Skywind Mod Jams Morrowind Into Skyrim

[Fanghawk]

Skywind Mod Jams Morrowind Into Skyrim

The Skywind team wants Vvardenfell, and eventually all of Tamriel, to appear in the latest Elder Scrolls game.

If you're familiar with the backstory behind The Elder Scrolls, you likely already know each setting is contained within the massive continent of Tamriel. The landscapes from many Elder Scrolls games, Morrorwind, Oblivion, and Skyrim in particular, actually share the same borders, which is why visuals of the regions were tucked away in Skyrim for possible future use. It may be impractical for Bethseda to fully implement classic territories within Skyrim, but it's not so impractical for third-party modders, who are already hard at work porting the entirety of Morrowind, quests and all, into Skyrim's engine. And once that is finished, Oblivion is next.

The mod, which goes by the name Skywind, is a conversion of the already completed Morroblivion project. Morroblivion made all of Morrowind's quests and content playable within Oblivion's engine, interface, and combat system, as long as the player had a copy of each game. The Skywind team is currently seeking volunteers to help re-code the quests and content to function in Skyrim, and while the process will take some time, the screenshots and videos of their progress is very promising.

The completed mod will feature all of Morrowind's quests, rebalanced crafting and armor systems, and perhaps most importantly, fast travel. It's unlikely shouts would be implemented, but given <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115826-Two-Million-Skyrim-Mods-Downloaded-on-Steam>the sheer number of mods available to players, if the Skywind team doesn't add it someone will eventually. Work on Oblivion content will start sometime after Skywind releases, but there is already <a href=http://youtu.be/jExaltgeENA>an initial video of the Imperial City to whet appetites for the time being.

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This is traditionally the point I would start getting worried about <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119465-Fans-Petition-to-Save-Ambitious-Lord-of-the-Rings-Mod>ceast-and-desist notices to deter copyright infringement, but since Skywind actually requires a copy of Morrowind to play anyway, it may neatly circumvent the issue. In fact, this could be a great example of a modification prompting fans to purchase the original content. While I've only played Skyrim, I know Elder Scrolls fans who swear up and down that Morrowind is the best of the series, and a project like this might give me that final nudge I need to finally try it out.

The alpha version of Skywind is scheduled for release in early 2013.

Source: PC Gamer

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[IndomitableSam]

Hmm. I tried it for about 10 minutes when I was younger, then put it away, but I think I've got a copy of Morrowind at my parent's place somewhere. May have to go find it. And hope it installs.

 

[Krantos]

I hate to be That guy...

But the continent is Tamriel. Cyrodil is the central province.

OT: I'm interested in this, but I doubt I'll play it. I never played Morroblivion, so...

 

[NightHawk21]

Wonder how they're gonna enforce the need to have Morrowind to install and play the mod.

 

[Irridium]

Hm, it'd be nice to play Morrowind with combat that isn't total ass.

Hopefully Bethesda doesn't shut this down. They let the Requiem For a Capital Wasteland (it combined the worlds of New Vegas and Fallout 3) stay up, so here's hoping. At least, I'm pretty sure it's still up. Haven't checked in a while.

If you're familiar with the backstory behind The Elder Scrolls, you likely already know each setting is contained within the massive continent of Cyrodil.

Small correction, the Elder Scrolls games take place on the continent of Tamriel. Cyrodiil is the province where Oblivion took place.

 

[Fappy]

I really hope Bethesda lets this slide. Their works looks extremely promising/accurate so far. How the hell don't these people have jobs in the industry?

 

[Sight Unseen]

Got to be honest, I really don't see the point.

I mean, from that video, Morrowind looks like ass when ported to the Skyrim build of the Gamebryo engine. The textures are still flat and basic, the ploy count still low, and the lack of fog or mist robs everything of the Morrowidn atmosphere.

There are already countless mods which update the game to have better textures, higher poly models, better lighting and such. In fact, the latest Morrowind Visual Overhaul video on youtube looks pretty damn stunning. I don't really see what porting the game to Skyrim offers that countless visual mods haven't already done.

"better" combat than Morrowind, for one.


OT: Cautiously optimistic about this. I have played morrowind relatively recently with the graphical overhaul mod and it looks great, but the barrier for entry is still very high and I lost interest in it pretty quuickly. We'll see how this works.

