Mortismal Gaming looks back at Morrowind:

TES: Morrowind - Retrospective Review

Couchpotato spotted that version 6.6 of the Morrowind: Rebirth mod has been released.

OpenMW is still in development - here's an interview with Capo:

You’ve already been interviewed on this very blog in 2019, but you didn’t mention if you have a cat. Who are you again, by the way?

It’s me. I’m the cat.

…

I have to reveal the darkest of my dark secrets: I am not in fact a cat.

I’m still Alexei, still best known as Capo. I’ve since moved to Southern Russia, though I hope to eventually move somewhere else. I’m now 21 and thankfully, I’m not a high school student anymore. Right now I’m trying to get a CS degree. Yes, I’m younger than Morrowind itself, by a month or so.

As mentioned in the original interview, I discovered The Elder Scrolls series proper and OpenMW in 2015, stuck around since then and started actively contributing in early 2018. I generally focus on file format support (NIF, ESM, BSA), mod compatibility and high-level mechanics.

I do have a cat. Her name used to be Behemoth, and now it’s Plague. Is cat tax evasion a crime? I’m committing it.

What have you been working on recently, and what’s your new five-year plan for OpenMW?
Assuming the entire 0.49 development cycle counts as “recently”, I would put a few things from that here as the highlights. 

I’ve recently added NiFogProperty and NiParticleBomb NIF record type handling — the former is responsible for setting up fog settings in NetImmerse and it’s useful for disabling fog for a part of the scene and the latter produces an explosion effect during particle simulation. I’ve soft-rewritten the entire NIF parser for the upcoming 0.49 release, which is not something an end-user should notice, but what it should do is make further updates to it much easier.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted an update for Tamriel Rebuilt:

Art and Assets Update - December 2023

Tamriel Rebuilt is a large community modding project that aims to add the missing mainland of the Morrowind province to TES III: Morrowind. The mod is developed and released as a series of fully realized expansions that are seamlessly integrated into the vanilla Morrowind worldspace and with each other. Currently, players can download and enjoy roughly half of the mainland, which comes fully equipped with thousands of interior locations, NPCs, dialogue, and more than 600 added quests – many more than the original game and expansions combined.

Happy holidays, readers! Despite the release of our last expansion, Andaram, only a short while ago, progress on new expansions to the Morrowind mainland is ongoing, as those following the much-more-frequently-updated #progress-updates channel on our Discord server well know.

Now, as the year is drawing to a close, it is high time we update you on what our prolific artists and asset developers have been doing for most of this year. We last tallied this progress in early March, so we will be covering almost a years worth of assets progress – prepare for a long read. Some brief highlights of what that includes:

• Reams of new concept art on the Mournhold and Velothis districts, and on innumerable other topics.
• An entire new, alien culture for the Dreugh including eerie citadels, new enemies, and innumerable clutter items.
• Tons of new ships from all across Tamriel to fill our harbors with.
• An entire new architecture set modeled on the Old Mournhold ruins.
• Lots of progress on assets needed for Indoril region overhauls, most especially in the Mephalan Vales region.
• Many new armors, creatures, clutter sets, and more.

The below post will walk you through the fruits of what are essentially the first two legs of our development pipeline – conceptualization and asset creation. Only when concepts are set in stone and unique assets created can new regions and cultures be called to life by our level and quest designers.

Warning! This post contains spoilers for our newest expansion, Andaram, especially as regards the Almas Thirr Mages Guild questline. If you wish to go into the content unspoiled, it’s best to leave this news post for later. Furthermore, bear in mind that all content here is work-in-progress and subject to change – especially information on the linked asset browser pages, which is in many cases outdated already.

Now, without further ado…

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A new version of OpenMW (0.48.0) is now available for Morrowind:

OpenMW 0.48.0 released

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.48.0 of our open-source engine! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all supported operating systems.

So what does another fruitful year of diligent work bring us this time? The two biggest improvements in this new version of OpenMW are the long-awaited post-processing shader framework and an early version of a brand-new Lua scripting API! Both of these features greatly expand what the engine can deliver in terms of visual fidelity and game logic.

As usual, we’ve also solved numerous problems major and minor, particularly pertaining to the newly overhauled magic system and character animations.

Unfortunately, this time you will not be able to watch a release video by his majesty Atahualpa and his excellency johnnyhostile since they are both heavily occupied by real-life matters. – But fear not! This release announcement post will cover the gist of what this new release brings in text form, so prepare for the read of your lifetime!

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted an update for Tamriel Rebuilt:

July 2023 Progress Update

Tamriel Rebuilt is a massive community modding project for TES III: Morrowind that adds the mainland of the province to the original game, aiming to quadruple the size of the game world. The mod is developed and released as a series of fully realized expansions that seamlessly integrate sections of new land into the rest of the game world. Many such expansions have been released in the more than two decades that the mod has been in development; hence, players can already download and enjoy a landmass twice the size of the original game with thousands of interiors and NPCs complete with dialogue, and more than 500 new quests.

It has been quite a while since the last implementation progress update – all the way since October 2022, just prior to the release of our double expansions, Dominions of Dust and Embers of Empire. Those who read our previous teaser on the upcoming Andaram expansion will know that Tamriel Rebuilt development has been progressing at rapid pace since then.

This post will cover most of what the implementation team – that is, exterior and interior level designers and quest developers – has been doing in the past nine months (asset development has a separate progress report). For a Too Long; Didn’t Read edition:

• release of Dominions of Dust and Embers of Empire expansions (duh)
• completion of more than a hundred new quests for the Andaram expansion
• a major expansion and update to Almas Thirr’s exterior, interiors, and quests
• interior work on the Narsis expansion is close to conclusion, and the first quests are now being worked on
• several exterior claims of the new Sundered Scar and all the interiors of the remade town of Darvonis are now finished
• the first exteriors for the Othreleth Woods expansions are finished, and interior development has begun
• the Tamriel Rebuilt version of the island of Firemoth is very close to being finalized, and a few new islands have been created on the fringes of Morrowind

Read on for a more detailed breakdown of this progress, divided between the different expansions which we mean to release in succession.

Yours truly has been rather lazy in compiling these reports, hence this one will be especially long… but maybe you will stick it out! If you like much more frequent bite-sized updates, be sure to check out Denis418’s posts on our new #progress-reports Discord channel.

For the following, it is helpful to know that development work on Tamriel Rebuilt is split into pre-coordinated claims (e.g. a chunk of the exterior worldspace, a building interior, a quest) that are implemented by individual developers, then reviewed by a team of experienced developers, prior to being merged into larger section files, and eventually, the mod’s master file.

As always, the links below will take you to the relevant asset or claims browser pages, but beware of spoilers! Furthermore, beware that the content on the linked pages often falls out of date, and hence may no longer represent the current state or future intent of the development team.

[...]

Using ElevenAi, this mod allows you to experience all of Dagoth Ur's dialogue with an approximation to his original voice in Morrowind. Credits go to the original creators of Dagoth Ur Voice Addon, as well as the creator of the fixed version of the mod, CY4NN.

With the almost scarily good https://beta.elevenlabs.io/ we can now experience Dagoth Ur in his full glory. Find the mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/m...

You want to know everything about Morrowind? Stefan "Desslock" Janicki wrote a guide:

The 20th year since one of my favorite games, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, was released. Here’s a PDF link to my 329 page comprehensive strategy guide: all quests, area walkthroughs, etc. But I’m most proud of the complete listing of all 3000+ NPCs;

IGN reports on the official Nvidia RTX Remix available for classic games like Morrowind.

NVIDIA RTX Remix is an easy way for modders to create RTX Remasters of classic games. Watch the tool in action as we capture and remaster The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. We can't wait to see what classic RTX remasters you'll make next!

[...]

During their presentation for the Nvidia 4090, Omniverse was presented and we got a glimpse into Portal being auto-enhanced with Nvidia RTX Remix AI. We decided to ccapture the original Portal to see how it compares. Here are the results of Portal vs Portal RTX Remix.

Matt looks back at Morrowind:

Matt Chat 487: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls III

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Morrowind is rightfully regarded as one of the best CRPGs ever made, but how well does it hold up twenty years later? Remarkably well, especially if you install some choice mods from the I Heart Vanilla pack. There's way too much stuff in this game to cover even in a 2+ hour video, but hopefully this taste of the early parts of the game is sufficient to pique your interest in the title. You can buy it from GOG or Steam.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is now 20 years old. Additionally DSOGaming reports that you can now play Morrowind in VR thanks to OpenMW.

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is an epic, open-ended single-player game where you create and play any kind of character you can imagine. Be the noble hero embarking on an epic quest, or an insidious thief rising to leadership of his guild. Be a malevolent sorcerer developing the ultimate spell of destruction, or a reverent healer searching for the cure to a plague. Your actions define your character, and your gameplay changes and evolves in response to your actions. Confront the assassins' guild, and they take out a contract on you. Impress them, and they try to recruit you instead. No two sagas are the same in the world of Morrowind.

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According to the creator, non-VR players can play together with VR players. However, the hand movements of VR players cannot be seen by other players at this time and they show up as using regular animations.

Players can download the TES3MP 0.8.1 VR client release for Windows from here. David suggests non-VR gamers download this latest version as it includes numerous optional hotfixes.

Have fun!

A new version of OpenMW (0.47.0) is now available for Morrowind.

