Have any other Lurkers played Morrowind?

[WarLocke]

Okay, I'm a bit disgruntled now.

Last night I spent an hour switching plugins around. I started Morrowind, removed certain plugins from the 'Data Files' menu, and clicked through the error messages as everything loaded up. Once I was in-game, I saved in a fresh slot and exited. Then I restarted and loaded the game I had just saved, to see if there were any other errors. There were none, so I went ahead and enabled the 'new' plugins, and they worked fine.

But I go back to my house this morning, and all the doors have doubled (ie, I have to open two to get into a closet/room). Also, all the 'loose bits' in the house that I moved are back in place (but the 'originals' I stashed away are still around). I think I borked my save. :(

Also, I found this thread on the official forums that says, apparently, Unarmored is broken. No wonder I was getting the crap beaten out of me. :(

Sigh. At least if I have to start over I can maybe pick up Bloodmoon first and thus get some patchage action going on...

[[wcip]Angel]

Also, never rely too heavily on quicksave. I've often experienced the quicksave becoming corrupt and unusable thus having to use an older savegame.

I don't suppose there's a plugin which enables multiplayer? :)

[WarLocke]

Well, I use the quicksave alot, but I also have a slot I call 'Archive - Experimental' (or sometimes just 'Experimental') I save in periodically. How often depends on the situation, but I'll save it in there before entering a tomb, for example.

I also keep archived saves as well. Such as 'Archive - Beginning Game' (just after character creation), 'Archive - To Balmora' after having explored Seyda Neen, etc. I tend to use a similar system in most games if they allow it, and it usually works pretty well for me.

Multiplayer Morrowind would be... Fascinating. ;) Although, IMO it's already as close as you can come to a "Single-Player MMORPG" anyway.

[Omni]

I just reinstalled Morrowind, and I'm broswing around for plugins. I'm not interested in new quests, but are there any more like the heads one I posted, that improve what's already there, or any that you wouldn't live without?

[WarLocke]

Plugins, yeah... Here's what I'm using right now:

(unless otherwise noted, these can be downloaded from Morrowind Summit)

- Most of the 'official' ones (Adamantium Armor, Bitter Coast Sounds, Helm of Tohan, Le Femme Armor, Master Index, Siege at Firemoth). I don't particularly like 'Entertainers' though, and 'Area Effect Arrows' seems to munchkiny. You can get them from the Official Site.

- Two tie-ins, 'Adamantium Round Shield' and 'Adamantium Tower Shield', these just add them to various merchants in the game world. Can be downloaded here.

- 'Book Rotate 4.5', which allows you to place books in various orientations, good for display purposes.

- 'Magicka Regenerate 2.0', 'Dodge 2.1', and 'Spell Cast Reduction 2.1', from Aragorn's Morrowind site. They're the most up-to-date/useful plugins of their type I've found, and are great for spellcasters.

- 'Kobu's No Planning' mod, it's old but I haven't seen another that does what it does. It basically increases the rate at which you level-up, but limits you to 1x multipliers when increasing stats. In the end it balances out, and you can just play without having to plan out your skill use to get the maximum boost per level.

- 'No-Glo' is another oldie but goodie. All it does is get rid of the saran-wrap magical item effect. I've tried some of the effect reducers, but they all look bad (IMO) or hurt my framerate.

- 'Passive Healthy Wildlife' is a godsend. It changes many of the more docile critters (mud crabs, cliff racers, etc.) so that they're not immediately hostile. Actual hostile critters (Nix Hounds, Alit, Kwama Foragers/Warriors) aren't changed. I find this plugin better than 'Animal Realism' because with PHW if you bother a critter it'll defend itself, but with AR they just run away (and it's either coded badly or bugged, they run just far enough to stay 5-6 feet away from you). Also, 'Animal Realism' makes the hostile critters even harder, so be aware of that.

- 'Persuasion Response Expansion 3.0' just adds new things for NPCs to say when you try to Admire/Bribe/Taunt them. Cute, but not necessary.

- 'Weight Fix' and 'Plain Paper Fix' are useful game tweaks that change (usually lower) weights and some prices for items that seem out-of-whack. As an example, by default a plain piece of paper weighs 1 pound, the same as some books! PPF changes it to 0.05lbs.

- 'Questfix v1.27' fixes a ton of outstanding bugs in Morrowind. Get it here. The author's stopped updating it AFAIK, so it doesn't address Tribunal or Bloodmoon issues, though.

- 'Ring Texture Fix' is a nice plugin that allows you to actually see your rings and amulets when you put them down; Morrowind shipped without textures for them in the gameworld, so they appear as black blobs.

- 'Shakti's Secret Masters Fix' enables two training masters that were either bugged or not even in the game. There are also a few other plugins on her site.

- 'Silt Striders in the Wild' is another cute extra plugin. It just adds some silt striders into the wilderness. I haven't run into any yet, so I don't know if they can be killed. <_<

- 'Spuzzum's Year Patch' just fixes the game's calendar so the first month actually shows up in-game.

