Retro Let's Play May 2022 - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Morrowind is an action-RPG, the third in the Elder Scrolls series after Arena and Daggerfall, and prequel to Oblivion and Skyrim. It was released in May 2002 for PC and later that year for the original Xbox. The game celebrates its 20th Anniversary this month!



Morrowind is a fondly remembered game and many would say the peak of the Elder Scrolls series – if not one of the best games ever made. For many it was the first truly immersive open world RPG they had ever played. When you first start you are released from prison, given some vague instructions and left to figure things out from there. While this might sound daunting, it only adds to the immersion. Straight off the bat you find yourself in a carefully crafted fantasy world full of strange people, creatures, plants and architecture. Giant mushrooms and floating jellyfish adorn the landscape. Volcanic valleys are studded with twisted, otherworldly ruins. This wasn’t just like any standard fantasy RPG that had come before.


Morrowind also boasted fantastic world building and lore. On the surface the plot is deceptively simple- you're a prisoner transported to the isle of Vvardenfel in the province of Morrowind by the Emperor's decree. It turns out there is an ancient prophecy for which the Emperor thinks you meet the criteria. As you progress through the game’s story you'll encounter themes of imperialism, racism, intrigue, corruption and betrayal.

One of the game’s main writers, Michael Kirkbride, has a degree in theology, and as a result a lot of the game’s lore draws on the legends and scriptures of various religions, layered with hidden meanings. The 36 Lessons of Vivec, a series of in-game books containing the knowledge and wisdom of the living god, Vivec- are particularly brilliant. Fans of the game have been studying, analysing and debating these texts ever since the game came out 20 years ago. There is a detailed analysis of each volume here: https://www.newwhirlingschool.com/intro.php - but this isn’t the final word, this is just one such interpretation! Morrowind also birthed the concept of CHIM which is something of a shibboleth among hardcore fans.

The game also spawned two expansions - Tribunal, which takes you to the capital city of Mournhold to meet with other members of the Tribunal and a couple of characters from Daggerfall; and Bloodmoon which takes you to the frozen island of Solstheim in the north. Here you will deal with the Empire's expansion and the local inhabitants that hide a dark secret.


Morrowind also did a lot to drive acceptance of community mods. While mods weren’t a new thing (Counter Strike had been around for a few years already), many developers did little to support modding. Some games were very difficult to mod, if at all, and had no standard way of distributing mods. Morrowind embraced the mod scene by shipping with the Construction Set on the retail CD. This allowed you to edit almost every aspect of the game using a graphical editor, and package it up in a plugin file for easy distribution, and more importantly, allowing you to easily install multiple mods into a single installation of the game. NexusMods, one of the major mod distribution sites for many games today, originally started life as a Morrowind modding site. One of the most long-lived and ambitious modding projects ever, Tamriel Rebuilt, is a mod to expand the playable world of Morrowind with fully fleshed out towns, cities and surrounds: https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/

To me, one of the most appealing parts of Morrowind was its freedom – you didn’t have to follow the main quest, or build your character in a particular way. You were free to pretty much do what you want. There’s so much content that you can spend dozens of hours doing side quests without ever touching the main quest. You can become a vampire or a werewolf if you want to. You can eventually become so powerful you can break the game over your knee – zooming around the landscape like Sonic the Hedgehog, or leaping halfway across the map in a single jump. Sadly this was toned down in the later games of the series, with the removal of jump and levitate spells, and adjusting the levelling and difficulty scaling to curb overpowered players. Personally I think the later games suffered because of this.

All of this makes Morrowind a top-notch gaming experience (despite showing its age in some places) and a perennial fan favourite.



Getting it Running

If you don’t have a copy of Morrowind, you can get it from Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/22320/The_Elder_Scrolls_III_Morrowind_Game_of_the_Year_Edition/
The Game of the Year edition includes both expansions and all the latest official patches.