**Please note that one must own the original game files to play Morrowind in OpenMW!**

Another year of busy and fruitful development lies behind us — and the OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.47.0 of our open-source engine! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all supported operating systems.

With over 180 solved issues and a plethora of new features, this release is on par with the enormous 0.46.0 release we had last year. Brace yourself for object paging which allows OpenMW to finally display distant statics, proper support for groundcover mods, an improved lighting system, more efficient and robust physics, the new, optional over-the-shoulder camera, and much, much more!

In addition, countless bugs have been solved — both for the vanilla game and for a variety of mods to ensure even better mod compatibility in the new version.

Check out the release announcement video by the hacking Atahualpa and the slashing johnnyhostile, and see below for the full list of changes. There are also a German release video and a German changelog available.

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PC Gamer talked about mod Morrowind Rebirths big update on the games 18th anniversary.

Now on to the brand new additions in Rebirth 5.1:

• Added an interior to Meralven Hleran's House, Pelagiad.
• Added a lot more clutter to Ghorak Manor, Caldera.
• Ebonheart Overhaul - Yet another overhaul for Ebonheart adding more detailing like, houses, shops and clutter, making the city less empty and stale. A drawbridge was also added for the castle itself, and some decorative elements have been added to the main entrance. There are also some new areas added to old content.
• Bthusal - A massive Dwemer ruin to the Molag Amur region, close to Lake Nabia. Inside you'll find the usual Dwemer content, but also a two new artifacts.
• Fort Darius Overhaul - An overhaul of a part of the fort. This overhaul includes a new sleeping/general quarter for the legionaries, a jail cell, armory/storage and a toilet.
• Ancestral Tombs Overhaul - An work in progress overhaul to expand or improve most of the tombs on Vvardenfell. This overhaul includes for example new areas, new loot and misc items. Note that not all tombs have been expanded as some are large enough, and were only in need of cluttering.
• New Enchanted Weapons
• New Armor
• New Artifacts/Uniques
• New Spells

There are also balance tweaks to potions and spells and graphics tweaks for "hundreds of various minor mesh/texture edits," as well as some entirely new models and textures here and there.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

@Moddb Morrowind Rebirth 5.0 part 2 has been released. Morrowind Rebirth is a complete overhaul project which adds new adventures, areas etc to the game.

At long last the final version of 5.0: Part 2 is ready for you to enjoy! [changes in Part 1 can be found here: click me] It's been a long wait, I know, but I'm sure you'll all think it has been worth it. With this update comes a plethora of changes, including an overhaul of the Labour Town District in Balmora, an overhaul of Molag Mar, and an overhaul of Ald Velothi. Additionally dozens of bugs were squashed, quality of life improvements have been made and new items, weapons and armor have appeared in the gameworld. I really hope you'll enjoy this update. Have fun!

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

A new Skywind trailer has been released:

Skywind - 'Call of the East' Trailer 2019

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HD Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/345488615 (recommended) We have several major updates and announcements with the launch of this trailer. Please read!

sFirst, the Skywind team is still in need of volunteers for almost every department. You can find links to our application on https://tesrskywind.com/ or on our discord here: https://discord.gg/Wzs4QTd There are still several critical roles that need filling, and work for every skill level, so please consider joining! We are especially in need of 3D artists for several major assignments like tilesets. The more help we get, the sooner we’ll be ready for a release, and the better the final version will be. Come make history with us.

Second, we have now successfully ported Skywind over to the Special Edition of Skyrim to take advantage of the upgraded engine. This was a necessary change for stability purposes and to accommodate our improved visuals. There are no plans for a backport release on the vanilla Skyrim version at this time.

Next, we are launching our new website https://tesrskywind.com/ It is still under construction at the time of this release, but we’ll have more updates in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more updates!

Finally, we are happy to share the full version of the Skywind theme heard in this trailer, arranged by Fredrik Jonasson. You can listen to it here https://youtu.be/V2liozIXhJA with full credits in the description. Join our Discord server for volunteer information and progress updates! https://discord.gg/Wzs4QTd

Morrowind Rebirth 5.0 has been released and comes with a lot of everything. You can download it here.

[RELEASE] Morrowind Rebirth 5.0

I'm happy to introduce you to the mother of all updates! Hundreds of hours have been poured into 5.0, making it by far, the largest one for Rebirth. Included are a great deal of changes including bugfixes, new creatures, weapons, armor, improved models and much much more. For the full rundown please refer to the changelog down below.

Posted by trancemaster_1988 on May 24th, 2019

Last update was a pretty big one, and made substantial changes to a great deal of areas. One part of it included a restrucuring of the Morrowind Rebirth archive, removing a lot of redundant meshes, textures and icon. Some meshes, textures and icons were also renamed. This was a great step towards making the mod less bloated. While this process was a necessity, it also brought with it a slew of bugs and issues. I didn't mean for this to happen, and I want to take the chance to apologize for the issues it might have caused.

With that out of the way I'm happy to introduce you to the mother of all updates! Hundreds of hours have been poured into 5.0, making it by far, the largest one for Rebirth. Included are a great deal of changes including bugfixes, new creatures, weapons, armor, improved models and much much more. For the full rundown please refer to the changelog down below.

Special thanks to Rubberman for the dialogue and scripts for the player homes, and for updating the Mercenaries addon with fixes and new features. I also want to thank all the others whom have contributed, both activly and passivly. Without you this update would not have been possible. Last and not least I want to thank those whom have playtested the beta, making sure that it doesn't break the game completely :-)

Last but not least I want to clarify something to you guys. 5.0 is not the end of Rebirth. More fixes, improvements and additions are planned. In fact you can view this update as Part 1 out of 2. More info will be shared later on this topic. Until then I hope you enjoy this update, and do let me know if you run into any issues. Have fun!

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OpenMW 0.45 for Morrowind has been released.

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OpenMW is a modern, free, and open source game engine created by the OpenMW team. It runs natively on Windows, Linux, and macOS. In a first step, we want OpenMW to be a fully functional replacement of the original engine used for Bethesda's popular RPG "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind". After that, we are free to de-hardcode any of the game mechanics in order to enhance the modding capabilities far beyond what was possible in the original engine. OpenMW also has its own construction set, OpenMW-CS, which will eventually allow developers to create their own games in the OpenMW engine.

--- Please note that one must own the original game files to play Morrowind in OpenMW! ---

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Bethesda are giving the game away free until March 31st on Bethesda.net.

@PCGamesN The modders behind Rebirth for Morrowind tell the story behind the mods creation.

Have you ever looked at an in-game object and thought about its positioning or placement? For Morrowind Rebirth creator Trancemaster_1988 such minor detail has been a fascination for more than a decade as he’s steadily worked on his passion project. This attention to detail seems to explain why Rebirth has been in development since 2010 as even the smallest, most easily overlookable details can take weeks to implement.

This is something that RubberMan – a long-time friend of Trancemaster – who creates dialogue, models, and features such as the banking system in Rebirth, knows well. He recalls how Trancemaster once requested that all the furniture in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind be redesigned so that it’d easier to place flat objects on them.

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Thanks Farflame!

@PC Gamer An AI-enhanced texture mod for Morrowind.

...
Modder DassiD says they made several passes with the tool and upscaled the textures by four times Morrowind’s original resolution. They’ve included some comparison screenshots on Nexus, where you can also download the mod. It looks impressive, though it’s worth noting that a few other mods have been used in the screenshots to make them look even lovelier.

Morrowind Rebirth v4.9 has been released.

Hey guys! It has been some time since the last update, but as you will notice I've been quite busy. 4.9 is a massive update with changes all across the board. With the holidays coming up I wanted to release an update that felt really special, and I hope you'll all agree when you've tried it out. As always check the list down below for more details.

Also I want to thank you guys for voting Morrowind Rebirth into the top 100 in the yearly Mod of the Year Awards. Feel free to show your support and vote in the next and final stage as well. Thank you!

With that said I wish you all the best. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! 2019 will be an awesome year for Morrowind Rebirth.

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Open Morrowind 0.44 has been released.

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OpenMW is a modern, free, and open source game engine created by the OpenMW team. It runs natively on Windows, Linux, and macOS. In a first step, we want OpenMW to be a fully functional replacement of the original engine used for Bethesda's popular RPG "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind". After that, we are free to de-hardcode any of the game mechanics in order to enhance the modding capabilities far beyond what was possible in the original engine. OpenMW also has its own construction set, OpenMW-CS, which will eventually allow developers to create their own games in the OpenMW engine.

--- Please note that one must own the original game files to play Morrowind in OpenMW! ---

Credit for the "Dun-dun-dun" sound: http://www.orangefreesounds.com/dun-dun-dun-sound-effect-brass/,
author: Alexander, retrieved on: 2018-07-19
Online Documentation :: http://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/master/
TES3MP :: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mwmulti
Homepage :: http://openmw.org
FAQ :: http://openmw.org/faq/
Forums :: http://openmw.org/forum/
Wiki :: http://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Social Media Facebook :: http://www.facebook.com/OpenMW
Twitter :: https://twitter.com/OpenMW_org

GameWatcher reports that Morrowind Rebirth v4.7 has been released. 

