Trying to provide a comprehensive, reasonable and up-to-date guide to modding Morrowind in 2024. Lore-friendly (or -ish at least). No Fargoth.
This is my first ever attempt at creating a guide and posting here (feel free to tell me, so I can make the guide better).
1.2 version - expanded upon some chapters and new edit. Many thanks
Requirements| DLC name |
|---|
| Bloodmoon |
| Tribunal |
I mean it's a guide. do whatever not like it has any assets beside the text itself. If you mention me helping I'd be glad. If you mention me f*ing up your game, I will deny I am even a person at all.
Drake Platinum THE WORLD - Inspired me to do my own thing.
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Morrowind Modding Guide 2024 or "Get God or OD on Sujamma"So, I am what some may call a modding tourist - once in a blue moon I decide to wreck my life by trying to work impossible mod account with Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4/NV or Morrowind. Since I am hyperactive af half of my attempts fail because modding of large scale is more akin to building a ship in a bottle or taking care of bonsai, and I am really bad at that kind of work, so I decided to aim for a modding setup that can be done during one afternoon as opposed to spending a week trying to make Skyrim look and behave more like Morrowind. Yes, I opt for Morrowind, since it was my first big gamer game I have ever played and it is consistently one of the five bests I have ever played.
With my two cents out of the way, why am I really making this guide?
Every chapter and (optionally) subchapter will be prefaced with bit of an explanation. Detail and mod links is in spoiler sections. Reason is to make the guide as readable as possible and allow for experienced modders to just pick something to their liking without needing to read through it all.
(On Wrye Mash. This was used as a previous mod manager, and still is I think used to merge mods. I don't like mod merging - it is a way to get around active plugin hard limit (which is either 255 or 256), game is not able to load them beyond. As any merging mistakes can happen and they are a bit of hassle to alleviate (prolly just remove and reinstall the spliced mods), also - the merged plugin is that "merged", you need to work with lesser readability on that.)
Not only I don't recommend running without, modded game will not even run without some of them. Keep that in mind.
Morrowind Code Patch - total GOAT![/color]
1. Download, unpack and paste contents to your Morrowind main install folder.
2. Run it. I usually check most of the patches offered, but it really depends on you. Just know you might need to run it again, because some patches are required by other mods or settings.
Patch for purists . Download and install as normal mod. Some of its files will be overwritten later, that is ok.
Morrowind optimization patch . Download and install as normal mod. Just know - it is a BAIN installer and some patches might not apply to you (they almost certainly will). Improves some vanilla assets (textures, meshes) and helps with performance. Prolly will get partly overwritten by some other texture/mesh mod you install, but that is fine.
You can also utilize these awesome patches/bug fixes from Half11. In case you will be running Ownership Overhaul (below), you don't need Container Ownership bug fix here. If you will be running Better Clothes, consider the patch here as well. I highly recommend Services Restored fix.
You can also try Unofficial Patches for Official Plugins . I have had some success using it in previous mod loadout. Just know - patch has not been touched in two years and there were some game breaking bugs reported in the last half year. Be wary if you will be using Better Armors (below) as well.
You will almost certainly need these bad bois: UI Expansion , Crafting Framework , Skills Module , Weather Adjuster . They are frameworks that other mods use to build upon. From what I know they are basically issue free, so you are free to have them in your core installation.
Hell yea. Textures, meshes, bodies, UI, effects, animations, lights, MGEXE and shaders are basically your way to make the game look good. Now my philosophy on this matter is simple - I like big texture pack to cover all and then have some finishing touches for assets I'd like to have real pretty. In a way it is tiring to install all the beautifying mods, it looks rad, but - hear me out - after taking initial images, we all kinda start to ignore the graphics and immerse ourselves into the game itself. Goal is to upscale graphics high enough so they do not interfere with immersion. You know, KISS (oh boy, I'm gonna get it now).
Even though these are "simple" retexture packs, I have noticed especially with item textures that they tend to clash a lot with gameplay changes mods, so much so I omitted Better Armors for example altogether. Don't get me wrong - they are all honest awesome work, it's just Morrowind as any game does not have "industry" standard, you know gold template, and in twenty years of making mod compatibility simply is an issue. Although I prefer two extra beautifying mod types: bodies and artifacts, because I usually end up looking at NPC's face and ignore the rest or swag over "found" artifact that was randomly lying around Divayth Fyr's spongy mansion.
