Let me start by saying that I have never played Morrowind.
My experience with Morrowind was... unfortunate. I and a friend had been looking forward to it for months, and I had prerelease screenshots set as the wallpaper of my desktop.
When it came out, I quickly realized that it had Keyboard controlled movement, which I had never been able to manage, and worse, was 1st person perspective. I cannot play in 1st person. I get disoriented and confused and lost. I think I made it off the ship, but not to where Morrowind actually gave you the option to change modes, so I never even saw that 3rd person was available...
Fast forward about 8 years; I have obviously managed Keyboard movement, and sometimes even zoom in to 1st person in Oblivion... Other games are now always going on about how much the loved Morrowind, and I had downloaded a bunch of Oblivion mods that all made references to things in Morrowind. I finally got tired of not having a clue as to what any of these references were. Knowing that "Vivic is a city in Morrowind" is not the same as being there and seeing it. NOTHING could have described Ald-Rhun or Vivic, or the Ghostfence or...
Morroblivion seemed to be perfect for me, I could take my existing Character into a new land without having to learn the subtlties of a whole "new" (10 year old) game. I could poke around, see what all the fuss was about, then get on with my Oblivion life...
I fell in love with Morrowind while playing the Morrowind Main Quest posted on Nexus by oblivion44. It was buggy to say the least, but it gave me a feel for what Morrowind was all about.
And I fell in love with Morrowind.
I immediately lured a couple of others into trying it, including one Extraordinary Oblivion modder who is passionate about Morrowind. When he and I started working loosely together, it Quickly became apparent to me that there were several inherent problems that desperately need to be addressed.
He and I seemed to be having two TOTALLY different experiences playing the same game. He kept reporting "bugs" that I did not see, and sent me a mod of "fixes" that broke things I had not been having any problem with.
When I opened mods to start poking around, I was confronted with Hundreds of CS Errors stemming from Morrowind_ob.esm, drowning out anything from the mod. And I knew something had to be done.
The main problem I see with "fixes" such as David Wolf's Bug Fix mod, or the Armors Restored mod, is that they all, by definition, edit NPC's. However, if CoolShady & Nick V come along with a mod that also edits thoes same NPC's, only one mod can win, and either the NPC is naked, or doesn't know what you'r talking about when you want to ride a silt strider.
What I am in the process of doing, is editing the main Morrowind_ob.esm file itself.
1. Clean up all the CS Errors so that it loads clean
2. Address the main Faction problem so that half the NPC's in Morrowind aren't fighting the other half
3. Redirect objects with missing meshes to alternates or somethng neutral
4. Redirect any/all armor possible to equivalents from Vvardenfell Imports, which will be a required download
5. Redirect any/all clothing that causes problems to vanilla Oblivion clothing
6. Update NPC Merchants so that they will trade
7. Apply several fixes such as water level
8. Update whatever I can from David Wolf's Bug Fix Mod
Once this is accomplished, the new Morrowind_ob.esm can function as a true master again, where any mod can use it without fear of naked NPC's, etc.
After that is accomplished, I plan on assembling a second ESM Master file for creatures and placement.
I had gotten through #4 and was starting on #5 when my computer crashed. I am now on backup and typing this message instead of modding...
Sun, 09/05/2010 - 11:30
#1
Morrowind_ob.esm