Hello guys! It's time for yet another update. I know that I've said this before, but I can assure you that this is the largest update for Morrowind Rebirth ever! With it comes a ton of stuff including new dungeons to explore, new areas to visit, new creatures, new armor and new artifacts. This along with a ton of balance changes, bugfixes and other additions makes this a truly massive update. I really hope you enjoy 4.7!

[...]

This total overhaul of the original game has the goal of enhancing the gameplay simply by rebalancing the game, alongside the visual alterations and upgrades. Though still work-in-progress, Morrowind Rebirth has only recently been updated to version 4.7, and with it comes a slew of brand new stuff to fiddle with. This includes but is not limited to landscape changes, itemisation, creature list, spells, game systems etc.

Fixes themselves aside, which few others than players already familiarised with Rebirth will be interested in, title update 4.7 revamps, adds and enhances a fair amount of stuff as well! Developers have noted that this is the biggest update released for the mod so far, which says quite a lot for one such massive undertaking.

PC Gamer checked out the Morrowind Rebirth mod:

The Morrowind Rebirth mod is the ultimate enhanced vanilla experience

 

All that Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind goodness you love, but more.

[...]

Returning home

Alongside its many additions, Morrowind Rebirth also makes a massive number of balance changes. Hundreds of mechanical values have been tweaked, from the damage of different weapons to the weight of items and the price of travelling via Silt Strider. It’s impossible to go into these in any great detail, but the general effect makes levelling slightly slower and the diffi culty more challenging. Personally, I always felt Morrowind was slow and challenging enough, but this does spread your progress out more evenly across the mod’s increase in scope. Plus, if you get stuck, that’s what the diffi culty slider is there for. 

What I like most about Morrowind Rebirth is how natural all the additions appear. It makes Vvardenfell feel as if it has grown and evolved during your absence, like returning to your hometown after years away, only without the disappointment at discovering your favourite coffee shop has been replaced by yet another Starbucks. It doesn’t feel like the game has been modded. It’s more like time has simply moved on. If you want to know just how much has changed while playing, however, keep an eye out for hanging lanterns. These are trancemaster’s calling card, and you will be seeing them absolutely everywhere you go.

Thanks henriquejr!

The Morrowind Rebirth mod project has released version 4.5.

About

Explore the island of Vvardenfell as you never have before, with a world built anew to be both alien and familiar to the Morrowind you knew before. New adventures await, with new exciting areas to see and explore, and new artifacts just waiting to be discovered. This is a complete overhaul for Morrowind, adding countless new details, weapons, armors and much more for you to see and do. Experience the world of Morrowind in a new light, try out Morrowind Rebirth today!

[RELEASE] Morrowind Rebirth 4.5

Hi guys! Today I'm happy to introduce you to the latest update, and as always it's a big one! With v 4.5 comes a plethora of changes, mainly aimed at refining various areas of the mod. This includes fixing a ton of bugs, reworking dungeons and fixing graphical issues. But that's not all. Rebirth is now somewhat modular with game setting-changes now being separated from the main plugin, with more to come.

[...]

@DSOGaming TES3MP had an update recently which added some new features. Basically the mod adds multiplayer to Morrowind.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Multiplayer V0.6.2 is now available, featuring script enhancements and fixes

The team behind TES3MP – a project adding multiplayer to OpenMW, which is an open-source recreation of Morrowind’s engine – has released a brand new version of it. Yes, you read that right; you can play Morrowind in multi-player now. Morrowind, as pretty much all the main The Elder Scrolls games, is a single-player game, however, gamers can finally play this classic RPG game in multi-player thanks to this project.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Multiplayer V0.6.2 comes with some script enhancements, important bug fixes and allows players to play NPC sounds.

[...]

Open Morrowind 0.43 has been released.

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OpenMW is a modern, free, and open source game engine created by the OpenMW team. It runs natively on Windows, Linux, and macOS. In a first step, we want OpenMW to be a fully functional replacement of the original engine used for Bethesda's popular RPG "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind". After that, we are free to de-hardcode any of the game mechanics in order to enhance the modding capabilities far beyond what was possible in the original engine.

OpenMW also has its own construction set, OpenMW-CS, which will eventually allow developers to create their own games in the OpenMW engine.

--- Please note that one must own the original game files to play Morrowind in OpenMW!---

Online Documentation :: http://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/master/
TES3MP :: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mwm...
Homepage :: http://openmw.org
FAQ :: http://openmw.org/faq/
Forums :: http://openmw.org/forum/
Wiki :: http://openmw.org/wiki/index.php?titl...
Social Media Facebook :: http://www.facebook.com/OpenMW
Twitter :: https://twitter.com/OpenMW_org

Donations OpenMW server funds :: https://pledgie.com/campaigns/28366

PCGamesN reports that the patreon page for Tamriel Rebuilt has been set up by scammers. Tamriel Rebuilt is a mod for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind which seeks to recreate the entirety of Tamriel.

After 16 years and the involvement of over 600 modders, an ambitious mod for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has been hijacked by scammers looking to earn a swift buck on Patreon. So, public service announcement: don’t support a Patreon page for Tamriel Rebuilt. 

 

The mod’s developers say they “do not have, nor do we plan to have, a Patreon account at all.” They say they have alerted Patreon to the scam. 

If you'd like to help them out in other ways, they need a hand finishing their grand work. If your hands are capable, here's how you can join.

[...]

Open Morrowind is getting real time shadows implemented.

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Tried out Emba-5 due to nice statics for shadows and current issues with black terrain. Actually pretty decent performance in the base game (45-150FPS in Balmora). There are a lot of issues but things are looking promising. Great work overall by AnyOldName3!

Tested on: i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz GeForce GTX 1070 16GB RAM

TES3MP multiplayer has received a big update which comes with installation instructions. You can download it here.

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multiplayer: "M'Aiq does not know this word. You wish others to help you in your quest? Coward! If you must, search for the Argonian Im-Leet, or perhaps the big Nord, Rolf the Uber. They will certainly wish to join you." - M'Aiq the Liar

M'Aiq may have been teasing us back in 2002, but today you really can meet the Argonian Im-Leet as well as Rolf the Uber. This is all thanks to OpenMW's sister project TES3MP and its developers Koncord and David Cernat. Previously, tes3mp only had pvp, but a recent patch added NPC synchronization. As if that weren't enough, they also decided to sync player faction, journal, topic, time, and plug-ins... You can pretty much play the whole game now, if you just keep in mind that scripts still work locally (as they do in single-player) and custom items made with alchemy/enchanting/spellmaking do not save on the server. Download tes3mp version 0.6.0 and be sure to read developer announcement here!
[...]

Thanks Luj1!

The biggest Morrowind mod ever celebrates the 16th anniversary with a trailer:

Tamriel Rebuilt - The 16th Anniversary Trailer

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In 2001, before Morrowind ever released, Tamriel Rebuilt was formed on the Elder Scrolls forums with the goal of one day bringing the Morrowind mainland, and at the time the rest of Tamriel, to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind once it released. Over 16 years later and the team at Tamriel Rebuilt, while largely changed, is still working hard and striving everyday towards that goal of making a unified Morrowind. Since those first few scattered posts in 2001, over 600 modders have passed through the doors of Tamriel Rebuilt, contributing thousands of new assets, literature, art, music, dungeons, towns and cities, and so much more to the project.
By far the largest mod for Morrowind, today you can explore a vast swath of the mainland thanks to the tireless efforts of these amazing modders, from the highest peaks of the Velothian Mountains, to the lowest swamps of the Grey Meadows, the barren flats of the Armun Ashlands, the maze of canyons of the Roth Roryn, and the fertile farmlands of the Thirr River valley. With dozens of cities to visit, from the massive citadels of Old Ebonheart and Baan Malur to the magical capital of Port Telvannis and the religious cities of Necrom and Almalexia, not to mention countless dungeons, quests, and hidden-away treasures, you'll find hundreds of hours worth of content on the Morrowind mainland with what Tamriel Rebuilt's release so far.
There's just so much to see and do in Tamriel Rebuilt, and after 16 years, while the project is far from finished, it remains as the largest mod for Morrowind, and one of the oldest continuously worked on modding projects in gaming history.

If you want to help out with this massive project though and contribute to one of the biggest and oldest modding projects in the community, why not head over to http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/ and join the team today?

You can download Tamriel Rebuilt's latest release here.

Check out an online interactive map of TR here.

And visit their YouTube Channel here.

The music in this trailer is "Elysium 2" by composer Johannes Bornlof from Epidemic Sound.

You can download this music here.

Thanks Farflame!

Gamasutra replayed the first hour of Morowind:

Gamasutra Plays The Opening of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

As The Elder Scrolls Online prepares to return to Morrowind, we decided to pay a return visit ourselves, as Gamasutra editors Bryant Francis and Alex Wawro sit down to look at the first hour of Morrowind and talk about the foundation it built for Bethesda's open-world games.

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PC Gamer takes a look at the oldest Morrowind mod still in development: Tamriel Rebuild

The 15 year quest to mod the mainland into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Tamriel Rebuilt began long ago but the vision to create the entire Morrowind province remains.
Vvardenfell is about half the size of Manhattan. You do laps around the island for hours, picking up incidental sidequests from the flawed populace holding on to their lives in musty townships like Balmora and Vivec City. This was a big deal in 2002. The Elder Scrolls toyed with open worlds before in the roughly 62,000 square mile procedural generation of 1996’s Daggerfall, but this was the first time Bethesda packed 100 hours worth of handmade design onto a beaming landmass and set the player free as soon as they stepped through the harbor. It might look quaint from the vast Imperial drama of Oblivion, or the treacherous hikes and dense hamlets of Skyrim, or, hell, the fully realized continent from The Elder Scrolls Online, but it was Morrowind where a generation first got their taste for the studio’s distinct, freewheeling fantasy.