The best way to play Morrowind today is using OpenMW: https://openmw.org/downloads/
This is an open source recreation of the Morrowind engine. Ports for various systems are available- including Android, under the name OpenMicroWave: https://omw.xyz.is/

You will need a copy of the game to use OpenMW, either original discs, Steam or GOG. Check the Installation Guide to set up OpenMW and point it at the game’s data files: https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manuals/installation/index.html

While there are other options like MGE-XE I’d not recommend them – OpenMW is fast and rock solid stable. I’ve completed the game twice on OpenMW now and I don’t think it crashed once. MGE-XE does include additional graphical features like advanced shaders, but its performance and stability is poor compared to OpenMW.

Note also that OpenMW essentially has its own mod manager built in, so you don’t need to use Nexus Mod Manager or any similar tools.



Modding

I have put together a mod pack using the 'I Heart Vanilla' mod list for OpenMW - see the second post in this thread for info and download links.

There are a number of mod lists at https://modding-openmw.com if you are an experienced Morrowind player and want to try something a bit different.

If you’re feeling ambitious you can try the STEP project: https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Morrowind_graphics_guide This is an in depth modding guide with a focus on the best possible graphics for the game. Its quite involved though so can be daunting if you’re not familiar with modding the game!

You may see some mention online about ‘Morrowind Overhaul - Sounds and Graphics’ (aka MGSO) – this was a mod pack with an automated installer that took all the tedious work out of installing a heap of mods. While it was pretty nifty in its day, now it is quite outdated and known to contain a number of bugs so I strongly recommend not using it.

One mod I recommend for experienced players is ‘More Deadly Morrowind Denizens’ - https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/48745?tab=description
This makes a lot of fights much harder, and is modular so you can tailor it to your liking. A lot of NPCs have new magical items and spells. If you’re like me and have hundreds of hours in this game you probably find combat pretty easy – this mod will add a bit more of a challenge, at least for a while.

As mentioned before, Tamriel Rebuilt adds an amazing amount of new content, and is worth checking out for veterans of the game: https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/

Tips for new players

If you’re playing for the first time, there’s a few things you should be aware of. Morrowind is 20 years old; despite is excellence in lore and world building it does suffer from some game design issues.

Combat is the biggest stumbling block for new players. Morrowind is based on pen and paper RPGs; there is a random element (like a dice roll!) to nearly everything you do. Every time you swing a weapon, there is a check made to see if you actually hit – even if you can see your weapon connect with the enemy on your screen. At low levels, you will probably miss more often than hit. The #1 mistake players make is ignoring their Stamina. In the lower right corner of the screen you can see 3 bars – red for health, blue for magicka, and green for stamina. If your stamina bar is empty, you will almost never hit anything. Same goes for casting spells – your spell will fizzle if you have no stamina.

Jumping and running depletes your stamina, as does swinging your weapon. The best way to keep your stamina up before a fight is to turn off running (default – caps lock) and walk around. Yes, you move slowly when you walk. There are mods to make you move faster it if it bothers you, but as you level up you can increase your speed. Your speed is also affected by how much weight your character is carrying – if your inventory is nearly empty you move faster. Heavy armour also reduces your speed and takes up lots of weight in your inventory, so light armour is probably the best choice for new players.

As you level up your character will move faster and gain more stamina. The best way to boost stamina is boosting skills that are governed by Strength and Endurance – this will also allow you to boost those attributes at level up. Athletics and Acrobatics skills also reduce your stamina usage when running and jumping respectively. Don’t go too hard on these though, make sure you boost some combat/magic skills as well. Don’t worry too much about power levelling like in Oblivion – while it is possible to do it in Morrowind, its far from essential. Just boost skills that suit your play style and play the way you want to.

When you start the game you’ll go through a short intro sequence where you get to choose your class. I’d recommend Scout for first time players- specializes in combat, attributes are speed and endurance, and skills include light armor, long blade and marksman. This will help while you are learning the ropes of the game. Once you have a feel for how the game works you will probably want to make your own class on future play throughs.