- 'Writ Redemption' fixes a bug where if you carry out a Morag Tong assassination and then turn in a writ to a guard (which should absolve you of consequences), the guard still searches you and confiscates any stolen goods.

- 'Your Balmora Residence' (from Morrowind Abodes) is a nice house you can move into in Balmora. It's neither a tiny one-room shack nor an opulent mansion, but a nice median. There are tons of house plugins out there, but this is (so far) my favorite.

- 'True Light and Darkness v0.5' is kind of a hit-or-miss mod. On the one hand, it changes the games lighting scheme from linear to quadratic (I think are the terms) so the lighting seems much more realistic, and emits from actual sources rather than from 'thin air' (ie, caves are really dark now), but on the other hand the way candles and lamps flicker can look strange in small rooms. It's not really noticable outside, but in an enclosed area the walls can seem to, well, pulse sometimes. Here's the page for it.

- If you have Bloodmoon, there's a thread somewhere on the Official Boards (sorry, didn't think to bookmark it) that has links to several tweaks and bugfixes for it. If you can't find it, I can zip them up and send them to you (they aren't more than 100kb altogether).

As for which are must-haves, besides Questfix (some of the things it fixes are serious game-breakers) I'd only count Kobu's No Planning, Passive Healthy Wildlife, and No-Glo as necessities. The others are nice additions, but these directly remove frustrations. :D

[TriggerHappy]

I consider the GIANTS 2.0 (Tribunal version) to be an essential one as well. It adds so many new and interesting creatures, the game feels half empty without them.

Also, for those looking for a challenge, there's a plugin that removes the "leveled creatures" feature, meaning the monsters no longer appear based on your character level, but are always at full strength. Which makes it alot more difficult to wander around as a level 1 - 10 character, but more exciting :)

The Marksman plugin is really nice, since Archery is greatly neglected in the basic game. Best feature, enchant your own arrows using alchemy. Though some items are alittle unbalanced, on the overall the plugin fits in perfectly.


Forgot to add one more: Wakim's Game Improvements version 9. Makes the metagame alot toughter (can only train with a faction you are a part of, for example), combat more interesting and enemy spellcasters more dangerous. Not recommended for first time play through the game, but perfect for those already familiar with the world.

[Omni]

Thanks guys. :D Just a couple more questions:

1. Have any of you used the Morrowind FPS optimizer? I've fiddled with it a little, but all it seems to do is kill my framerate.

2. Is there a better way to manage plugins than manually movind the files around and enabling/disabling them in the data files dialogue? I can't see a good way of removing a plugin that includes files outside of the .esp, other than just reinstalling the entire game.

[Walkiry]

Funny that, the FPS optimizer works like a charm for me, are you sure the settings are correct? I pretty much left the default settings and it rocks.

[kandrathe]

I have double doors too. It happened after I consolidated all plugins into one file. I thought I too must have borked it up or something. I leave most of the doors open, so I don't notice it often.

I'm tempted to see what happens if you 'Disable' one of the doors using the console. Might be able to clean up the mess a little. 'Disable' is a pretty risky function though, so be prepared to restore back to a prior save. I only tried to use it one other place. The slave merchant in Tel Aruhn chased after a random beast and fell down the mountain side and got stuck in a crevice. I tried to help her, or push her out of her predicament to no avail. So I tried to 'Disable' one of the boulders that had her trapped. No luck, she was still bound by some invisible force as if an invisible boulder was there. Later, I realized that 'tcl' would get her free and not mess with the world.

[WarLocke]

Re: TriggerHappy

I looked at Wakim's Game Improvements, but it requires Tribunal, which I don't have (I had hoped having Bloodmoon would be enough, but apparently it's not). The Marksman plugin I passed on because of sheer size (isn't it something like 14mb?) and the unbalanced bits you mentioned.

Re: Omni

I tried the FPS optimizer for a bit when I first purchased Morrowind, so I don't know if it's been updated since then. I didn't seem to get much better performance using it. I just cap my FPS to 40 in morrowind.ini and keep my view distance at about 50% and usually get decent FPS everywhere but Balmora and Vivec.

As for plugins, I unzip them to a temp directory tree first (as I rename them and clean them up with TESPCD before using them), then I rezip them and save the archive. So I have a record of what files go with what plugins.

Re: kandrathe

Hmm, how do you combine plugins? And what benefits does it provide?

[Omni]

I tried the FPS Optimizer again, and it works great. :) Apparently I'd left N-PATCH turned on, which destroys my framerate while making some things more curvy if I know exactly what to look for. <_< As for organizing plugins, I found a great utility that does just that. Search Morrowind Summit for "TES Mod Utility".

Hmm, how do you combine plugins? And what benefits does it provide?

