Morrowind new game - need mod guidance

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Hi,

I am thinking about running through Morrowind again (GOTY edition), this time with a few Mods. I just played Oblivion extensively, and though it was somewhat fun, I feel Morrowind is still the better product, since some aspects of Oblivion are just too dumbed down, and despite some excellent Mods (Francesco's in particular), it still didn't do it for me - I just HATED the gates in Oblivion, they made NO sense, like there's an inn with people hanging out, and just a few steps away a gate with evil monsters. No sense. Plus the annoying armor repairing (how is armor so fragile?), and other annoying stuff.... great graphics though. Anyway, that was just my rant, now back to Morrowind.

After extensive research, I'm thinking of the following Mods:

Patches:
- Morrowind Patch Project
- Morrowind Code Patch

Gameplay:
- Galsiah's Character Development (I heard much good about it, and I dislike the leveling system in Morrowind - this seems to fix all I hate so I'll give it a shot)
- Pirate's lord Improved Magika (to go along with GCD)
- Delayed Dark Brotherhood attack (I hated that you had that overpowered DB armor so ealry + you get attacked so often and such weird places)
- Guars v 1.12 (so I can get pack guars to carry stuff, etc..)
- Andoreth's Advanced herbalism (adds some interesting options)
- At Home Alchemy (I like to have a nice pretty set in my home, but so annoying to put it in the inventory every time)

Graphics / Sound:
- No plastic effect for magical weapons (I hate walking into an inn and seing shiny shoes...)
- Better heads (will lessen the pain of Morrwind graphics after Oblivion...)
- Real Signposts (I like to read signposts without browsing over)
- Piratelord's Expanded Sounds v1.1 (I turn the music off - so annoying - when I play, so I want more sounds)
- Weapon Rotate + Shield placer + book rotate (I want my house / apt to look decent).
- lights 300 OR The lighting Mod (not sure which yet)


I have to point out I never played Morrowind with any mods, so I'm a noob to that regard. Though I have read much on mod installation, I would like to ask the very knowledgeable people on this board to help me with a couple of things:

1 - Do you see any major compatibility issues in the Mod list above. I've tried to make sure they're compatible, but it would be nice if I heard from the experts?
2- Supposing the mods are compatible, which is the best order to install them in?
3 - Relative to the lighting MOD, which is better and why? lights 300 OR The lighting Mod?
4 - I want to use a MOD that offers houses / apt in the various cities. Any recommendations?
5- I'm looking for a wildlife MOD that won't interfere too much with the game, ideally one that creates non-violent creatures for scenery, or reduces the aggressiveness of some creatures. I've seen 2 that seem interesting: Water Life & Where have the birds gone. Anybody have feedback on this? What's a good MOD to make wildlife non-predator creatures less hostile?

I realize this is a long message, so thank you for reading it, and thanks in advance for all your valuable input!

 

I'm afraid it's been a while since I've played Morrowind, so all the mods I know about are relatively old ones, but I'll try to give some feedback.

Haven't played with any of these, but getting stuff patched is always a good idea. You shouldn't have any compatibility issues with these (at least not in installation), as usually the stuff is fully incorporated in the esp/esm file (correct if I'm wrong here).

Again, can't say I've played any of them (nor did I use any gameplay altering mod), but seeing as most alter different things, you shouldn't expect any compatibility issues, excepting perhaps the Galsiah's Character Development, which sounds like it covers a fairly broad range. But I don't really know.

• The no-glow mod is small and wouldn't affect anything else. Always use a mod that does the same as well.
• Don't know this specific one, but have used several mods to achieve the same effect without problems in the past.
• Pretty sure I've used a mod to do the same as well. Shouldn't affect anything else.
• Haven't used this.
• I've used the bookrotate mod and was very well pleased with it. Wonderful for decorating your house. The weapon rotate mod wasn't finished last time I've looked for it, but if it is, I'll need to get it for the next game as well. Love this stuff.
• Don't know this one either, I'm afraid.

Some further additions to the graphical and sound mods:

• You should try a mod to improve the bodies as well. I used the Better Bodies mod, but the website doesn't seem to offer a download anymore. Perhaps it is still available at the Planet TES. Otherwise I can send it to you if you wish.
• There's a bunch of official mods that add some good stuff as well. I'm especially fond of the Master Index one, which adds the possibility to teleport to any of the old forts' propylon chamber from the Caldera mages guild. Another adds more sounds to the swampy areas.
• For further decorating my hide-out, I've always used a mannequin mod to display any armor I found. Grumblepunk's House of Mannequins is really nice for this.
• And because it's a pain to sell stuff for what it's actually worth when most merchants have very little gold in their shops, I always modded Creeper myself so that he had 100k gold.