You can steal a few items from the first building after making your character - just close the door behind you and nobody can see you stealing. Normally if someone sees you stealing you will incur a bounty, and guards will ask you to pay a fine and surrender your stolen goods, or go to jail (or fight for your freedom!) If nobody sees you steal it though, its fair game. However, don’t steal an item from a merchant and try to sell it back to them – or indeed any identical item! The merchant will remember and you will incur a bounty. You can equip items by going into your inventory (right click by default) and dragging items to the ‘paper doll’ of your character on the lower left. Extra items can be traded to a merchant for gold or other items.

After that you get spat out onto the streets (or street, rather) of Seyda Neen. You’ll be told to go to Balmora but there’s no need to head there straight away, there is no time limit in this game. Spend some time talking to people, you can get a couple of quests and make a little bit of money. It’s also a good idea to get some weapons and armour, venture out from the town and find some rats and scribs to fight. This will help build your combat skills and level up your character. Avoid going in the water as the slaughterfish are quite difficult at this stage of the game. If you are injured, you can go back into the starting building and find a bedroll down the hall in the cellar – simply ‘rest until healed’ and you are good to go again.

You may also find some Skooma or Moon Sugar – these are Morrowind’s version of street drugs and most merchants won’t deal with you if you are carrying any. The exception is most Khajiit (the cat like people) – they will happily buy it off you. There is one such merchant named Ra’virr in Balmora near the silt strider, which can be a good source of income in the early game. (Neither I nor Overclockers Australia endorse trafficking or distribution of illicit substances in any other circumstances).

If you’re lucky enough to have a retail copy of Morrowind with a map, be sure to look closely at it – there’s quite a few secret areas that are marked on the map, so keep it with you as you play.

I can also recommend this beginners guide: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Starting_Out However it does have some mild exploits and quest spoilers so you might want to try playing the game for a while before checking it out.

A good gameplay resource is https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind with all sorts of info including item stats, quest walkthroughs and game mechanics. There is also an interactive map of the game world: http://mwmap.uesp.net/

Other than that, just explore and enjoy! There is heaps to discover. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.

 

I Heart Vanilla Mod Pack


One could write a novel on Morrowind mods but my personal preference for new players, or those replaying after many years, is the I Heart Vanilla OpenMW list: https://modding-openmw.com/lists/i-heart-vanilla/
This is a group of about 20 mods including a number of quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, and higher quality textures and models while still remaining faithful to the original look and feel of the game. This is about as close to a HD Remaster of Morrowind as you can get right now! This is the mod pack I used to take the screenshots in the original post.

To save you the effort of installing all these mods yourself, I have compiled them all into one archive and written a guide on how to get it working with OpenMW.

Download the mod pack archive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X5qHN324pYJicybrieoop9NflJHWl6YE/view?usp=sharing


Installation Instructions

• You will need 7-zip to extract the file – get it at https://www.7-zip.org

• Once downloaded, extract everything in the archive into a folder on your hard drive. It doesn’t need to be under the OpenMW folder – I installed all my mods into a separate folder named D:\games\OpenMW Mods

• Find your openmw.cfg – not the one in the OpenMW install directory! You need the one in your user profile.

• For Windows look under Documents\My Games\OpenMW

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• For Linux, look under ~/.config/openmw

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• For Mac look under ~/Library/Application Support/openmw/

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• Now look in the folder where you extracted the downloaded archive. Open the file OpenMW Mods\_MANUAL INSTALL\paste into openmw.cfg.txt

• You will see that every data= line has a folder path starting with D:\games\OpenMW Mods – use search and replace to change this to the folder path where you extracted the archive. All the data= lines need to be updated in this way.

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• Then copy everything in this file, and paste it into the very end of your openmw.cfg file.