Morrowind Enhanced Textures . They are AI upscaled, so no special touch, but they basically upscale everything AND the mod is alive and well, so there will prolly be new edition next year or so. Use it as your base level texture pack that might get overwritten here and there.
New Starfields . Excellent night sky texture. Breathtaking even. Consider essential.
Natural Grass is a combined effort of other grass mods. It has almost everything (covers almost all regions). Just remember - do not activate the grass plugins: Use mgexegui and during distant land generator locate the grass plugin folder, add it and have generator cover it. Why is it so, I don't know honestly. Also remember that some mods, like BCOM (below) will have to use grass patch, otherwise the new grass might overlap with the modified city landscape. If you are not sure (when asked by other mod's BAIN installer) which are the grass plugins (since they are all combined into one) know they are Rem's and Ozzy's.
There are hundreds of other texture packs. I like to use Ket's potions , and Septim texture , because generally I like my money to shine,the choice is yours. If you decide to go with just MET (above), that's alright too. I don't use Darknut's textures, even though, they are excellent, because current MET covers these as well and it is pretty enough, I will link it nevertheless.
Some other mods that might pique you interest:
Epic Plants .
Better Clothes Complete . Beware people reported clothes overlapping and such.
Darknut's creature textures. More creatures. Tribunal creatures. Bloodmoon creatures. Datadisk creature retextures are actually really worth taking, MET does not seem to be touching them much.
If you love Silt Striders just as much as I do, you might be interested in extra touch here.
Better Morrowind Armor . I do not really recommend. It was last updated ages ago, there are more compatible and generally better looking mods, only they are very specific (dealing with certain armor types etc.) - for example this netch armor replacer, that looks rad.
For the female better fitted armor, use this . I like to use "r" plugion option for gentle realistic changes.
Dunmer Laterns . They are sweet. Tried with previous mod loadout.
Darknut's Little Weapons Mod .
Now, MET handles textures, but the game will still look choppy. What to do? Download some mesh mods. Sadly, there is no comprehensive goto mod, but these cover almost everything:
Corrrect Meshes , Properly Smoothed meshes , Better Meshes , Overlooked meshes replacer , RR-Better Meshes , Ingredients Mesh Replacer . You can use other minor mods, they will mostly rewrite what is already included above.
There is no definitive consensus on what bodies mod you should use. I like Robert's bodies and MacKom's heads , because they seem to be updated from time to time. MacKom has some support for more hair or eyes models, if you want. Just remember during installation - opt out for Khajiit or Argonian. We will be using Beast Overhaul for them. Also I like to use body recolor for Robert's Bods.
You want generally recommended Better Dialogue Fonts , I have also grew to like Beauty Font coupled with the former. Enchanting icons I like to use to generate real nice looking enchanted items auras in menu (remember to pick only one color pattern).
Among myriads of Splash Menu mods I have picked S.A.M.B.A. - really neat images taken, I believe, from TESO and very slightly animated. Uh-um. Yummy.
VFX creatures restored effects is a nice touch. Various magic effects replacer/enhancer is fine. I have Better Spells Effects .
Regarding the weather I consider Watch the Skies and Vapourmist to be top notch, really nice weather effects (you might need to play with a draw distance for a bit, I have noticed that weather tends to generate a bit later after you enter a cell). Watch the Skies uses Weather Adjuster plugin to work. By the way, you can create your own Weather preset with Weather Adjuster, if you feel inclined.
I have tried Fireflies in previous mod loadout. Really, really neat, so it is somewhat restricted (appear in two regions).
Now I do not consider Fire Retexture to be essential, because I have run it with last mod loadout and I have had to suspend loads of disbelief when guard bois pulled out their maces, I mean torches, and threatened to kill my immersion. If you are keen on trying it, I suggest either trying the fix mentioned in discussion here (either with GIMP or paint.net) or if you don't want to be rigging textures, try this version (don't be disheartened by OpenMW compatibility)
Morrowind is somewhat lacking in animation support, at least from my standpoint. There are certain custom animations, but they seem to be limited by the engine. My best bet is Animation Blending , since it basically makes vanilla animations smoother by adding a frame or two into their loops. Like that vanilla animations suddenly feel enough, you know, smooth and nice looking. Weapon Sheathing is excellent added touch, recommended.
For added immersion, you can try Silt Strider animation restored. Not tested with Abot's Silt Striders, but since Abot's mod spawns its own object, I believe that these two will be issue free.
There are many really good mods for lighting, I tend to go with Midnight Oil . It does some things Glow in the Dahrk does and a little bit more, it is also much newer, and I like new stuff. Just don't mix two or more lighting mods, they will clash.
