"Morrowind Overhaul 3" Modernizes Morrowind

[IanDavis]

"Morrowind Overhaul 3" Modernizes Morrowind

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A new mod compilation updates and fixes almost every aspect of the 10-year-old RPG.

As the leaves turn and autumn falls upon us, it's comforting to snuggle up with games we know and love. For many, few games are more beloved than the third entry in The Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind. However, players wishing to revisit to the land of the Dunmer might find that they can never truly return home, as the game hasn't aged too well in in the decade since its release. That's where Morrowind Overhaul comes in to save your nostalgia. Clocking in at around 2GB, this mega-mod cocktail is almost twice as large as the original game. Just as its title suggests, it overhauls everything, from the textures, models, even the gameplay gets touched up.

Shortly after its release, the Morrowind mod community has been tirelessly tinkering away at the massive RPG. Even after the release of two sequels and the passing of ten years, new mods find their way into the Morrowind Nexus regularly. The mod squad over at Onitocopter has complied together the best of the best, insured that they played well together, and compiled them together in this package. The trailer to the right offers a sampling of the utter beauty that they managed to eek out of this ancient game.

While many of the mods contained in MO3 are either updated or tweaked, perhaps the best part is the installer. While the original incarnation included a 70-page install guide, MO3 has a handy installer which automates the majority of the process.

If you don't already own a copy, you can find the Game of the Year edition of Morrowind, complete with both sizable expansion packs, on Steam for $20. Note that Morrowind Overhaul 3 only works with either the original CD or the Steam versions.

Update: Seemingly in celebration, Steam has Morrowind (along with every other TES game) is currently on half price on Steam, until Oct. 4th.

Source: Ornitocopter

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[Fasckira]

Pretty sure someone released something similar a while back but it got shut down or something? Was something to do with using people's mods without permissions or something if I recall.

Be interesting to give it a whirl though. Morrowind was one of these games it was so easy to sink time into.

 

[Savryc]

Downloading now. I may be gone for some time.

 

[teh_Canape]

okay, with this I might give Morrowind another try
hope there is a way to only use the gameplay upgrade, no way in shit my PC is running those graphics

 

[Blunderboy]

Alas poor free time, I knew him well.

 

[Fappy]

I could swear Overhaul 3.0 came out like... months ago. I guess I've been playing 2.0 all this time. I saw the TES Facebook page report on this yesterday too.

If any fans of Morrowind haven't checked out this mod by now go do it now. It's the best thing fans have ever provided for this game. Period.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

This does not update and fix almost every aspect of the game. This compilation is about upgrading the sounds and graphics of Morrowind. There are two mods included in it (Morrowind Patch Project and Morrowind Code Patch) that do fix bugs and, in the case of Morrowind Code Patch, adjust some gameplay elements, but it is far from fixing every aspect of the game.

Now, I must complain that this is the only Morrowind mod project that gets covered on this site, when there are several that deserve just as much attention as this.

Tamriel Rebuilt aims to recreate the rest of the Morrowind province. The project was started before Morrowind was even released. The quality of it surpasses that of the vanilla game. It had its third release this year, but you never would have known about it if you didn't pay attention to the Morrowind modding scene.

OpenMW is a new engine for Morrowind. When it is finished, it will not only allow more bugfixes and graphical capabilities than what we are able to do now, but also do things that are not currently possible with modding, like add skills or make the combat system not suck. Plus, it will be compatible with a vast majority of the current mods for Morrowind. It's still far from completion, but enough on it has been done, and the project is progressing fast enough, that the chances of this thing actually coming out are very, very good. But, instead of hearing about this, we hear about Skywind, which will not have all of the gameplay elements of Morrowind, will not be compatible with Morrowind mods, and is much less likely to be released in a state that is on par with vanilla Morrowind than OpenMW.

Anyway, this may sound sort of negative towards Morrowind Overhaul, but I do support Morrowind Overhaul and think its a great project that people should know about. I just don't like it being the only Morrowind mod that people hear about.

 

[Fappy]

-Snip-

To be fair I didn't see anyone reporting on it until they released 1.0. It's likely being covered because it's in a completed state. I haven't heard about OpenMW by the way, sounds awesome. Hopefully it'll get some coverage once they've made enough progress.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I didn't mind the dice roll but all in all its not a good use of the dice roll mechanic. In an action game you need to do default damage every time you hit, melee/thrown based on strength Bow/Crossbow based on weapon and arrow/bolt. Once you get the base damage down you then can factor in base critical damage. Now you can add finesse or skill based dice roll bonuses. Say you have X strength you do 10 in base damage 5 in critical, weapon damage is 4-14 and 2-5 crit,, luck or whatever gives you a 2% every 10 point chance at doing double damage and criticals, but weapon skill and agility also play a roll in extra damage giving a 5% damage bonus every 10 points. For Bow/Cross bow you can have agility give you extra base damage (1-3 points every 10 points of agility), then calculate luck,skill weapon stats,ect.

Would not mind having range stuff have a range limit before it loses half its max damage, the trick would be binding it to a stat that makes sense,perception would be a good one if not strength for thrown and agility for Bow/crossbow.

It's to see fans so attached to a game that they refuse to let it fade into Oblivion.