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• If you already have set up OpenMW and pointed it to your data files from Steam, GOG or the retail CD, you will already have some data= or content= lines. It will probably look something like this:
  
  data="D:\games\Steam\steamapps\common\morrowind\Data Files"
  content=Morrowind.esm
  content=Tribunal.esm
  content=Bloodmoon.esm
  
  These lines are important, so paste all the mod lines AFTER the lines shown above. If you already have some extra data/content lines beyond those shown above, you’ve probably already installed some mods; it’s up to you how to make them work with the I Heart Vanilla pack. If you’re unsure you can get rid of these extra lines and start with a fresh slate.

​

• Then save the openmw.cfg file and close it.

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• Now go into the _MANUAL INSTALL folder from the mod archive. Copy the Fonts folder into your OpenMW user profile folder (same place as you found the openmw.cfg file).

• (Optional) Now install the Vanilla Inspired Shader. This is a little bit tricky, so if you have trouble with it you can skip it. Make sure to back up any files you edit.

• Locate the the OpenMW install directory – not the user profile! Then navigate to the resources\shaders folder. In my case this was located in D:\games\OpenMW 0.47.0\resources\shaders but this will probably be different for you.

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• In the _MANUAL INSTALL folder from the mod archive, open the Vanilla Inspired Water folder and copy water_nm.png into the resources\shaders folder.

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• Now edit the water_fragment.glsl file in this resources\shaders folder and delete everything between:
  // tweakables -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
  
  and
  
  // ---------------- rain ripples related stuff ---------------------

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• Open the file _MANUAL INSTALL\Vanilla inspired water\Vanilla Inspired Water Tweakables for OpenMW.txt
  Copy the entire contents of this file, and paste it into the water_fragment.glsl between the tweakables and rain ripples related stuff lines mentioned above. Basically you want to replace the code that was there with the code from the Vanilla Inspired Water text file.

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• Save the file and close it. Vanilla Inspired Shader should now be installed.

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• Now start OpenMW. In the launcher, Make sure under Data Files, the Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon master files are listed plus various ESP files, and there are no exclamation marks or other warnings. Some plugin files won’t be enabled – this is OK; there are some extra plugins included with the various mods that we aren’t using. Some are for compatibility with other mods.

• On the Graphics tab, first set your resolution.

• Then click the Shadows sub-tab and adjust as required. I turn on all shadows except Indoor – this is a bit buggy especially in multi-level buildings so I prefer to turn it off. Dial up the shadow map resolution and shadow distance limit if you have a beefy enough machine.

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• Click Advanced. On this tab are a few quality of life option you can set as desired. I like to turn on NPC’s avoid collisions

• Under the Visuals sub tab, turn on ‘Use additional animation sources’ and ‘weapon sheathing’. You can also turn on ‘Shield sheathing’ but personally I didn’t like this, it makes characters carry shields on their back instead of their arms, and I noticed a few clipping issues.
  I also like to turn on ‘smooth movement’ and ‘turn to movement direction’ - if you don’t like how this looks just turn it off.

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• Still on the Visuals sub tab. Under Terrain section, turn on Distant Land, and Active Grid Object Paging. You must also turn up the viewing distance for distant land to work– I have mine set at 4.00 cells which seems to be a happy medium. If you have a beefy machine you can turn this up further. Be warned that turning it up too far can make the game world seem smaller and minimise the sense of exploration, as you can see dungeons from far away.

• On the Interface sub-tab, ensure Graphic Herbalism is turned on. Optionally you can set the GUI Scaling factor to make UI elements larger (I have mine set at 2.0, you might want to go higher if you have a big monitor). You can also set ‘Show Owned’ - I have mine set to ‘tool tip’, this shows a red border when you highlight items in the world that are owned by someone else, and will count as stealing if you get seen taking it. Again, this is preference – up to you if you want to set this or not. I also have every other option set on this screen except ‘stretch menu background’.

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• That’s it! Click play and enjoy the game!