It has been said that everyone’s favorite Bethesda game is the first one they play, as if stepping into that freedom for the first time is far more powerful and resonant than any prospective gameplay upgrades or graphical bumps. There’s probably no better proof than the community at Tamriel Rebuilt—a mod that’s been in development since Morrowind’s original release date.

[...]

Thanks henriquejr!

Deuce Traveler of the RPG Codex has reviewed Morrowind:

RPG Codex Retrospective Review: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)

The two most recent entries in the Elder Scrolls series will never win any popularity contests on the Codex, but the hivemind is split on the question of which of the more well-regarded earlier games was the best. Arena is admired for its character progression and class specialties, Daggerfall for its dauntingly huge scope which is still unmatched, and Battlespire for its puzzles and dungeon crawling. But for myself and many others, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is the clear favorite. Playing Morrowind is an engaging experience, starting right from the beginning with the complexity of its character creation sequence.

[...]

Although there are some quests in Morrowind that can be completed using stealth or dialogue, combat is unavoidable as you travel back and forth across the world and delve its many dungeons. Dungeons are no longer procedurally generated like in Daggerfall and are more thematically consistent. You'll find yourself exploring places such as mines, Dwemer ruins, and Sixth House fortresses. The Dwemer ruins are particularly haunting, offering a glimpse at what the extinct Dwemer civilization was like before their magical catastrophe wiped them out. Some ancient machines still operate and guard these vacant halls, creating an evocative mixture of steampunk and fantasy. Too bad that getting to all of these interesting dungeons can be a pain in the ass.

I believe the developers of Morrowind made a design decision that resulted in a glaring flaw. The game is amazingly detailed, with architectural styles and natural terrain that vary from region to region, city to city, and dungeon to dungeon. All of that detail meant that something had to be cut somewhere, and so the game's dungeons are very small compared to the ones in previous Elder Scrolls titles. Some of the dungeons on the main questline can be fully explored in fifteen minutes, which would have led to a rather short total playtime if you could run through them back to back. I also believe that the developers were so in love with the world they had created that they wanted to ensure that players took their time exploring it. And so Morrowind is the only game in the series where you can't fast travel on the world map. Even Oblivion for all of its faults handled this better by allowing you to fast travel to any significant location you have already visited. Your character can only fast travel using in-world transportation services, which means that in order to get to most dungeons you're going to have to hike painfully long distances. This experience becomes worse at higher levels as much of the wildlife is out to kill you while not being any sort of real threat. The notorious cliff racers are the worst of the bunch. They'll sneak up on you from above and you'll only realize they are there when you hear their annoying screeches and start getting knocked around by their tail strikes. I suspect the only reason the designers made cliff racers so prolific was to stop you from circumventing everything using levitation magic. All of this ensures that most of your time in Morrowind will be spent pointlessly walking from place to place, rightfully earning it the derided moniker of 'hiking simulator'.

[...]

@GamePressure The newest version of the 'Morrowind Rebirth' mod is a rather substantial update. The update features expanded areas, new spells and creatures etc.

Morrowind Rebirth mod has recently got a big update to version 4.0, featuring expanded and improved areas, new creatures, spells, textures, balance tweaks, bug fixes fixes, etc. This is the largest patch to this mod that has been released so far. The list of changes is really long (you can find in in full length on ModDB), so lets just mention a few interesting adjustements. One of them is the new appearance of Dark Brotherhood assassins, who now look different depending on their rank. You should also be more careful when dealing with bounty hunters, especially if you have a bounty on your head of 500 or more, as they will approach you in different areas, mainly taverns.

Open Morrowind 0.41 has been released.

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OpenMW is an attempt to write an enhanced, cross-platform, open-source game engine to replace the original engine of popular role-playing game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. One must own the original game to play Morrowind using the OpenMW engine.

Henriquejr spotted a new major update for Morrowind Rebirth:

[RELEASE] Morrowind Rebirth 3.9

You know the drill by know.. another update, and another massive changelog. This is the 39.th (!) update for Morrowind Rebirth, and down below you can read more in-depth what the new update brings.

[...]

Morrowind Rebirth Additions
* Guards will now follow and investigate what you are doing if you sneak around. Mind you have to be pretty close for them to take notice.
* Buy an old treasure map from Irgola, the pawnbroker in Caldera, and locate a hidden treasure. X marks the spot, or spots..
* Picking up a "cursed" item will now summon a random Daedra instead of just Dremora Lords.
* More desciptive in-game dialogue for the following topics "hunger" and "golden saints".
* Molag Amur overhaul [BETA] with new content featuring:
- Improved landscapes with less floating objects, texture seams, bleeding meshes etc.
- A new fort, Fort Ashmoth [BETA], haunted by the undead (exterior + interior).
- New NPCs and encounters.
* Valenvaryon, a Dunmer stronghold in the northern Ashlands has recieved an overhaul.
* Silt Striders will now play an unused animation every now and then.
* Some changes to Gnisis including a minaret for the temple.
* Added new cellar to Gorvas Vules's Tower, Seyda Neen.
* Added living quarters to Pelagiad, Guild of Mages.
* 10 new scrolls added to leveled lists.
- Scroll of the Bonedancer
- Scroll of the Saint
- Scroll of Elemental Fury
- Scroll of Errodation
- Scroll of Firewind
- Scroll of Undying Fury
- Scroll of Unending Terror
- Scroll of Elemental Protection
- Scroll of Blazing Fire
- Scroll of Blind Faith
* Minor changes to Ebonheart/Khuul.
New unique items:
- Willbreaker [Mace]
- Firewind [Ring]

[...]

Morrowind has a multiplayer mod tes3mp that is in active development using OpenMW as its base. Check out its progress in the video below.

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You can donate us on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/koncord

Join in our steam group (english only): http://steamcommunity.com/groups/mwmulti

vkontakte group (russian group): https://vk.com/tes3mp

[...]

When I was 7 years old, I was supposed to sleep over at my friend's place, but we ended up playing Morrowind all night. I quickly fell in love with the best game in the Elder Scrolls series, although it was a bit annoying that one of us always had to watch the other play. Even then I wondered: wouldn't it be amazing if it was possible to play something like this together?

That thought never left me. A decade later, I had joined two different projects aiming to add multiplayer to Oblivion and one aiming to add it to Fallout 3, while also keeping an eye out for any other attempts. None of them ever worked out very well; their names are now forgotten by most.

You can only get so far in adding networking to a game when you do not have access to its source code. That is why, when OpenMW emerged as a fully-featured open source recreation of Morrowind, I took immediate notice.

While having a few beers with friends in December of 2015, I made a bet that I could put together a multiplayer demo of OpenMW within 2 weeks. They laughed and went along with it, but they thought it would take a year to even synchronize animations. In the end, I lost the bet: the demo took 3 weeks instead of 2.

I've been improving that demo ever since. It is now called tes3mp and I first made its source code public on the 8th of July 2016. Shortly afterwards, what had been a solo project became a team project as two other coders joined it.

The Morrowind Rebirth mod has reached version 3.8:

[...]

Morrowind Rebirth Changes

• You can now get a full set of Morag Tong armor by visiting Morag Tong Guild Halls. These pieces are not given for free until you've reached the rank "Brother", unless you find a set somewhere in the gameworld that is...
• Travel costs for using boats/silt strider/mages guild travel-services have been raised somewhat.
• Fatigue returned per second while walking changed from 0.0200 to 0.0300.
• Minimal runspeed from 115 to 120 (initial starting speed).
• Low level Dark Brotherhood assassins are now somewhat stronger.
• Regular rats are no longer hostile.

Morrowind Rebirth Additions

• Bernadette's Import, Vivec Entrance, has recived a shipment of rare goods. Be sure to check it out.
• Overhauled Seyda Neen somewhat to make it feel less cramped (more fps as a bonus!).
• Molag Amur overhaul [ALPHA] with new content featuring:
  • Improved landscape with less floating objects, texture seams, bleeding meshes etc.
  • A new fort, Fort Ashmoth, haunted by the undead [ALPHA - no interior atm].
• Added a connecting road to Vivec's east entrance.
• Added more clutter in Ald Velothi.
• Misc additions here and there.
• New unique items:
  • Ring of Blind Faith
  • Nightbane [Sword]
• New creature:
  • Earth Atronach

[...]

The latest version of open Morrowind has been released. Version 0.40 is now available to the public here.

The improvements to Morrowind are summarised here

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The improvements to the editor are summarised in the video below

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Skywind Mod progress for June. Video is from the private developer Alpha.

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A small update trailer featuring some of the latest work from the Skywind team! Everything shown is but a small fraction of work done on Skywind over the last few months. Music, voice acting, sound effects, quest implementation, bug fixes, etc. couldn't be shown properly in this video, but are being developed along side the visual progress. All footage shown is from the private developer alpha and is subject to change.

PC Gamer takes a look at why Morrowind continues to have a hold on us after all these years, and why we just can't let go of it.

Thanks, Couch.

