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General discussion (archive)Morrowind Question(53 posts)(53 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 10, 2013
I'm currently downloading a file called MGSO that is described as THE Morrowind overhaul mod. Is this so?
Posted September 10, 2013
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Tallima: My recommendation is to go vanilla. But I'm sort of an anti-patch nazi.
Same here. Unless the vanilla game is completely broken (like Daggerfall?), I prefer going the first run vanilla, to experience the original game. Vanilla here meaning with the latest _official_ patches.

I¨m happy I endured the original Baldur's Gate without "easytutu" mods or whatever, after I learned they apparently change the gameplay somewhat too, like adding rule changes or such from BG2 that didn't originally exist in BG1.

Also when I glance through some FAQs and such for Baldur's Gate 2, quite often I see people mentioning that some quest didn't go the same way as they thought it should, and they were thinking whether a mod they used was the culprit.
Posted September 10, 2013
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Tallima: My recommendation is to go vanilla. But I'm sort of an anti-patch nazi.
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timppu: Same here. Unless the vanilla game is completely broken (like Daggerfall?), I prefer going the first run vanilla, to experience the original game. Vanilla here meaning with the latest _official_ patches.

I¨m happy I endured the original Baldur's Gate without "easytutu" mods or whatever, after I learned they apparently change the gameplay somewhat too, like adding rule changes or such from BG2 that didn't originally exist in BG1.

Also when I glance through some FAQs and such for Baldur's Gate 2, quite often I see people mentioning that some quest didn't go the same way as they thought it should, and they were thinking whether a mod they used was the culprit.
The only patch/mod I only want is increasing the draw distance, the fog looks distracting and makes the world feels smaller.
Posted September 10, 2013
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tinyE: I'm currently downloading a file called MGSO that is described as THE Morrowind overhaul mod. Is this so?
It is definitely THE mod for improving graphics and sound, and giving you several options.

Example: Many popular mods add trees to the game. They weren't in the original game (well, at some places they were, but they looked poorly). People differ in which tree mod they prefer. Personally I like the exotic atmosphere that the lack of trees (and the prevalence of mushrooms) creates, so I don't add any at all. MGSO offers you a choice between several tree mods (or none), so everyone gets served.

Enthusiasts enjoy the game more by manually selecting graphics/sound enhancers from the hundreds on offer, but unless you want to spend a week sifting through mods before you even start playing, installing the MGSO instead is preferable. ;)

MGSO does not change the gameplay, so for that, you'll need to add other mods.
Posted September 10, 2013
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tinyE: I'm currently downloading a file called MGSO that is described as THE Morrowind overhaul mod. Is this so?
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Psyringe: It is definitely THE mod for improving graphics and sound, and giving you several options.

Example: Many popular mods add trees to the game. They weren't in the original game (well, at some places they were, but they looked poorly). People differ in which tree mod they prefer. Personally I like the exotic atmosphere that the lack of trees (and the prevalence of mushrooms) creates, so I don't add any at all. MGSO offers you a choice between several tree mods (or none), so everyone gets served.

Enthusiasts enjoy the game more by manually selecting graphics/sound enhancers from the hundreds on offer, but unless you want to spend a week sifting through mods before you even start playing, installing the MGSO instead is preferable. ;)

MGSO does not change the gameplay, so for that, you'll need to add other mods.
As usual, you da man Psyringe. :D
Posted September 10, 2013
I played Morrowing using exactly one mod:
- Real Signposts: Let's you actually read the signposts without hovering over them with your mouse

That every signpost looked the same and that you had to hover over them just pissed me off greatly.
Posted September 10, 2013
Yeah, MGSO is just about the best one out there you can possibly get - if you don't mind not getting 100% vanilla experience.
Posted September 10, 2013
When playing Morrowind, I would also recommend the 'Less Generic NPCs' mod in addition to the Overhaul mod. Why? Because as the title says, it makes the non-plot relevant NPCs far more engaging and gives them a backstory of their own. They couldn't populate the entirety of the world, mind you, but it is sufficient to break from the monotony of the original (and also Skyrim from my experience). Plus you can also add some Great Houses material as well, but it's all packaged in a way that allow you to cherry pick what exactly you want (more precisely which location you would like to mod).
Posted September 10, 2013
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Tallima: My recommendation is to go vanilla. But I'm sort of an anti-patch nazi.
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timppu: Same here. Unless the vanilla game is completely broken (like Daggerfall?), I prefer going the first run vanilla, to experience the original game. Vanilla here meaning with the latest _official_ patches.
Well ... recommending to play Morrowind without at least unofficial patches (code patch and UOP) means sending people into broken quests and potential savegame corruption for no apparent gain that I can see.