• If you are using Vanilla Inspired Shader, you need to change a couple of extra items from the in-game menu (not the launcher):
  In the Options Menu, go to "Video" then "Water". Make sure Water Shader is set to ON.
  I also recommend setting refraction to OFF, Texture Quality to LOW, and reflection shader detail to WORLD.

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If you have any problems with the above please let me know and I’ll try to help out ☺


Important note – Delta Plugin


This mod pack includes a pre-made Delta Plugin. This merges objects in the various plugin files to avoid conflicts.


If you add, remove or replace any of these mods you must regenerate the Delta Plugin. If you are just using the modpack archive provided here and no additional mods, you don’t need to worry about this.


Instructions to regenerate the plugin for Windows:

• Ensure any old plugin files have been disabled in the OpenMW launcher – the plugin will read your config file and leaving old plugins in here will have undesirable results.

• Open Windows command prompt

• Cd into your OpenMW mod directory - eg:
  D:
  cd “\games\OpenMW Mods”

• Enter the below command:
  delta_plugin.exe merge delta_merged\openmw_merged.omwaddon

This will replace the existing delta plugin file, so you don’t need to make any further changes to the OpenMW configuration.


If you’re using Linux/Mac see instructions at https://modding-openmw.com/mods/delta-plugin/


Important note – Expansion Delay


I have included one additional mod beyond the ‘I Heart Vanilla’ list:, Expansion Delay - https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47588


I personally think this is lore friendly and a better gameplay experience – you don’t need to know about the expansions right away as their content is suited to higher level characters. The way Tribunal is introduced is pretty intrusive IMO!


If you don’t want to play with this mod, simply disable the Expansion Delay plugin file in the OpenMW launcher. Then generate a new Delta plugin as described above.

 

Very conveniently, the game is on special on GOG currently. Normally $19.95, down to $7.99 until May 9:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_elder_scrolls_iii_morrowind_goty_edition

Modern Xbox owners can also play this on back compat. I'm somewhat tempted to at least try it on OG Xbox, but the video below is making me think it's not even worth it for a laugh. I'll stick to OpenMW I think.

 

I've had the original Skyrim staring at me from its place in my backlog for years now, but this prompt to play Morrowind probably means I'll get to Skyrim sooner.

I noticed Morrowind and Oblivion are on sale on GOG too, so just picked them up

 

I'd really not bother trying to play on the Xbox - not only do you miss out on mods, but load times are much longer and there's a few other weird things- for example, if you drop enough items on the ground, the game puts them in a 'loot bag' next time you load that map cell, instead of remembering where you left them.
If you have a computer that isn't a complete potato, OpenMW is a better option.

 

Awesome write-up thanks DK and perfect timing, I've been in the mood for an open world RPG and Morrowind has been on my mind, but I couldn't be arsed spending the time to install it / mod it all up again.

And thanks for the head's up RE the GOG sale elvis - now I don't even have to track down my copy of the disks

Installing now and looking forward to this very much.

 

It's also on Microsoft Game Pass.

 

Indeed. There's clearly some love for this one

 

Might be time for me to finally finish the game. Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game.

I’ve listened to the soundtrack countless times though. They’re bangers.

 

Might be time for me to play more than 20 minutes of an Elder Scrolls game.

 

Is there any issue just using the installer/engine that comes with the gog version? Does anyone recommend the vanilla (non modded) version? I've has these in my collection for years, booted it up a few times, but never really got into it. I'll try to keep at it for a bit longer, seeing as you wrote an excellent introduction and guide, so I'll give it a good go.
Skyrim and Oblivion I've had a pretty good romp around in. So yeah I'll join in this month.

 

Morrowind is absolutely one of my favourite games ever - I had to do it justice for its 20th anniversary

I'm not angry, just disappointed.

I guess you could, but OpenMW is faster and more stable than the original version. Even if you don't install any mods, its worth getting OpenMW.
With the original version its not unusual for it to crash to desktop every so often - OpenMW fixes all that.


I probably sound like I'm fellating OpenMW here but its just so damn good!