For millions of players, Morrowind was their introduction to the world of The Elder Scrolls, but even Elder Scrolls veterans who cut their teeth on Arena and Daggerfall left Morrowind with an impression that lasted. For some of those players, Morrowind made such an impression that they never wanted to leave at all. Those fans have spent the past years painstakingly updating Morrowind, brick by brick, texture by texture, into Bethesda’s more modern engines.

Even returning to Morrowind 14 years later, it’s easy to see why. Morrowind's island setting of Vvardenfell offsets a few standard fantasy clichés—a villain who lairs in a wasteland of volcanic ash and dwarven ruins full of monsters—but also more visionary ideas. There's a prison inside a moon floating over a city built on a lake, a transport network of giant fleas controlled by riders who directly manipulate their steeds' nervous systems, and a settlement where most of the buildings are the hollowed-out shells of gigantic dead creatures. Vvardenfell is a memorable place, more outlandish than anything seen in the Elder Scrolls games that preceded or followed it.

Morrowind was also the first Elder Scrolls game to come with a Creation Kit, a gift from Bethesda that gave players the opportunity to alter that world and make it their own. The best mods tended to leave the setting be and instead tinker with the clunky RPG mechanics it was filtered through, changing the way leveling works and the rate skills improve and so on.

...

The Skywind team are doing impressive work on making Morrowind look and sound better, while also helping it become a little less frustrating to play thanks to Skyrim's mechanical improvements, all to allow the Morrowind we built up inside our heads as we first played it to live again. To some degree, though, no matter which game's variety of combat and leveling are applied to it, no matter which level of fidelity it's polished to, that version that will always live inside our imaginations.

More.

OpenMW v0.39.0 has been released. A full change log is available at the OpenMW site. You will need to own Morrowind to give it a try.

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.39.0! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all operating systems. This release brings background cell loading and caching, which is a feature not to be missed. Initial support for object shaders has found its way back into our engine, and a host of bugs have been smashed. See below for the full list of changes.

The venerable Atahualpa has bravely stepped up to fill WeirdSexy's boundless shoes as our video producer, check out the video for this release and OpenMW-CS 0.39.0. Check our blog or Youtube channel if you missed his videos for versions 0.36, 0.37, or 0.38.

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This is all possible thanks to the Morrowind Graphics Extender XE version by Hrnchamd. Although a lot of materials will have to be remade this is something to watch for if you are into modding.

The latest Morrowind Graphics Extender XE version by Hrnchamd added PBR (Physics Based Rendering) and normal mapping support to the 14 years old Morrowind engine!

This is an alpha quality preview. It will look even better in the future.

The models and textures in this video are made by me and are far from perfect. The PBR materials can sure be made much better but it should still be clear that this engine magic made by Hrnchamd is a huge achievement!

Kotaku features an amusing segment on Morrowind, as told by Facebook posts.  There's spoilers, but...since most everyone here has either played it or doesn't plan to...

Morrowind, the third Elder Scrolls RPG, has a rich and somewhat complicated story. Luckily, now we have a Facebook timeline to simplify it all. Humorously.

It was whipped up by redditor TheTitanova, using this Facebook wall generator, and posted to r/morrowind last week. Basically, it’s a cleverly written account of the backstory and the in-game events of Morrowind—it starts with the creation of the Tools of Kagrenac way, way before the player character’s time, and concludes with the events of the game’s ending (with some post-ending bits thrown in).

It’s filled with spoilers, of course, so if you haven’t played Morrowind, and want to, then be careful. You need to be a bit of a lore junkie to get a lot of the jokes anyway. To everyone else, enjoy:

More information.

Morrowind is receiving multiple revivals.  RPS gives us the latest on OpenMW, a project that seeks to import Morrowind into a new, modern open source engine and give the game multiplayer functionality.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was released in 2002, but it’s on the verge of experiencing new life through multiple revival projects. One of those is OpenMW, which aims to port the game to a new open source engine optimised for modern computers, with robust editing tools, and as of the first early test shown in a video below, multiplayer.

More information.

The OpenMW mod for Morrowind has a new video about Engine Reimplementation. 

OpenMW is an attempt to write an enhanced, cross-platform, open-source game engine to replace the original engine of popular role-playing game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. One must own the original game to play Morrowind using the OpenMW engine.

PC Gamer has a new preview of the Morrowind Rebirth mod this week.

Morrowind Rebirth, the long-running Morrowind overhaul mod has posted a single screenshot of its upcoming 3.0 release. It offers a taste of the improvements planned for the Imperial stronghold of Ebonheart.

The team behind the OpenMW mod have released a post of what happened in 2014, and what the team is currently individually working on for 2015.

Happy 2015 everyone! Hopefully you had some great meals during the holidays and partied hard on New Year’s Eve because now that January has rolled around, it’s time for you to hit that treadmill again and work off those extra kilos you gained. Hop to it

The site owner of Chalgyr's Game Room notified me of a few new retrospective articles he posted on his site, and the first one is for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

Morrowind shows that trying to be original is not necessarily good and traditions are not useless. This is a role playing game that changes the basics of its genre and is more a missed opportunity for something great than a truly entertaining adventure. So, let’s see what is wrong with it and why I played it anyway.

As usual I haven't followed development the Morrowind Mod OpenMW in the last few months, but it seems the team behind it have released a new version of the mod.

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.34.0! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all operating systems. This release features many bug fixes, improvements to installation and the launcher, and exciting updates to OpenCS. Our “1.0” release remains excitingly close!

I haven't followed development the Morrowind Mod OpenMW in the last few months, but it seems the team behind it have announced that a new version is available.

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.33.0! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all operating systems. We are moving closer and closer to our vaunted “1.0” release, and as such, the list of unimplemented features has run excitingly low. This release brings almost 100 fixes, as well as many exciting advancements for OpenCS. Stay tuned!

The developers of the Morrowind mod Skywind have released a new gameplay trailer.

This is ALPHA gameplay footage from my last Twitch Live Stream on 8/13/14. Because of this, the quality is LOW and the frame rate will drop/freeze. None of this footage is official and everything is subject to change. For this reason, do not comment on bugs, glitches, or optimization. For this demo, I show only a few environments and armors. An OFFICIAL demo will be released later down the road.

The developers of the Morrowind mod Skywind have released a new trailer that has information they are in need of a few voice actors for the mod.

Today the Skywind team brings you a very special voice acting recruitment animated short! All the information you need will be provided below. If you think you can voice act better than we can make cartoons, please head to the forums here! http://tesrenewal.com/forums/voice-ac...

The developers of the Morrowind mod Skywind have released a new trailer called Renewal, and shared news the mod is nearing Alpha release.

New footage taken from the latest DEVELOPER UPDATE showing original content for Skywind. This version is NOT available for public use, but please stay until the end of the video for a special announcement. Lots of content has been added since the latest developer video, but there is MUCH MORE to be done. If you want to help or have questions, please visit the website at http://tesrenewal.com/ and find the appropriate forum.

Regarding the ending: Details will follow. Do NOT inquire about it in the comments or the website yet, it will be revealed in time exactly what a public developer release is.

The team of modders who made the Morrowind Rebirth mod announce the release of a  new updated version. You can find more information, and links on Mod BD.

[RELEASE] Morrowind Rebirth 2.7

After months of hard work 2.7 is finally ready for your enjoyment I never thought I'd manage to stop working on this beast (had way too much fun). I truly hope you will enjoy it! As always there's quite a massive wall of text down below. Be sure to let me know if you have any issues with 2.7! Enjoy.

The main focus of this patch has been to improve the general quality of the mod, meaning finishing a lot of stuff that has been neglected for far too long. You will notice both minor and major landscape improvements in several areas, especially in the Shegorad Region, but also in the Ascadian Isles and the Bitter Coast. You'll be able to enter some new places, that previously had no interior. A lot of time were also put into balancing. Several leveled-lists were recalculated so that high-end weapons/armor won't drop as often, and at higher levels than before. Some spells had their spell-cost reduced to make them more useful for low-level mages. Enchantments are now less overpowered and balanced. On top of all this you will also be able to obtain some new Dwemer weapons and enjoy some bugfixes!

Gamers Nexus interviewed former Bethesda Lead Designer Ken Rolston at ECGC, to talk about his work on Morrowind, Oblivion, and other topics.

Gamer Syndrome's Austin Harpman has written a new article we he talks about revisiting Morrowind Twelve years later. Here is a sample so be sure to read the link.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 years since I first booted up and installed Morrowind on my old crappy computer. It holds a special spot in my gaming heart all these years later and it’s held up remarkably well. After the long install and waiting around wondering what it was all about I was dropped inside a ship and everything began. Now to be completely honest here I was a horrible reader at this stage in my life and Morrowind had an ridiculous amount of.. well reading. I struggled with dyslexia and ADHD so I knew this would pose a major challenge. I was surprised however to find that even though I hated reading books I loved reading in Morrowind. Since I was playing a game it seemed far more than anything I did in school. As it turns out Morrowind had me hooked from that moment on. I attribute a lot my improvement in reading and writing to that very game to this day. It got me to appreciate reading so I could drift into my own little world and discover.

The developers of the Morrowind mod Skywind have released their second Development Video to show the progress of the ambitious mod.

