Morrowind "JUST PLAY THE GAME ALREADY" - Mod Guide

This mod's guide is to provide quick way to play Morrowind in current year.

Introduction

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is the third game upon official series. It was the beginning of Bethesdas transition to full 3d, allowing them to make a more detailed game world packed with rich lore to discover while retaining its RPG aspects, unlike the sequels. However, it does lead to some inconsistensies that can make the gameplay a bit tedious. To seek out fix for this, I dedicated a guide to seek and fix the worst aspects of Morrowind, while enhancing the best parts of it.

Notice: This is not a guide to make your game as beautiful as possible or make the game as hard as possible. This is to give out vanilla focus upon the game and not resort into flashiness the other modding guides are prone to do.

Note! This guide has been hijacked entirely by OpenMW. This is a tool I recommend and suggest to play Morrowind thanks to Morrowind being a masterpiece of a game.

1. The Tools of Kagrenac

First, run the game to see that it works, up to naming yourself. Then, install OpenMW:

OpenMW

https://openmw.org/downloads/
It comes with an executable that you can run to set things up for you.

Then, follow this guide so you can launch OpenMW through Steam:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1101566121

Then, launch it and see that it runs fine. We have succeeded 1/3 way.

2. Nitpicker's Pickings

Next step, we want to install mods for it, right? Well, here comes a small bad thing about OpenMW, there's not yet an installer for mods, so you have to do some manual work. No worries, I have necessary text files ready for this so you don't have to write them all down, you can copy paste.

First, make a mod folder where you install your mods. I made one to C:/OpenMWMods.
Now make some folders of different categories there (gameplay/textures/patches ect.)
Now, when you install mods through this list, you want to extract its contents to the folder, and name it appropriately. Then, you drag and drop that folder to one of the category folders.

As for the mods:

Patch for Purists

Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45096/
Our Unofficial Patch. The one that focuses on fixes, no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tweaks.

Expansion Delay

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47588
Doesn't instantly start Bloodmoon and Tribunal quests.

Unofficial Morrowind Official Plugins Patched

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43931
Morrowind's additional plugins cleaned out. Download both files, install one first and when installing second, select UMOPP Compatibility Merged. This has them all merged in one plugin file.

Morrowind Optimization Patch

Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45384
Greatly improves performance and fixes some mesh errors.

Project Atlas

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45399
Improves performance by merging meshes into a single shape, reducing draw calls significantly for the same visual quality. In the BAIN installer, choose the 010 Glow in the Dahrk Patch - Interior Sunrays, 20 BC Mushrooms - Smoothed, Redware - Smoothed, and Wood Poles - Hi Res Texture.

Morrowind Enhanced Textures

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46221
Upscales every in-game texture with the help of machine learning. 100% vanilla-friendly.

VSBR Vanilla style body replacer

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45993
Body replacer that stays true to the original shape.

Familiar Faces by Caleb

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/50093
Indepth look of remodeling vanilla faces while staying faithful to looks.

Better Dialogue Font

Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/36873/?
A high resolution replacer for Morrowind\'s Magic Cards font, used in most of the UI - menus, dialogue and the journal.

Chocolate UI

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43076
HD New look and overhaul to Morrowind's UI with keeping to the base design scheme.

Widescreen Splash Replacer

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/50966
Additional Splash Screens: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43319
A faithful loading screens made up to modern standards.

3. Great House's Best Wares

Graphic Herbalism - MWSE and OpenMW Edition

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46599?
Makes plant act like future games and not as simple containers.

Purist Friendly Magicka Regen

Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45636
Regenerates Magicka, fairly, based upon Willpower, just like in Oblivion.

Morrowind Content Restoration

Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45522?
Restores dummied out content, that has been found through Creation Kit.

Expansions Integrated

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47861
Adds stuff into Morrowind from expansions.

Tribunal & Bloodmoon Rebalance

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45713
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45714
Rebalances content of expansions in line of main game instead of making it new challenge for main quest beaters.

Versus Vivec

Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42991
The ultimate boss battle mod. Contains muatra.