Now, Morrowind has the best music theme in all of the series. We used to dance to it stoned into high heavens. Every other theme is derivative in the series. Wanna argue with me over it? Hmpf, what a grand and intoxicating innocence. Anyway that music can be expanded upon, Heartstrings is a really good effort at that.
A.U.R.A. touches on the sounds themselves - mod overhauls their utilization and sound (much more. lively?) Either AURA or Heartstrings also deals with wrong music cues - like when you step outside a yurt and music tells you you're about to get smashed to bits.
What can be considered a sound improvement are the various NPC sound mods - Idle talk , It's a deal , Django Dialogues and some others. These mostly either restore voice lines or mix them together. Voices of Vvardenfell tries to fully voice the game utilizing AI. I didn't try it, because it is unfinished yet (well it is a massive undertaking), but if you do and have positive experience, tell me! What I have noticed with mod loadout that Django Dialogues and some other mod clashed, not sure whether that was my mistake (prolly was), but do keep in mind - that adding too many dialogue modification mods can result in borks. I'd stick to those three.
Hoho, there's a lot, but they could be broken down to mechanics overhauls, added mechanics, effects and races, and general stuff. I kind of sorted out general playstyles I have found out. You can install them all if you are like and want to have cohesive world with options with slightly higher risk that you encounter some game breaking or even immersion breaking bu, or you can just run of or two of these together.
Fight me Coward OverhaulGet rid of dice roll, it's old school, yea, but annoying as hell. I prefer Next Generation Combat , as it is fairly issue free and generous mod for compatibility. You can throw in Dual Wield mod for swag, works quite well and is fun. I'd advise to stay clear of archery mods - NGC (above) already takes care of that. It also takes care of combat stamina (like that it is not spent after three seconds of jabbing).
I also suggest Immersive movement that adjusts Athletics and Acrobatics skills across the board to make slower characters a bit faster and vice versa. Also makes additional changes to stamina during running and jumping (so you're not out of breath the moment you run onto the bridge outside of Balmora knowing you will have to rest at least five times on your way to the dwemer ruins).
Welcome to the Arena will be your home - you can bet on fights or even fight yourself. Quite popular among gladiators. For hunters of all kinds I have picked Bounty Hunter Assignments and Vampire Hunter Faction (requires Guild of Vampire hunters mod).
I like to use Magicka Expanded and Rebalanced purist-friendly Magicka regen . First enriches the game with some really cool spells, the latter adds very subtle magicka regen to the game. Not purist enough? Yea, I ain't spending time sleeping or frantically searching for alchemy stuff to brew regen potions instead of playing, never again. Also the regen is really very subtle and you can modulate it (it creates like nine plugins, run just one).
I also utilize The Art of Alchemy together with Poison Crafting . Just know - if you run Graphic Herbalism, mods that manipulate ingredients objects in any way might result in borks.
Stealth , Security Expertise and Pickpocket Fix is what I am using to finally live some Morrowind thief action, although I do not have this mod combo properly tested yet. I have search other mods, but these seem to be the cleanest execution of what we want from stealth and pickpocketing - to actually work. Note: I have modified, for personal preference, max pickpocket chance for Pickpocket Fix from 75 percent to 90 (reasoning that master thief should have better odds, but even master thief can fail once in a time). I did not ask author for permission, so I will not be attaching my version here, if I do get a permission I will attach it.
I also utilize Crime Tweaks , Regional Bounty and No Witness - No Bounty to diversify the life of N'wah criminal mastermind - crime punishment is tougher, but makes more sense in terms of enforceability. Wanted Posters is added touch for immersion (when your bounty is high enough, your mug will be on every tavern's wall around).
Another underdeveloped and hardly utilized skills are Mercantile and Speechcraft - Buying Game , Barter Experience are your way to business, Talking Matters and Silver Tongue make even just random gossip slowly gain you experience and all around enhance the Speechcraft experience. Also - Indybank (TR friendly) . You know you want it, your Daggerfall bank system basically, really neat. You can add Silt Strider Courier so you can read about your many exploits (of Dunmer people) in the newspaper.
Ashfall . It is your Needs mod, but it enhances that hunter-gatherer feeling as well - you can utilize tools to survive and sleep in the wilderness, you can skin animals, provided you got a knoife. Ashfall of course is first and foremost needs mod so hunger, tiredness and thirst are a thing, but they are actually well paced and posses simple mechanics so to enhance the experience (usually the needs mods are a must only for masochists that like to be bothered incessantly) instead of cluttering it. Beware: Ashfall icons will overwrite the space where stealth icon usually is, kinda bothersome if you are keen on stealing stuff.