The second episode of Skywind's Developer Diary series. Take an inside look into our most recent progress for the project and learn how YOU can help. For more information about the project, visit us at http://tesrenewal.com/

The developers of the Elder Scrolls V: Skywind mod have released a new trailer called 'Arid Trek' as a preview of the Ashlands.

Another environment showcasing video, this time the near-finished Northern Ashlands that I have been hard at work on for several months. Still a work in progress, and everything is subject to change. Keep in mind, many models are place holders and the ash will be darkened. I was also experimenting with the Dragonborn weather types, they too are not final.

The developers of the Elder Scrolls V: Skywind mod have released a new trailer called Savagery . It's a preview of the 0.9.1 build.

A sneak peak at the latest DEVELOPER update. Footage shown in this video, for the most part, is not available for public release and is just a preview of what is to come in the next public update. Most of the new landscapes and creatures included in this update have been shown. I apologize for a few glitchy scenes and creature behaviors. Don't ask for a release date please, there isn't one at the moment. Leave all comments and feedback in the comments below. Thanks everyone for your support so far, more videos to come soon!

To anyone seeing this video, the best way to help this project and make our hard work pay off is to SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE to these videos to spread the word. We need volunteers of all sorts, and there are simple tasks that anyone can help with, so please check out the website and see how you can support us at http://morroblivion.com/forums/skyrim. The more help we get, the faster the final release will come.

The team behind the Morrowind Mod OpenMW announce that a new version is available. I also have a new video that shows of the improved mod.

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.28.0! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all operating systems. This behemoth of a release includes many large features, such as Combat AI, Magic, Vampirism, terrain bump/specular/parallax mapping, and many other things. There’s also a heap of bug fixes, many thanks to our relentless developers!

The developers of the Skywind mod have a new Development Video giving us a look at how they recreate Morrowind using Skyrim's engine.

A behind the scenes look at the making of Skywind, a fan made modification for Skyrim that brings the world of Morrowind to the updated engine. Find out all about the processes and work that goes into making this project, featuring various segments from the team, with narrations and new footage.

To anyone seeing this video, the best way to help this project and make our hard work pay off is to SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE to these videos to spread the word. We need volunteers of all sorts, and there are simple tasks that anyone can help with, so please check out the website and see how you can support us at http://morroblivion.com/forums/skyrim.

Bethesda is back with another interview on the company's blog this time with a modder called Stuporstar. She is know for Books of Vvardenfell, The Tea Mod , and Uvirith’s Legacy.

How did you get involved with modding?

My brother gave me a copy of Morrowind in 2006, and I later bought both expansions for it. At the time, I’d been making minor mods and maps for Civilization IV, but never got heavily into it. I played Morrowind for a week or two before delving into modding. I was disappointed with the first stronghold I got in the game, Rethan Manor, so it didn’t take long for me to jump into the Construction Set to try to improve it. My first mod was a mess, and so was the next–unpublishable–but while learning I discovered the modding community. I remember distinctly how Fliggerty made me the most welcome and helped answer my most complicated scripting questions. I’ve tried to pay it forward ever since.

What do you think makes the Morrowind modding community so vibrant after more than a decade?

I believe the modding community builds on itself. Morrowind was a stunning, unique, and richly detailed game when it was released, and modders have carried that spirit along. Much credit goes to Bethsada for making their game so open-ended and mod-friendly in the first place. One reason I return to it again and a again is because I love the setting, but the other reason is because I love the community.

The Morrowind community is one of cooperation and support. Some modding communities discourage using other people’s resources, forcing ambitious mods to become cascading layers of dependencies. Having to download 5+ mods to make the one you want work frustrates players and modders alike.

In the Morrowind community, if I can’t do something, I can find someone to help. I can focus on making my ideas happen. This community has always been one to help you find a way to make it happen, whether that’s allowing you to build on existing work, helping debug experimental scripts, or making a brand new model for you. You just have make something great, and pass on the goodwill. Anyone can make a mod based on my work. Anyone can use my resources. Because that’s the same courtesy people gave me to help make my mods happen.

Are you working on any new projects?

I have one mod project in limbo because my professional work takes precedence, so it may be a long time before I finish it. Once I release UL 3.2, I need to get back to working on my writing for a while.

The novels I’m working on, currently titled Freecloud and Vava Calypso, are part a science fiction series. I’m not sure which publishing route I’ll take once they’re ready. In any case, they’ll have to run a gauntlet of brutal beta readers before they’re ready. I owe a lot to beta testers. I owe the quality of my work to the quality of their feedback.

You may recall my post about a mod called Skywind for Morrowind. In case you forgot the mod seeks to remake Morrwind with the engine of Skyrim. The developers of the mod have released a new trailer called Call of the East.

I am pleased to announce the new official trailer for Skywind. The entire video is based off of the official Skyrim launch trailer. Footage in this video does not reflect the final product. A huge thanks to everyone working on this project and making it become a reality. For more information, please visit http://morroblivion.com/

The developers of OpenMW annouce that a new version is available. Here are the details, and a new video. Also give thanks to kostas for sending in the news.

The OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.27.0! Grab it from our Downloads Page for all operating systems. This release brings the first official release of OpenCS, the OpenMW team’s efforts to bring an open source solution for editing content for OpenMW. OpenCS is in an early Alpha state, please take that into consideration when testing!

Bethesda has another interview on the company's blog this time with a modder by the name of Adras about his mod  Ravenhold Castle for Morrowind.

What inspired you to create Ravenhold Castle as opposed to something else?

It’s been such a long time since I started that it’s hard to remember exactly what first sparked the idea.  I’ve always had a fascination with castles and medieval themes, which I think was the main inspiration.  I also played with Legos a lot while I was growing up, and this just sort of became my grown-up Lego set.

Building is just something that comes naturally to me.  I’ll start on a project, work on it for a while, then sit back and think “What can I do to make this bigger and better?”  When I first started Ravenhold Castle, it was a small castle on a tiny island with a small farm.  As of right now, the main island alone is slightly larger than Vivec.  Early on, I had a lot of areas that I didn’t really know what to do with.  I would leave them alone for a while, then come back later and try different things to see what felt right.  The harbor district started as a small fishing dock, and the swamp that consumes 1/3 of the island started as one small puddle.

Why do you think Morrowind’s modding community continues to thrive more than a decade after the game’s original release?

Morrowind is an incredibly immersive game which offers a degree of freedom that isn’t seen in most other games, even now. Not only does it offer that degree of freedom, but it also has a much higher difficulty curve than the newer Elder Scrolls games. One of the biggest complaints of Oblivion and Skyrim I hear is how the leveling and character stat system has been simplified to make it more appealing to a wider audience. Skyrim is a mixture of action and RPG, where Morrowind is almost entirely RPG. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but for gamers who prefer a more pure RPG experience, Morrowind is the one that offers it. Lots of nostalgia also helps.

The ability to easily modify all of Bethesda’s games since Morrowind is what puts them ahead of the curve in the game industry. Bethesda has fantastic writing and level development teams, but a group of very talented people can never come up with something that a community of millions of fans could. This is what will keep the Elder Scrolls alive for years to come.

Up first I have sad news to announce  that Qarl the famous modder for Morrowind, and Oblivion has passed away. He is known for his texture packs.

I don't know if this news to anyone here.  But modding legend Qarl passed away in June, from  a sudden liver disease.  Qarl was the author of the Underground mods, and various texture packs for Morrowind and Oblivion.

His talent will surely be missed, RIP Qarl.

Next Bethesda interviews modder Fliggerty on the BethBlog.

Why do you think Morrowind’s modding community continues to thrive more than a decade after the game’s original release?

I’ve pondered this a lot, and have a dozen theories that I could ramble about.  In short, I think it’s about creativity and passion.  (Please keep in mind that these statements are my opinion only…I don’t want to upset anyone here.)  Skyrim and Oblivion are great games, but Morrowind is a legendary game.  While it does have its technical shortcomings, things which were perhaps addressed in the other games, it had an atmosphere…a feeling to it that the other ones never quite nailed.  You could tell that every room you entered was painstakingly handcrafted, that each quest you went on was thought out and written by a person rather than being generated.  When you couple that with a Construction Set that is vastly simpler to use than that of its successors (not to mention all of the 3rd party utilities that are tried and true) it comes as no surprise that people continue to create mods and use them for this game.

Besides…we haven’t perfected it yet!

Shortlist has a new quiz for those that think they know everything about Morrowind. 

The third instalment of one of the most heavily awarded gaming franchises of all time, Morrowind set a new benchmark for action role-playing games. So large was the game's scope that Bethesda tripled their staff numbers to undertake the project.

To prevent you from twiddling your thumbs and replaying Skyrim for the umpteenth time as you await the release of The Elder Scrolls Online, we thought we'd compile an exceedingly tricky quiz to stir up fond memories of this classic RPG.

Many fall, but one remains. Can you stand up to our Morrowind quiz?

Skywind is a project that aims to bring Morrowind to life with the Creation Engine of Skyrim. You can check it out here.

Q: What IS Skywind exactly?

A: It is a non-commercial, fan made modification for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that seeks to merge the amazing world of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind with the enhanced graphics and capabilities of Skyrim's engine.

While ownership of both games is required to play, the player only actually plays Skywind using the Skyrim game, and not the older Morrowind game. This means that the user interface, combat, graphics, and system requirements for the Skywind mod are all those of Skyrim, and NOT Morrowind.

Q: What do I need to run Skywind?