Because Oblivion/Skyrim sucks.

 

[Scow2]

Question: Does this fix Morrowind's horrible lighting, bland textures (Not just low-res, but tiny pallette as well), and ALL animations, including ambient ones (Especially beast and monster animations)? AND the combat system on top of it all (Moreso than the limits "Combat Enhanced" mod do)?

Otherwise, it'll still be the mess I've seen.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

It's a hell of a lot more than two mods... Here's the list:

I know that there are more than two mods in it, I was just saying that there are two mods that do anything other than improving graphics or sounds, although looking at that list, there seem to be a few others, although I presume that those are mostly improve stability (which is important, don't get me wrong).

I'm not saying that this mod compilation is bad (it's actually quite awesome), but it doesn't, as this article claims, update and fix almost every aspect of the game. Not buy a long shot.

 

[charge52]

Question: Does this fix Morrowind's horrible lighting, bland textures (Not just low-res, but tiny palette as well), and ALL animations, including ambient ones (Especially beast and monster animations)? AND the combat system on top of it all (More So than the limits "Combat Enhanced" mod do)?

Otherwise, it'll still be the mess I've seen.

While I can't say concretely(yet, at work at the moment so can't download it), but judging by the mod list, posted on this thread immediately after your comment naturally, it does include lighting and animations fixes, there is some combat enhancements but I don't know what you consider "fixing" it. Also, there are a shit ton of texture mods included, so I'm sure the palette is more refined.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Does it fix the lack of voice acting? I don't mean to sound snobby but it's become an industry standard, and without it I personally can't enjoy an RPG like this.

I remember getting Morrowind a few years ago and being very disappointed, so I doubt it'll grab my interest now.

 

[Fappy]

Does it fix the lack of voice acting? I don't mean to sound snobby but it's become an industry standard, and without it I personally can't enjoy an RPG like this.

I remember getting Morrowind a few years ago and being very disappointed, so I doubt it'll grab my interest now.

No, it doesn't make it fully voiced, but it adds voiced parts that were only text before and adds a variety of different voices to the game. Notably all of the dream sequences with Dagoth Ur are voiced and some of the important parts of the main quest that didn't now have large voiced scenes.

I don't mind all of the text personally. The game wouldn't have the luxury of being as large and dynamic as it is if it was restrained by being fully voiced imo.

 

[Theminimanx]

Does it fix the lack of voice acting? I don't mean to sound snobby but it's become an industry standard, and without it I personally can't enjoy an RPG like this.

This mod doesn't, but I remember there being a mod that aims to do that. Can't find it right now though.
Personally, I much prefer a lack of voice acting, because that way my immersion isn't immediately shattered when I start playing a mod that doesn't have voice acting. It's because of that problem that I just couldn't play any quest mods in Oblivion.

Does the overhaul include gameplay changes, like added regions or changed combat? Or does it only change the graphics and sound?

The new article is rather misleading, the mod compilation linked to here only updates the sound and graphics, while a different mod compilation is being made by the same team to update the gameplay. Eventually, the two compilations will be combined into a single installer.

 

[SquidVicious]

I purchased Morrowind a little while ago but never really got that into it, this mod could be the thing to help. Does anyone have a rough idea of what the requirements are, like if you can run Oblivion you can run this?

 

[NLS]

This does not update and fix almost every aspect of the game. This compilation is about upgrading the sounds and graphics of Morrowind. There are two mods included in it (Morrowind Patch Project and Morrowind Code Patch) that do fix bugs and, in the case of Morrowind Code Patch, adjust some gameplay elements, but it is far from fixing every aspect of the game.

Now, I must complain that this is the only Morrowind mod project that gets covered on this site, when there are several that deserve just as much attention as this.

Tamriel Rebuilt aims to recreate the rest of the Morrowind province. The project was started before Morrowind was even released. The quality of it surpasses that of the vanilla game. It had its third release this year, but you never would have known about it if you didn't pay attention to the Morrowind modding scene.

OpenMW is a new engine for Morrowind. When it is finished, it will not only allow more bugfixes and graphical capabilities than what we are able to do now, but also do things that are not currently possible with modding, like add skills or make the combat system not suck. Plus, it will be compatible with a vast majority of the current mods for Morrowind. It's still far from completion, but enough on it has been done, and the project is progressing fast enough, that the chances of this thing actually coming out are very, very good. But, instead of hearing about this, we hear about Skywind, which will not have all of the gameplay elements of Morrowind, will not be compatible with Morrowind mods, and is much less likely to be released in a state that is on par with vanilla Morrowind than OpenMW.

Anyway, this may sound sort of negative towards Morrowind Overhaul, but I do support Morrowind Overhaul and think its a great project that people should know about. I just don't like it being the only Morrowind mod that people hear about.

Agreed, Tamriel Rebuilt and OpenMW don't get as much love as they deserve here... Although Tamriel Rebuilt has been a long and slow project barely getting anything released within a timely schedule, OpenMW however has weekly updates on development progress, usually packed with a nice video featuring the new changes/additions.
But yeah, both projects are far from a final release, so I guess it's sort of fair for the Escapist to dismiss them right now, and rather give them the full round of applause once they've reached each of their 1.0 release goals.