 

[blackrave]

Unless it involves time travel this mod makes no sense lorewise
Vvardenfell should be ash wasteland, instead they made it to look like in TES3

A little Nirn history here
In between TES4 and TES5 (around E4Y40 to be more specific) there was one particular event that took place in a book "The Infernal City"
I won't spoil it but it resulted in Ministry of Truth (the big floating rock above city of Vivec) crashing into the Vvardenfell with full force (because it wasn't stopped, but rather suspended in a form of stasis, so all original kinetic force was still there)
That started massive eruption of the Red Mountain (the volcano in the middle of Vvardenfell)
So at the point of E4Y200 (when TES5 takes place), Vvardenfell is heavily changed (maybe even still mostly uninhabited)
Maybe Dunmer are starting to retake their land back (it is 160y after the catastrophe), but it is unlikely, since most of Morrowind mainland is taken over by Argonians after weakened Dunmer were defeated in a war with a Black Marsh (another event that took place in between TES4 and TES5 and after destruction of Vvardefell)

So yeah, Morrowind is complicated province to make right.

 

[The Lugz]

Wonder how they're gonna enforce the need to have Morrowind to install and play the mod.

my interpretation of what they're doing is using the older games as resource folders for assets they don't want to, or are not legally allowed to copy or re-create

it's an interesting line to draw, but i'm pretty sure a multi-game mod is still a game mod, and modding is allowed in Bethesda games.. so.. should be ok? mebby.. 'shrug'

 

[Shinsei-J]

Unless it involves time travel this mod makes no sense lorewise
Vvardenfell should be ash wasteland, instead they made it to look like in TES3

I'm pretty sure it's just a case of "Play the old game you love through the new game you love" for graphical and gameplay reasons.

 

[blackrave]

Unless it involves time travel this mod makes no sense lorewise
Vvardenfell should be ash wasteland, instead they made it to look like in TES3

A little Nirn history here
In between TES4 and TES5 (around E4Y40 to be more specific) there was one particular event that took place in a book "The Infernal City"
I won't spoil it but it resulted in Ministry of Truth (the big floating rock above city of Vivec) crashing into the Vvardenfell with full force (because it wasn't stopped, but rather suspended in a form of stasis, so all original kinetic force was still there)
That started massive eruption of the Red Mountain (the volcano in the middle of Vvardenfell)
So at the point of E4Y200 (when TES5 takes place), Vvardenfell is heavily changed (maybe even still mostly uninhabited)
Maybe Dunmer are starting to retake their land back (it is 160y after the catastrophe), but it is unlikely, since most of Morrowind mainland is taken over by Argonians after weakened Dunmer were defeated in a war with a Black Marsh (another event that took place in between TES4 and TES5 and after destruction of Vvardefell)

So yeah, Morrowind is complicated province to make right.

That depends, is this a mod that allows your character to travel to Morrowin from Skyrim?

Or is it just Morrowind with Skyrims engine?


The fact that shouts wont be available sounds like its going to be a standalone game.

It might be simply re-made TES3 (that have no connection with TES5)
If it's so, then shouts shouldn't be available (due to the fact that besides Dragonborns only Nords had limited ability to use Thu'um back then, and the masters of Thu'um were limited to Skyrim)
Anyway it could be ability limited only to Nords (and at some extent to other Men)

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

did they actually finish the oblivion vvardenfell mod? last i had played all the staff had quit

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I'd rather someone jam Skyrim into Morrowind. Or even better, Daggerfall. It seems the gameplay gets worse with each TES game.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I love Morrowind to bits, but it is an extremely flawed and dated game. It needs massive improvements to gameplay, that cannot be currently fixed by mods to it. However, I cannot support this, or Morroblivion, for three reasons:

1. Transferring Morrowind to Skyrim or Oblvion will eliminate some of the awesome things in Morrowind that help make it unique. Things like many of the spell effects that were eliminated in later entries of the series (most importantly levitation) or the depth of the character creation.

2. Doing this eliminates the possibility of using the many, many excellent Morrowind mods. For example, I couldn't use Tamriel Rebuilt (for those that don't know, it aims to rebuild the rest of the Morrowind province into the game, and the parts that are released so far are better than the base game) in Skywind. The mods are half of the reason to play Morrowind, and it would be tragic that people would miss out on that.

3. There is the much more ambitious, awesome, and worthy of attention project out there called OpenMW [https://openmw.org/en/], which is a completely new engine for Morrowind. It's not finished yet, but when it is, it will allow people to experience Morrowind in all it's glory with the possibility of fixing the glaring gameplay issues with it. Seriously, check it out.