Now with all those installed, we gotta go to My Documents/My Games/OpenMW and look up openmw.cfg
at the bottom of that text file is where things get loaded into the game. You want to have it like this:

data="C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Morrowind\Data Files"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Patches\PatchforPurists"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Patches\UnofficialMorrowindOfficialPluginsPatched"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Patches\ExpansionDelay"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Performance\MorrowindOptimizationPatch\00 Core"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GraphicHerbalismMWSEandOpenMWEdition\00 Core + Vanilla Meshes"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GraphicHerbalismMWSEandOpenMWEdition\01 Optional - Smoothed Meshes"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GraphicHerbalismMWSEandOpenMWEdition\00 Correct UV Ore + README"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GraphicHerbalismMWSEandOpenMWEdition\06 Less Epic Plants"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Performance\ProjectAtlas\00 Core"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Performance\ProjectAtlas\20 BC Mushrooms - Smoothed"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Performance\ProjectAtlas\30 Redware - Smoothed"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Performance\ProjectAtlas\40 Urns - Smoothed"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GH-AtlasPatches"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\TexturePacks\MorrowindEnhancedTextures\main"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\TexturePacks\MorrowindEnhancedTextures\atlas"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\TexturePacks\MorrowindEnhancedTextures\land_default"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\TexturePacks\ChocolateUI"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\TexturePacks\VSBR"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\NPCs\FamiliarFacesbyCaleb"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GraphicHerbalismMWSEandOpenMWEditionAdditionalPatches\01 Pherim's Replacers"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\GraphicHerbalismMWSEandOpenMWEditionAdditionalPatches\15 Apel's Azura's Coast"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\ExpansionsIntegrated"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\TribunalRebalance"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\BloodmoonRebalance"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\MorrowindContentRestoration"
data="C:\OpenMWMods\Gameplay\PuristFriendlyMagickaRegen"
content=Morrowind.esm
content=Tribunal.esm
content=Bloodmoon.esm
content=correctUV Ore Replacer_fixed.esp
content=Expansion Delay.ESP
content=Patch for Purists.esm
content=Unofficial Morrowind Official Plugins Patched.ESP
content=Patch for Purists - Semi-Purist Fixes.ESP
content=correctUV Ore Replacer_respawning.esp
content=Patch for Purists - Book Typos.ESP
content=tribunal rebalance.ESP
content=Bloodmoon Rebalance.esp
content=Expansions Integrated.esp
content=Tribunal Integrated.esp
content=VSBR.ESP
content=Morrowind Content Restoration - Merged.ESP
content=Purist-friendly magicka regen.ESP
content=VersusVivec.ESP

What I did for the few mods like Versus Vivec is that I threw it in to one of the mod folders that didn't overwrite anything, as the line which reads the folder reads everything containing in that folder, though the esp file has to be written separately still.
Any other mods you install should be done the way mentioned at beginning; drop contents to folder, add the datat= line to the path and add content= for all the .esp files it has, if it does.

4. CHIM

And if you are wondering how the game looks after that? It's a big improvement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRJouG8TKmA




Now go play one of the greatest RPGs ever created.

[PizzaDolphin]

I am very new to modding, hopefully I can figure out updating the file names and such.

[Tall_Tapper]

what if we hugged each other in front of vivec

[Somesz]

Hi,
Can I just download the mod files manually and paste them into the folder structure you've provided?
I'm not sure where the other MorrowindOptimizationPatch folders should go after 00 Core.
Also there are many different folders for the mods that are not included in the provided text file. Should I skip them intentionally?

[šejd]

oki, thanks :3

[Valde]

Sejd,
you don't need MGE XE when using OpenMW, its redundant and not compatible.

[šejd]

I tried to include MGE XE at the end but it dont work, nothing changed, no draw distance nor shaders nothing, any idea what might be wrong?

[Big Jilm]

Thought I'd let you know that the original widescreen splash replacer's been taken off nexus and TES alliance. I found this page which claims to be a direct reupload. https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/50966

[Valde]

Alucard XIII,
This was made with 0.6.5 version. I recommend just renaming the folder names on cfg. file in accordance with newest version.

And UMOPP is up to you, though compatibility might be needed with other mods outside of this guide (but I don't use such).

[ZuVres]

can't seem to find the mod "GH-AtlasPatches". Any ideas where i could find it? Same for those 3
"MorrowindEnhancedTextures\main"
"MorrowindEnhancedTextures\atlas"
"MorrowindEnhancedTextures\land_default"
and for UMOPP should the "merged" or the "compatibility merged" be used?

[Valde]

SinAscendant,
added. As for Better Dialog Font, I just extracted it's folder to Patch for Purist, as stated afterwards, the game loads archives typed in the .cfg.