My understanding is that you:

1. Open the construction set.
2. File -> Data Files, check all the plugins you want to combine
3. File -> Combine Loaded Plugins
4. Save your new plugin

No idea why you'd do it, tho.

[WarLocke]

Hey, that optimizer does work pretty darn well. I set my desired FPS to 20 and even Balmora runs smooth. B)

What settings do you use? I find that if I check the one that allows it to reduces vision below the default minimum, my screen whites out if I open menus for some odd reason. :(

And does the setting to hide small objects unless they're close make a big difference? The effect is somewhat jarring, so if it's not a big deal I'd just as soon turn it off.

As for the plugin thing, combining them might be useful just so that I don't have 6 or 8 different 'fix' plugins cluttering up my data files. I could combine 'em all and call it "WarLocke's Morrowind Fixes" or something. :D

Edit: Hey, where the heck is Maar Gan? I've gotta kill a necromancer there for a mage guild quest, but it doesn't seem to be marked on the map (in-game or paper) and I can't get anyone to give me directions in dialog. :angry:

[Omni]

I'm just using the default settings for now. My system is ass (as in 600mhz Athlon ass) so I'm just happy the game is playable.

[Walkiry]

Edit:&nbsp; Hey, where the heck is Maar Gan?&nbsp; I've gotta kill a necromancer there for a mage guild quest, but it doesn't seem to be marked on the map (in-game or paper) and I can't get anyone to give me directions in dialog.&nbsp; :angry:

Ah, this brings nicely another point.

You have to follo road signs I think. And the easiest way to do that is to plug a plugin called "real post signs" or something like that, which changes the blurry text of the signs for real, nicely done, legible text (so that you don't have to point to the sign to be able to read the text). I strongly recommend installing that mod, it'S brilliant!

[Moldran]

Ah, this brings nicely another point.

You have to follo road signs I think. And the easiest way to do that is to plug a plugin called "real post signs" or something like that, which changes the blurry text of the signs for real, nicely done, legible text (so that you don't have to point to the sign to be able to read the text). I strongly recommend installing that mod, it'S brilliant!

Hmmmm IIRC, there goes a silt strider route to Maar Gan. Check the strider ports in Ald'Ruhn and Gnisis. I am not sure, but I think one of them should go to Maar Gan.

You will also find complete maps of MW on different fanpages around the net. I recommend that you only use them if you are really desparate about finding a place, though. Searching for it in-game is much more fun.
You could for example check the various guides that are available. The one called "A guide to Morrowind" (or something similiar) contains travel information to many of the important places on the island.

Moldran

[WarLocke]

I haven't even touched any of the Solstheim (sp?) content, but the way the journal now tracks quests is worth it all itself.

Also, starting out is much (much, much) easier as a character with decent weapon and armor skills. I restarted as a Dunmer I named Linel Vledar, who's sort of an 'Indiana Jane' - her skills look like this:

Major: Alteration, Conjuration, Illusion, Mysticism, Restoration
Minor: Light Armor, Long Blade, Marksman, Speechcraft, Unarmored

... With a Specialization in Stealth. With a partial and hodgepodge set of armor, she can take much more of a pounding than my mage could, and her short blade skill started higher, so she doesn't whiff nearly as much.

Oh yes: Bound Longbow + Annoying Mage NPC = Dead NPC.

I don't seem to have a recent pic of her in her good gear, so I cropped off a headshot. I really love Rhedd's heads:



Also, one 'plugin' I forget to mention earlier that I think is great is 'Blue Dot Magic Items' which replaces the default ugly swirly with a little blue dot, like so:



I'm pretty sure I got it at Euro-Morrowind.

And I finally found a silt strider!



I was hoping they would move, but it seems the author just used the static models from the silt strider ports. You can even see the hollowed-out travelling section, bah. <_<

... Crud, I meant to take a shot of my world map. I've yet to use fast travel; I run everywhere, and explore constantly! I've explored everything between Seyda Neen and Balmora, even up and down the coastline behind Pelagiad up to the Fields of Kummu. Vvardenfell is just gorgeous...

[kandrathe]

As for combining them. Yep, I do it to reduce load time, and clutter. I do as you do with the plugins. I make sure they work alone, fix them up if needed then save them off. If I like them enough, I add them to "MyMods" plugin. IIRC, Mar Gaan is near Khuul.

[WarLocke]

Hrmm, so a smaller number of plugins would increase load times, even though their size and/or the number of changes they make would be nearly identical to more smaller plugins? It sounds counterintuitive...

[wakim]

"I looked at Wakim's Game Improvements, but it requires Tribunal..."

That's news to me.

[WarLocke]

:blink:

...

You're right. :blink:

I just checked the Summit and TheLys, and neither mentions Tribunal at all. I don't know how I could have gotten that idea in my head...

Ah well, downloading now... B)

Edit: Will balance changes take effect retroactively on characters/items (like the .5x Magicka bonus for Dunmer)?