A: You will need a copy of TES III: Morrowind, including the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions installed correctly on your system. Plus TES V: Skyrim of course. The exact files that you will need to run, as well as the instructions you should follow to install can be located on The Official Installation Instruction Thread. 

You can also watch a few video demonstrations on the projects Youtube channel.

Kostas informed us of the work that is done on recreating the Morrowind engine with an open source version, which allows to run the original game as well as all mods. Here is some info from the FAQ:

OpenMW is an attempt to reimplement the popular role playing game Morrowind. It aims to be a fully playable, open source implementation of the game. You must own Morrowind to use OpenMW.

To give you a better idea of what this project is about, here are some of the aims for the future of OpenMW:

• Be a full featured reimplementation of Morrowind.
• Run natively on Windows, Linux and MacOS X.
• Support all existing content, including Tribunal, Bloodmoon and all user created mods.
• Allow much greater modability: change game rules, create new spell effects, etc through scripting.
• Fix system design bugs, like savegame “doubling” problem.
• Improve the interface and journal system.
• (Possibly) Improve game mechanics, physics, combat and AI.
• (Possibly) Support multiplayer at some point.
• (Possibly) Improve graphics to use more modern hardware.

It’s a pretty ambitious list, and there’s a lot left to do before these goals can become reality. You should check below for information about the current development status.

OpenMW is released under the GNU General Public License version 3, and all source code has been written completely from scratch. It also builds on various other open source tools, most notably OGRE for graphics, and Bullet for collision (and possibly physics).

More information on the FAQ page and they also have a video to watch:

Modder trancemaster has released a new version of his Morrowind Rebirth mod for Morrowind. Those interested can download the mod from here.

And here is the complete changelog for this latest version of Morrowind Rebirth:

Rebirth Fixes

* Rebalanced the lengths’ (again) of the spears. The reach of the spears should differ depending on the length of the spear (in-game mesh size), something which I didn’t take into account the last time.
* Dren Plantation fixes. A tree were floating, an overhang were clipping through the wall and a lamp pole and its lantern hung in mid air.
* Golam Urellas’s and Fairne’s shacks’ had the wrong script attached to the doors, making it impossible to enter either of them.
* The door Chun-Ook (The big ship in Ebonheart) had the wrong teleport marker (took you to the Ashlands).
* Changed “Jhamondile Dremon’s home” to “Jhamondile Dremon’s House”, also fixed some floaters inside.
* Somehow I managed to remove the travel-markers for the Slave Market in Suran, all fixed now.
* Moved the travel-marker outside Vivec, it displayed “Ascadian Isles” instead of “Vivec”.
* “Scourge”, a Daedric Battle Axe were restored. Enchantment/Model was missing.
* Llaala Girendal & Rleno Medan, Ald-ruhn Temple had no assigned head meshes.
* Jhamondile Dremon, a imperial In Caldera were incorrectly set as a trader.
* Fixed a typo which made it super-expensive to use the MG travel-service.
* Several fixes and improvements to the Imperial Legion Barracks, Caldera.
* The Black Goblet in Suran had the wrong script attached to the doors.
* Reduced the cost for elemental shields (nerf from previous change).
* Tarvyn Faren, a dumner at Vivec Entrance had duplicate records.
* Corrected a missplaced door on top of Lighthouse in Ebonheart.
* Removed Skooma bottles and Nordic Mead from Shenk’s Shovel.
* Silver Katana was changed from Two-Handed to One-Handed.
* Fixed the ground at the entrance of the “Eight Plates”.
* Added ownership to all lanterns in Caldera/Pelagiad.
* Dwemer weapons are no longer refered as “Dwarven”.
* Removed some script fixes (not needed due to MPP).
* Fixed a typo in “Drunk Dumner”, to “Drunk Dunmer”.
* “Templar Shield” to “Imperial Templar Shield”.
* Fixed a floating doorframe in Shenk’s Shovel.
* Anti-cloned the Buoyant Armigers’, Ghostgate.
* Removed 2 missplaced doors, Ald-ruhn Temple.

 

Rebirth Additions
* A major overhaul for Ebonheart. The inner courtyard have been redesign along with better visuals for the main plaza.
* Better sorting for some misc items. Example: Wooden items have “Wooden” prefix, “Wooden Bowl”, Silverware items have “Silverware” prefix, “Silverware Knife” etc.
* A minor overhaul for Balmora. Removed a massive amount of rocks around Balmora to make it more fps friendly.
* A minor overhaul for Seyda Neen. Mainly landscape improvements.
* Anti-cloned Imperial Guards (most of them anyway).
* Better name-prefixes for potions.

Edge Online looks back at Morrowind in their latest Time Extend feature:

Morrowind, however, remains the least constrained of the two. Plot-dependent characters can’t be killed in Oblivion; in Morrowind, the quest line can be broken – a small text box alerts you to the fact – and you’re still free to remain an adventurer. Towns aren’t separated from the outside world by a loading screen. Aspects that could never be held up as sleek game design are nonetheless powerful: character dialogue – apart from passer-by soundbites – is never spoken, instead metered out via rich clumps of text, and conversation strands are far more profuse than those of Oblivion. Walking is the only way to conserve fatigue, forcing you to stroll the land; fast travel isn’t available, but silt strider creatures, boat rides and Mages’ Guilds offer a shortcut between major settlements. Such aspects may be dissuasive to the received gaming mentality but, while it’s likely that the average Oblivion player spends more time in the game before walking away, it’s just as likely that those who managed to submerge themselves in Morrowind felt connected and invested all the deeper.

There's a brief retrospective on Morrowind at Digital Spy, probably in part motivated by the succes of Skyrim, the latest installment in the TES series. A tidbit:

Quality and not quantity comes to mind, though, as each town, city and dungeon was crafted by hand. It made for a far more memorable and individual world, one with such character that it remains a fan-favourite today. The region of Vvardenfell, an island province, can only be described as being somewhat bizarre, a place that ditched traditional stone castles and lush green landscapes for wooden villages next to dank swamps, mushroom-covered hillsides and tall striders that would transport players between locations.

I guess it's that time of the year when you drag out your old material because noone is around to write new stuff...Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a recap of Alec Meer's Morrowind game diary, A Fool in Morrowind. It was never completed and doesn't offer deep insight but it was a humorous read, so worth a look if you haven't already seen it.

Version 2.0 of the Morrowind Overhaul mod compilation has been released. Head to this page at RPG Italia for their subsite, which includes links and videos.

We've covered the mod compilation Morrowind Overhaul a few times before but apparently work continues post-release with v2.0 nearing release. The official blog has a new trailer on offer.

The Morrowind Overhaul project that we covered via RPG Italia a little while ago has been released.  The official discussion is here and project lead KingPix has been commenting in our forums in this thread as well.

Thanks, Escalbryt!

RPG Italia let us know about interview they have with the mod team behind the Morrowind Overhaul project, which has an international release due soon.  Morrowind Overhaul is a compilation project to enhance the graphics in Morrowind, similar in concept to Morrowind 2011 except this project has full permission from the original authors and has been around for a few years.  A gameplay overhaul is due soon, too.  Here's a sample:

From a graphical point of view, do you believe Morrowind Overhaul can be compared to Oblivion? The minimum requirements for Morrowind Overhaul are less than those required by Oblivion?

Yoae: Well, my dear, I’d say that a direct comparison is very difficult to do. Until recently the answer would be Oblivion, but Morrowind has recently recovered from two features of which you really missed: the bump mapping and dynamic shadowing. The time now is immature, because there are many characteristics which aren’t well developed, but the modders have never failed us. If we want to compare the two games on a stylistic level, Morrowind wins. I mean, there are houses built into giant mushrooms! And there are Guars! Concern to the requirements, I would say that the two games, if modded at most, have the same requisites: today with a mid – range computer you can enjoy all the improvements being noticed with the settings of MGE. For example: my PC is equipped with a 275 GTX and a E8400 and never has had problems running our Morrowind Overhaul. 

Can you explain to RPG Italia’s users the content of the package “Game Experience”, which it’s going to be published soon?

Kingpix: The simplest definition of the package “Game Experience” is that this group of mods edits everything that isn’t relating to graphic or sound. More specifically, the second package is going to set all the quests, the atmosphere, the gameplay, the opportunities, new locations, the growth of some characters and the like. The changes are many, very different and in them you can find the best quality available! Morrowind will become an “infinite” game, because you will never finish everything the game offers, because there are lots of new adventures that can be complete in different ways, having various ends. Finally you’ll have more realism in the character growth, balancing every aspect of the game; you’ll have news relative to the combat system, you’ll have news relative to the families and the vitality of the cities… therefore, there are a lot of irons in the fire! We can assess the duration of the game with the package “Game Experience” with all the new adventures and small quests about 2000 hours and with 2000 hours to complete everything is practically impossible finish the game. We’ll try to keep everything balanced, homogeneous for the game world and perfectly integrated in the original atmosphere. Oh, I think that this “Game Experience” is a very big smasher!! Can I say that?! 

A number of sites have run stories on Morrowind 2011, a graphical update mod project.  We originally saw it at Joystiq via a note from Omega but the official site has links to the files and everything you need.  Graphical mods aren't new but, as I understand it, this is a single compilation of existing mods that work well together to produce a complete overhaul.  In total, there's 4Gb of stuff so settle in for a lengthy process.