I use Better Mining (required by Jobs mod nevertheless) and Un-Graphic Herbalism as well - I cannot stress enough to use this mod, it will save you days of playtime. It's sort of one *click* pony mod (giggle), but it just works (more stupid giggles). I was using Graphic Herbalism before, in other mod setup, but that can get finnicky with other mods that potentially touch ingredients and if you don't have patch you'd prolly end up with game breaking missing error as I did with this setup.
Some of these mods might require an utility mod called Just Drop It . If you are unsure whether to have it or not, have it nonetheless. It just helps you to position and align items with the ground. Some mods might also require this , don't know why, but less cliff racers are less cliff racers and that's a bonus.
The Royal Game of Ur and subsequent The Playable Game of Ur (one is basically assets and the other game rules) a Thirteen Telvanni card game - your games to pass the time in the game. Did not play Ur yet, but Thirteen Telvanni is fun, even tho card placement on some boards is ify.
Publicans , from what I gather, restore some locations where you can rent a bed while Atmospheric Delights makes the favorite night club look like a real night club. There is also Skoomaesthesia mod for the sweet teeth out there, all about immersion and experience of chasing the dragon, or selling it.
Of course it would not be a true Gamba, Loiter and Rock'n'Stone playstyle without being an actual artist. You have three options: poet/musician, writer or painter. Writer of the Third Era , Bardic Inspiration and Joy of Painting are your bread and butter. You can write books, sell them on the market, earn them sweet Septims, get wasted with Sujama, get high on Skooma, bet on that sexy Nord champ down in the arena and lose the rest to shady bartender in a "friendly" game of Telvanni, pray to Vivec next day so he could spare you a terrible hangover and moral irony of your choices. For praying use PRAY - only beware you might get a mod error after you contract corpus disease, if you do, see the mod post for fix. Joy of Painting requires additional mods and ImageMagick app to be installed on your PC. You should also stay clear of installing the game to Program Files due to app writing to folder when you paint in the game (Program Files x86 should be fine).
Yes, install Jobs and you can play a clerk or smelter, or miner (requires Better Mining mod), you get paid 5 drakes per 10 crafted potions for example. You know that is as close to a real life a game can get - I have delivered 10 goddamn potions and earned a pittance, in the face of such meager allowance the offer to deliver one certain slave to a moonsugar dealer for 400 felt like a divine intervention from Vivec. You will most certainly start working as an average joe only to end up looting, scavenging, fighting or doing skooma. Highly recommended starter build. Remember kids, gateway to drugs ain't Vivec, but the corporate overlords who force you to worship some Talos guy.
I wanted to keep this purist-friendly, to tweak rather than overhaul. Evened Birthsigns and Races RESPECted seem to do just that (Reminder: Races Rscpd does some changes to male and female chars such as female argonians being smarter and males faster and such). Slightly improve upon race attributes and birthsigns to make even the less popular a viable option, although Evened Birthsigns can be a showstopper for a true purist - they remake the once per day abilities into spells (it makes sense from gameplay standpoint, since you are enhancing the immersion when you don't have to abuse your power by sleeping a whole day to deal with that pesky daedra literally next door). Stats seem to be truly respected - males tend to be stronger, while females more flexible.
You can use Run Faster , I did in the past, simple but fair mod. Of course what you really should install is Abot's Silt Striders and Abot's Boats . Now anytime you want to travel somewhere you can choose the "Scenic route" and actually experience the travel (yes, traveling by Silt Strider is magnificent). Reminder: Mods, at least Silt Strider, seem to be using vanilla resources, so your guide/driver will pretty much look like a chewed up polygon. The real advantage is that you can get out halfway, or anytime, so you can actually omit large distances that you would otherwise have to go through in the early game. I believe this is the most purist-friendly way to make the traveling easier.
These are the mods I ended up using and feel really satisfying: Imperial Factions (fleshes out Thieves, Mages' and Fighters' Guilds), Religion Elaborated (Fleshes out Tribunal and Imperial religion factions, so far does not seem to interfere with PRAY mod). Imperial Census and Office and Blades informant are not yet tested (well it does not break the game, but I don't know how it plays), you should be able to work for Blades even after Cassius is gone. Morag Tong Polished is another interesting mod I have not yet tested but I am looking forward to it, since four quests in sum really don't make for much entertaining experience considering it's so hard to join Morag Tong in the first place. Join the Royal Guards and Investigators (which should put you in the role of investigative cutthroat) are also novum for me, I cannot give you much review, yet.