To address your points:
1+2) I don't expect installation to be an issue, as these seem to be well developed mods, but if mods change the same thing, load order would be important. Normally I wouldn't expect any issues in this, however.
4) Sorry, can't really help you here. I've tried a few, then made my own mod to suit it to my tastes. Note that you really need only one, what with the mark/recall spells, unless you'd like one in every city for aesthetic purposes.
5) I used the Creature Pack, which adds many new and interesting monsters and items, some of which are non-hostile, but the emphasis wasn't on creating a more friendly atmosphere. It does add a few monsters that you will have to run away from at low levels, which was a nice experience the first time. The second time I led a few of those monsters to a city to have the guard kill it for me And it got me free imperial armor to boot.
I've no experience with those you mention, however.

 

Henkie,

Thanks you so much for all the valuable input.

So I guess if I proceed this way I should be fine:

1- install GOTY
2- install patches
3- install gameplay MODS (prob installing the major one first)
4- install graphics / sound mods.

As for your better bodies recommendation, I thought about it but read somewhere that it made some outfits look odd because they didn't fit the new bodies well?
Also thought of the creature MOD, though it seems to add a lot of hostile ones. Question on this MOD: can you adjust the frequency of meeting hostile creatures? One thing that annoyed me in Morrowind was that any rat or larva or cliff racer wanted to kill you. I would like just wandering about the land without every creature coming after you - I mean are armored heroes really the food source for rats and guars?

Anyway thanks again for your tips.

 

Your installation order looks good, but again, I don't really expect any installation issues. The way mods work with Morrowind is that, as long as you don't use new models/textures/sounds a mod can be entirely contained in only an .esp file. If, for instance, one of those patch mods modifies buggy quests and corrects dialogue, this can easily be contained in a single .esp file, even if there are 14,000 words of corrected dialogue. Similarly, a new house that uses only textures, models and sounds that are available from the original game can be contained entirely within a single .esp file. Therefore, if two mods modify the same thing, load order of the mods is important in determining which modification appears in the game.

If a mod does contain new textures or whatever, these are usually uniquely named (for well designed mods) and will therefore not conflict with other mods. Installation wise, anyway.

Your mod list is fairly modest, so I don't expect any problems.

I have noticed a few clipping issues with better bodies, but, if I recall correctly, it only happens with certain skirts or dresses and only when running or jumping around. It never bothered me, though, and the improved look of most people in the game world is totally worth it in my opinion.

Regarding the mod Creature Pack, I made a mistake in my previous post. The mod I was talking about in my previous is not actually called Creature Pack, but is called Morrowind Additions. Creature Pack does not add new monster models, but only changes the leveled monster list to add some tougher versions of already existing monsters to give high level characters a modicum of challenge.

Morrowind Additions adds different versions of existing monsters (young rats, for instance) and a fair few new monsters. Some of these are non-hostile - young versions for instance will never attack you - but, as I said, that's not what this mod is about. It doesn't offer the option of setting creature hostility, as I recall.

I know there are mods that change some of what you're asking for. Cliffracers apparently annoy nearly everybody, so there are mods out there that make them non-hostile. I didn't use any of these mods, though. With the boots of blinding speed I could always outrun any monster out there. And I always wore them. Add strafe running and jumping and most monsters would generally never even get the time to notice me. From Fort Frostmoth to Thirsk in under 10 jumps; from Thirsk to the place with the guy that makes the ice armor in 3 jumps

 

GCD is great!! I would consider it to be the most important mod to add. The leveling system has always been the weakest part of the Elder Scrolls series, and GCD fixes that in a way which is natural and worryfree.

 

Thanks for the feedback.
Question: do you play with any of the other mods I wish to install (see list in first email)? Do you know if GCD works with them?

Also, at what point in the MOD installation did you install GCD?

 

i need to know how to install GOTY and Patches

 

anyone know of any mods to speed up this game as its slower then molasses for me for some reason and i couldnt find any info on how to fix that. compared to oblivion this game runs a lot sower even tho the fps is high. somtimes it spikes over 300 but the game is still slow. ive got a amd athlon 64x2 3800+ set to 2.2ghz. not sure if it has anything to do with me running a dual core or not as i tried swtiching it ovber to just one core and that didnt speed the game up at all.