Edge Online has a Morrowind retrospective, titled Time Extend.  The article is an edited version of one previously published in their magazine, in it looks familiar:

Before we continue with that, let’s first consider Morrowind’s enticing outset. Despite the aforementioned cliché, the genre blend is alluring enough: a world composed of believably solid 3D space, explored in firstperson (or thirdperson, if you want an inferior time) and home to a continental sprawl of real-estate to explore: towns, caves, settlements, mines, forts, several thousand individual NPCs and several hundred thousand hand-placed objects. Despite its character-class system leaning towards archetype, the attraction is that you get to be it, not just wield it. Thieves stalk, sneak and steal like Sam Fisher minus the minigames. Assassins skulk and snipe. Warriors blunder and bludgeon. Not, of course, that you’re ever constrained to a fated choice; such decisions only affect your start-out stats. Beginning as a nameless, faceless, homeless presence stowed in the hull of a ship, you’re docked at the town of Seyda Neen, ushered into the customs and excise building to rattle through the paperwork. Choose a race, appearance, name, star sign, class (or craft your own), and you’re handed some official orders as a trail of breadcrumbs to get you going. And then – BAM! – the world is your oyster. Go wherever. Do whatever. You’re left to your own devices, just as you’ve always wanted. The trouble with Morrowind, however, is that it’s an oyster you’ve got to prise open with your bare hands.

Part retrospective, part love-letter to the mod community, VoxClamant writes about his recent experiences revisiting Morrowind.  Here's a snip:

This piece started out to be a retrospective on Morrowind.  But somewhere between the sketch of the ideas and the completed work, it morphed into something a bit different.  Yes, it is still mostly about Morrowind.  But it also focuses on how mods, in general, have added so much to many of the best games any of us have ever played.  Indeed, during the writing a profound conclusion solidified for me  -- many of the best games became "best" because of their support for mods.

Read it all here.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition is the latest RPG on Steam's sale.  About 20 hours to go on this one, as I type.

Alec Meer continues his forage into Morrowind.

Agent Loaf returns, after a brief hiatus so RPS could spend some quality time documenting its own history. Now, my plan with this series had been to avoid the core narrative for as long as possible (even though it’s something I never got around to the first time I played Morrowind.) Then a funny thing happened. It became compelling. Based on how unsatisfactory I’d found Oblivion and Fallout 3’s main plotlines to be, this was not something I’d been expecting. It also puts me in the unusual position of narrativising someone else’s narrative -a starkly different prospect to diarising my own haphazard experiences. If you’ve not ever played Morrowind and still intend to, be aware that here be spoilers…

Alec Meer's 8th day.

It’s an unfortunate reality of Vvardenfell that very few traders can afford to pay anywhere near the worth of the kind of loot that seasoned adventurers bring to them. Stands to reason, really – after all, if they did have several hundred thousand gold to spare, they probably wouldn’t spend their days running grotty shops on a cursed island. It is, however, a source of great annoyance to me. Here I am, pockets laden with brutally effective Daedric weaponry from a hell dimension and lavish Indoril armour worth tens of thousands apiece, but I can only get a couple of thousand gold maximum for anything, if I’m lucky. The traders quickly grew to love me, much as I suspect they were all talking behind my back about how gullible I was. I suppose I’m helping to support local businesses, but frankly I’d never intended to be a philanthropic master thief.

Powerhat is Alec Meer's latest scribbling on Morrowind:

Let me tell you about my hat.

• It is the first thing in I’ve paid for in this land, bar some skill training and a few lockpicks.
• It cost me 1500 gold pieces, which is more than most shopkeepers even carry. Easily obtained and replaced by a man of my stealthy means, frankly.
• It’s around a foot and a half tall, made of what appears to be brass, and masks my features entirely with a cold, machine-like visage. Yes, it does appear as though I’m wearing a giant, metal vegetable on my face, but I like the look.
• It’s of Dwemer (that’s Tamriel’s mysteriously-vanished race of dwarves) origin, which is why it so closely resembles the faces of the Dwemer Centurions, the clockwork guards I encountered yesterday.
• That it fits me, a lanky Dunmer, so very snugly suggests the widely-held belief that the Dwemer were short of stature is perhaps a myth. Dwarves = tall. Goddit?
• A purple haze of otherworldly magicks crackles across its surface. In other words, I shimmer, daaaaahling.

I can wear my Dark Brotherhood mouth-mask on top of it. This looks agreeably ridiculous, like an grumpy robot doctor.

Another day in Alec Meer's Morrowind wanderings.  This entry has been twittered in, and since I hate Twitter, no quote today.

Alec Meer continues his trip through Morrowind that happens to have something to do with Mek-Quake?

The Diamond Job

The armed guard wasn’t the problem. The child was. I’d successfully lockpicked my way through the upstairs door, sneaking into this alchemist’s store from their unwatched balcony. The guard, I knew, was downstairs, watching the front door. If I stuck to the shadows, I should be able to get past him to the storeroom, where the jewel awaited. Easy. Straight in, straight out, cash reward, and if I was lucky a spare diamond for myself.

But the child almost ruined it.

There had been reports that Vvardenfell was once a sad, strange place with with nary a youth in sight, but these days children were all over the towns. One, a teenage boy, was inhabiting the upstairs bedroom of this shop. He spotted me the second I entered the room. Rather than shouting or running, he simply stood stock-still at the top of the stairs. I had no way down.

Alec Meer hits an Existential Crisis:

I’ve stolen clothes from corpses. I’ve made an old woman run up a mountain. I’ve hidden drugs in the cellar of a religious organisation. I’ve beaten up adorable animals. So many adorable animals. But.. what am I? As I finally approached the outskirts of Balmora, second-largest city on this hostile island, questions about my purpose and my nature weighed heavy upon me. This much I knew: I was named Loaf, a Dunmer by birth, and an Agent by trade. Beyond that, I was simply a empty cipher at best, a irritating clown at worst. At least, I realised, this was probably why I’d been slowly but intently wending my Machiavellian way to Balmora these past few days – somewhere amidst its hubbub, grime and crime, I hoped to find an answer to that most ultimate of questions. Why am I here?

Fort Stupid is the next entry in Alec Meer's Morrowind diary at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

A note to anyone thinking of building a fort: do not build a fort with easy hillside access. It kind of defeats the point.

Being able to jump onto the battlements of a fort from a gentle nearby slope means said fort is not really a fort. If I ever encounter its architect, I’m totally going to pickpocket him and leave a bunch of bat wings and crab meat in his trousers to teach him a lesson.

Alec Meer is finally off on the actual Morrowind gameplay stuff, with Day 1 titled Trousers and Day 2, Granny.  Here's a taste:

I stumbled across a likely-looking coastal cave pretty soon after my awkward trouser incident, and lo and behold, it was full of angry slavers. Ooh, my first proper fight! I may have looked openly ridiculous, but thanks to my burgeoning thief skills and the accidental gifts of that wizard-from-the-sky, I was decked out in some pretty decent kit. Biff! All fall down. A few nicknacks looted from the three corpses, a few slaves freed (only because it was convenient, mind – I was in this wretched cave for trousers, not philanthropy), a mild improvement to my short blade skills and – yes – garments for my lower half. Annoyingly, they didn’t match the rest of my Chitin get-up, but at least I didn’t look like a pervert anymore.

After a storm of comments about Alec Meer's mod selection for his Morrowind diary series, this second entry starts over with updated mod list.  So, lots of tweaking...not much playing.

Technically, this isn't the first entry but just the announcement that Alec Meer will soon kick off a Morrowind play diary, presumably at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.  In this post, he talks about the setup and mods he'll use.  The intro:

Gaming diaries: all the rage, eh? Buoyed by the splendidosity of the likes of Roburky’s Sims 3 chronicles and Tom Francis’ Galactic Civilizations II bible, I’m embarking on something I’ve had brewing for a while – a diary of my (mis)adventures in Morrowind. I’ve always maintained it’s a far better game than its sequel Oblivion (which was also pretty good), and now’s my chance to prove it. I’ll commence with the diaries proper in a few days, but ahead of that I thought I’d share the setup.

The Bethblog is pointing out a site called Morrowind Modding History that has so far collected 5000 mods for The Elder Scrolls III from now defunct sites.

Next Gen has a retrospective of Morrowind courtesy of UK mag, Edge.  Here's a snip:

Games are often, and easily, branded as interactive simply to set them apart from passive forms of entertainment. But that doesn’t make gamers proactive. Involvement requires willing participation; Morrowind is an elaborate but inert gameworld, whose gears don’t move until you actively propel them, and that take a wealth of effort to sound out. Aside from the rules of play, there’s an entire culture to ingest and digest, covering politics, religion, geography, guilds, lore, drugs, booze, diseases, flora, fauna and even books that can’t just be picked up, but also read (even if their pages are few).

It’s a heavyweight ask. And you’re often dogged by incoherence. Sometimes, people notice you stealing even though the onscreen icon that indicates that you’re not being detected is lit. Sometimes crimes aren’t even reported; wronged folk just get violent – until you leave their homes, at which point they won’t follow you. Other times, murders without witnesses are instantly acknowledged by the apparently psychic and teleporting guards.

Wow, time really does fly.  It doesn't seem five years since Morrowind went Gold but Ashley Cheng has pointed out the anniversary with links to an old team diary and some fan art.