There are other mods of notice you might come to enjoy: Rise of House Telvanni , Join the Imperial Knights and others. I don't care about Knights and I don't like Telvanni guys (gasp) so I didn't bother installing them. I am sucker for Hlaalu to make that sweet cash and live life to the fullest.
There are tons, but I stick to two: Main Quest Overhaul , that lets play for yourself and omit the prophecy altogether, for example, and Expansion Delay , because I really cannot stress enough how annoying it was to get jabbed around first level by a assassin with glass daggers and have my arms twisted to visit Mournhold this instant or I might get stabbed for real. I also use Feminist Nerevarine that lets me stick it up to the man as in it gives more agency over my character to me.
Some of the mods will require you to install OAAB resources , which is - modding resources some of these mods utilize, and Wares Ultimate , which should expand upon the stuff you can get in the game and some mods like to utilize it as well. If you get tons of errors for an Wares_TR_purist plugin for Wares, they are not game breaking, I think it's just something in Wares mod not yet reflected due to changes in Tamriel Rebuilt itself.
For Morrowind bustling life immersion I don't actually use Morrowind Comes Alive, I remember it being quite a hassle and not generous enough when it comes to compatibility, I like to use Animated Morrowind and Random NPCs instead which both seem to be quite gracious in providing that lively element to the game while not breaking anything (aside from some NPCs trying to walk through Meldor's shop, but hey, someday they might just do it).
I also use Weapons Expansion Project , which adds plenty omitted weapons to the game. Just remember to use this clean version [/color]as well (you can just name the clean version the same and have it merge with the WEP core mod) and patches. I also use Ownership overhaul that changes most of the stuff lying around into someone's stuff, you cannot treat the crates all around as your personal piggybank anymore. Last but not least there is a mod called Buy a House and it lets you buy a house. I consider it to be much more purist-friendly than just straight adding an empty player house to the world, but you will need some house at one point, all that stuff you "find" just won't fit into Balmora mages' guild anymore.
There are tons! To name a few that I currently run: Investigations at Tel Eurus , Of Melodies and Moonlight , Caldera Priory and Depths of Blood and Bone which I am especially looking forward!
Non-questline mod is Treasure Hunt . Did not try yet, but it should be compatible with Tamriel Rebuilt, which I assume would be otherwise deal-breaker. If like me you want more treasure to "liberate", this might be your thing to do so.
Of course, I'd like to enhance this chapter with more recommendations, but I did not actually try many new questlines so far, I was always purist in the sense of "I wanna enjoy the real questslines!". I know, I know, arrogant and naive, it is a mistake I am correcting only now.
Tamriel Rebuilt of course. Download Tamriel main file and Tamriel_Data . Installation guide from version 10.1 is outdated (since the authors did not updated all the web pages accordingly - some will tell you to register BSA files - don't, just install both files via MO2 and let it run wild).
I also use Skyrim the home of Nords . Did not try it yet. It throws error on some resources missing, during loading, nothing game breaking, but just be wary of such possibility.
I use Markgran forest mod to enhance the so-called nature around the Maar Gan and of course - Beatiful Cities of Morrowind . Be sure to go through BAIN installers thoroughly and install BCOM patches as well. Also I suggest you might install BCOM last since it asks for lots of plugins and you might not know for sure which you will run or not.
I am also running Azura's Shrine overhaul . I have also noticed there are some beautiful renditions of Akulakhan's Chamber and Almalexia's chamber . Some textures or meches might overlap with other mods. Follow authors' instructions for mod order, if there are none, trust LOOT to sort it out, if you don't trust LOOT, try this formula texture pack < scenery overhaul < gameplay overhaul. If you don't trust yourself, seek god or counsel, or sujamma.
Pheeew. That's it. Considering all the stuff I have mentioned and a little I did not (or summed up under "pick your own") we are around 116 active plugins, which is still workable and fine to navigate! One drawback I have, but that could be my own PC thing that it takes up to 10 minutes of playtime to render modded meshes and some textures. If anyone knows how to mitigate that, please share your secret with poor Khajiit.
Remember these Six RulesCheers, let me know if I talk bllsht (let's face it: my favored playstyle is Gamba and Loiter, I probably am lying through my teeth), share if you find it at least a bit useful.