Also, while I understand the notion of "playing vanilla first" (and usually do this as well for other games), Morrowind is really a special case. It had an extremely active modding community for years, with literally thousands of people involved, creating more than 15,000 mods last time I checked. While many of the mods _do_ change the gameplay in ways that I wouldn't recommend for a first playthrough, or are just plain bad, there are lots of high-quality mods which substantially enhance the game while still meshing extremely well with it.

As an example: Imagine you're entering a world that is as vast as Morrowind, which you can play for hundreds of hours while still discovering new content. You have the option to either play with very generic NPCs that all say the same depending on their affiliation, or with lovingly handcrafted individual NPCs which all have their own dialog, which perfectly fits into the world and its lore. Would you really recommend to choose the first option just for the sake of "vanilla first"?

(Edit: I see that the LGNPC mod, which I'm talking about in the above paragraph, has just been mentioned. ;) )
Post edited September 10, 2013 by Psyringe
Posted September 10, 2013
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de_Monteynard: When playing Morrowind, I would also recommend the 'Less Generic NPCs' mod in addition to the Overhaul mod. Why? Because as the title says, it makes the non-plot relevant NPCs far more engaging and gives them a backstory of their own. They couldn't populate the entirety of the world, mind you, but it is sufficient to break from the monotony of the original (and also Skyrim from my experience). Plus you can also add some Great Houses material as well, but it's all packaged in a way that allow you to cherry pick what exactly you want (more precisely which location you would like to mod).
I actually really didn't like the LGNPC mod, the added dialogue broke immersion pretty badly for me. It was so obviously an add-in, and even if it was decently written didn't fit with the world or the culture/race of the NPCs talking. So I don't think it's a good recommendation.

Morrowind Comes Alive was much better, especially with the children patch to add different ages in.


The Morrowind Overhaul is awesome and I highly recommend it. Some gameplay / story mods that blend well with the main story are Darknut's Greater Dwemer Ruins (making the final dungeon much more awesome!), and the large Telvanni mods, whose names are escaping me now. Uvirith's Grave is the one I remember, and there was another one that was very similar.

I also really, really like the Ravenloft house mod, the mod that lets you run a clothing shop (I think it's called the Balmora Clothing Shop? There's a sister mod that lets you run a smithy near Ebonheart), and Morrowind Crafting. Also, you definitely need to get the mod that slowly regenerates magicka if you are playing a mage, that made the game 100x better for my mage characters.

Man, now I want to start playing the Morrowind again. My old saves died due to too much mod swapping, and that was so devastating I never really got back into it.

Re: the leveling system, I tried playing it for a while, then just gave up and modded all my stats to where I wanted them to be. Hurray for the console. :D
Post edited September 10, 2013 by HGiles
Posted September 10, 2013
Does it matter which mod I install first? The GCD or the MGSO?
Posted September 10, 2013
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QC: There's a patch to the leveling system?
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Psyringe: The original leveling system works better than most people make it to be, but it has three fundamental flaws:

1. Skills aren't balanced at all, and as a result, you'll get into problems if you level the "wrong" skills. The system was designed mainly for fighters and mages, stealth characters are substantially harder to play.

2. It forces you to make a choice between either roleplaying, or building a powerful character - which is bad, the two should go hand in hand. There is an objectively "best" way to develop a character, which involves counting skill upgrades during the game, and training specific skills at specific times, in order to maximize your attribute gain (through multipliers provided during level-up). If you play the game naturally, you'll get 3 choices of raising an attribute by 1, perhaps one of them by 3. If you use the objectively best strategy, you will get x5 multipliers, resulting in a much more powerful character. But playing this way is more work than fun. So in order to have fun, you have to consciously decide to build a weak(er) character. That's not well designed.

3. The level system provides too little room for growth considering the amount of content the game has to offer. You will eventually max out all your skills and attributes. As a result, all high-level characters play pretty much the same, since they all have the same skill values.

One of the reasons why I'd never play without Galsiah's Character Development is that it addresses all three of these problems. It makes all classes and builds viable, allows natural progression of skills, removes the silly attribute multipliers, and removes the skill caps (while still making it much more difficult to increase skills the higher they are already), so that high-level characters are still distinct. As a bonus, it lets the leveling happen entirely in the background, so that it doesn't detract from the game, which enhances immersion.
That sounds like that'd be perfect for me actually. I started up a new game of Morrowind over the summer. I plotted every single gain I would make or expected to make, balanced out skills to increase what I needed or wanted to, got to level 15..... Then somehow my saves all got deleted. So, reducing the work I have to do would help greatly.
Posted September 10, 2013
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de_Monteynard: When playing Morrowind, I would also recommend the 'Less Generic NPCs' mod in addition to the Overhaul mod. Why? Because as the title says, it makes the non-plot relevant NPCs far more engaging and gives them a backstory of their own. They couldn't populate the entirety of the world, mind you, but it is sufficient to break from the monotony of the original (and also Skyrim from my experience). Plus you can also add some Great Houses material as well, but it's all packaged in a way that allow you to cherry pick what exactly you want (more precisely which location you would like to mod).
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HGiles: I actually really didn't like the LGNPC mod, the added dialogue broke immersion pretty badly for me. It was so obviously an add-in, and even if it was decently written didn't fit with the world or the culture/race of the NPCs talking. So I don't think it's a good recommendation.
I only ever heard people saying that about the very first LGNPC mod, which has nothing to do with today's LGNPC except the name. Did you perhaps play that old one?

