube videos showing people playing OpenMW with 200+ mods, huh?

I think what you wrote is fake news as it's already compatible with all non-Lua mods, isn't it? The once Lua support will be implemented (and it will be), all mods will work.

What kind of "complete vacuum" are you even talking about when half of the mods on Nexus explicitly mention OpenMW support? Where are you getting these claims and ideas of yours from?

People can do all sorts of engine-level optimisations and multi-core support that's just next to impossible to do with the old binary, having no access to the source code. So even if OpenMW cannot do some things yet, it's the future. I wish something like that existed for PB games.

Elder Scrolls Let's fix Morrowind

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