 

Fair enough mate, I'll follow your advice! Thanks for being our guide through the morrowwind universe.

 

Spent some time setting this up, I'm playing this on a laptop with Intel graphics (Core i7-8550U), at 720p it stays over 100FPS when I get off the intro boat with the Vanilla Water shader active

Using a Steam controller and Steam to launch OpenMW as a non-Steam app, using the "X3c" profile:



The mod pack worked well, the most annoying thing is caused by my Wayland desktop on Linux causing the mouse cursor to disappear - using an external mouse/trackpad seems to help when I need that. If there's any mods that help with "keyboard" navigation of the menus that'd be helpful.

 

Thanks for feedback on the mod pack - I'm happy at least one person tried it

Can't really help with your steam controller issue; but maybe try the 'grab cursor' input setting?
https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/stable/reference/modding/settings/input.html

 

I've put about an hour in today and had a laugh. I think having played Fallout 4 previously has helped immensely, as that's taught me "Bethesda logic". I think I played a smattering of Oblivion before, and just had no idea what to do.

So far in Morrowind I've traveled about, killed bandits, and just looted anything I can get my hands on while people have their backs turned. I think I'm slowly making my way to wherever the story wants me to go, but as always with these games it's often more fun just to faff about and accidentally progress the story than bother attacking it head on.

So far just using OpenMW on Linux with the GOG GOTY version. I'll have a crack at your provided mod pack tomorrow.

 

what an amazing choice, this is a game i always meant to complete. I must admit that mostly i just watched it melt my GF3 Ti200 back in the day when I looked at the water.

 

The mod pack worked like a charm here (Windows 10), thanks again for the detailed write-up I know that takes time. First time trying OpenMW here and it's a peach, everything looks great and is super smooth. I love that there's a FOV option and I've turned on headbob, which is subtle but I was finding that super smooth camera in first person to be a little odd. The scaled up UI size is also fantastic.

So far so good - killed me some mudcrabs and chatted to some townsfolk.

 

This game made me save up for months and buy a GF4 Ti4200 just so I could enable the pixel shaded water. It was like nothing else we'd seen in a game before. Even with the new graphics card It still made my system chug!

Thanks, glad to hear the mod pack is working for you It took a bit of effort to get it set up and write up the instructions, so I'm happy that its made it easy for people to enjoy the game

 

Oh wow, what a choice! Very well timed but maybe just a little bit too big a game for a 'Let's Play' post? Either way this a great chance to get people who haven't experienced this game to try it out.

Morrowind is my number 2 if not number 1 favourite game. I was so very impressed when I first built a computer a run it well enough and try it out. As DonutKing said on the surface the plot is deceptively simple - well I'd argue that the plot IS actually simple, but the story has great depth and the world was wonderfully rich in cultural and spiritual detail as well as being wonderfully designed for its time.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I spent HOURS and HOURS ignoring the main story line and just going off exploring, doing side quests for fun and hunting for hidden treasures, trying to cover as much of the map as I could, increasing my character's power and finding some very cool unique items. When it did come around to finishing the story, it was awfully easy, but hey I earned that, right?

I do own the two expansions and installed them but never actually got around to exploring them much at all. I think I was all 'Morrowinded' out in the end just from the main game. Pure awesomeness!

$19.95 is still a bargain for this killer game.

This is the case with me also, and I haven't played Oblivion beyond escaping the sewers.

Oh how I love the Morrowind soundtrack. I don't know if it has a proper name, but my favourite piece is installed as 'mx_explore_4.mp3'. A few years ago while working from home, I played the Morrowing 'Explore' tracks in a loop for about 5 hours. I know that's crazy, but to me it is just really pleasant background music. After 5 hours I still wasn't sick of it, but I really felt it was time for something different!

I haven't explored mods much. The only one I'd recommend for sure is the readable sign mods so you don't have to put the damn cursor/target over the signs to translate them. As other folks have said, OpenMW is a better option in general with or without mods. I absolutely adore it.