Explanation: One modder released a mod that was called LGNPC and that gave every NPC in Seyda Neen unique dialog. It was a great idea, but the implementation was quite crude. I still remember how Eldafire (a high elven woman) was given some completely inappropriate dialogue about priests abusing her as a child. Apart from not fitting into the game world at all, this is definitely nothing that one would tell a complete stranger in the first conversation ... and if an author touches on such a sensitive topic, he really needs to elaborate more and not use it in such a careless manner.

In any case, the mod was crude, but the idea got traction. Many modders got together and wrote individual dialog for all NPCs in certain areas, which was based on the world's lore and written under the premise to read similar to things that Bethesda might have written if they had had more time during development. And they really succeeded with that. The author of the original LGNPC mod was never involved in that project, and his mod got redacted after a while and now fits much much better.

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HGiles: Morrowind Comes Alive was much better, especially with the children patch to add different ages in.
Morrowind Comes Alive introduces lots of NPCs with no dialog at all. The companions are pretty good though. But the main problem of this mod is that from version 5 onwards, it adds enemies even to areas which are usually safe (like the center of Seyda Neen), and these are pretty strong. For someone who just starts out with Morrowind and isn't already used to the chance-based combat, this creates an awkward experience: You enter the world, walk a few steps, and get inevitably killed by a seemingly overpowered enemy, in the middle of a town, while the guards twiddle their thumbs, and your own attacks never hit although it looks like they would. Are you sure that you want to recommend this to first-time players? ;) Which version of MCA did you play?

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tinyE: Does it matter which mod I install first? The GCD or the MGSO?
Shouldn't matter.

Unless you're playing rather old mods, install order shouldn't matter at all, since every mod puts its files neatly into its own folder. That's a standard that the community developed after a while, when we found out that having 250 mods which all dump their files into the same folder isn't such a great idea. ;)

Load order is another matter and can be very important if you use several mods which work on the same thing. But MGSO and GCD touch completely different aspects of the game, so load order shouldn't matter either.
Post edited September 10, 2013 by Psyringe
Posted September 10, 2013
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HGiles: Man, now I want to start playing the Morrowind again. My old saves died due to too much mod swapping, and that was so devastating I never really got back into it.
Make sure to apply the Unofficial Code Patch by Hrnchamd. We worked several weeks doing practically nothing else but studying the ways in which Morrowind corrupted savegames when mods where switched. Hrnchamd had a brilliant idea on how to fix it, and I managed to create several mods that worked as testbeds, and with which we could test, analyze, and debug the new code in all the various ways how Morrowind treats its objects and references. (Making a mistake there would have meant that we were responsible for people's broken savegames, so we spent a LOT of time with tests.) Of course we were also building on previous analyses by wizards like Wrye, and without the knowledge already accumulated by the community we probably wouldn't ever have made it. But in the end, we had a patch that really solved the save corruption. With the code patch installed, you can safely remove even large and complicated mods, and add mods at any part of the load order.
Post edited September 10, 2013 by Psyringe
Posted September 10, 2013
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timppu: Same here. Unless the vanilla game is completely broken (like Daggerfall?), I prefer going the first run vanilla, to experience the original game. Vanilla here meaning with the latest _official_ patches.
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Psyringe: Well ... recommending to play Morrowind without at least unofficial patches (code patch and UOP) means sending people into broken quests and potential savegame corruption for no apparent gain that I can see.
I consider those to fit my Daggerfall example, ie. fixing an obviously broken game without changing the gameplay. I would have paid real money for an Age of Empires mod that would have fixed the irritating "I will corrupt all your subsequent save games if there are any missile weapons on the screen at that very moment when you save the game"-bug, it was always driving me nuts.

On the other hand, changing dialogue and backstories of NPCs by people who were not originally involved with the game's development... I don't know...

As for graphics overhauls, those would be great, but even then I'd probably prefer at least trying the game with the original graphics first. The little I've played vanilla Morrowind, I felt the graphics were fine. And if I understood right, some of them even change the gameplay a bit, e.g. letting you see things that you were not originally supposed to see, as the mod increases visibility and removed fog.

Having said that, now I am considering trying it with a couple of mods. I have already tried it vanilla. :)
Post edited September 10, 2013 by timppu
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Morrowind Question(53 posts)(53 posts)
(53 posts)