OpenMW – open-source TES3 Morrowind reimplementation(openmw.org)
openmw.org
OpenMW – open-source TES3 Morrowind reimplementation
https://openmw.org/en/
46 comments
Support for dynamic shadows was dropped years ago when they decided they had to port the game from the Ogre3D rendering engine to OpenSceneGraph in order to eventually reach 1.0 quality: https://openmw.org/2015/announcing-switch-openscenegraph/
It's pretty impressive that the project has been so successful with such a major transition, and that things didn't stall and fall apart along the way despite how long it took.
It's pretty impressive that the project has been so successful with such a major transition, and that things didn't stall and fall apart along the way despite how long it took.
I was always a fan of tinkering with Ogre back in the day. I wonder if there are any other extant projects still using it these days?
cranking up the view distance on morrowind makes you realise that those big cities that are supposed to be miles apart are actually right next to each other
I agree with this. I played OpenMW some years ago, and I was stunned at the quality. It's one of those open source projects where the quality is just implausibly good, especially considering how few open source games exist at all. (I am aware that OpenMW is short-circuiting the normal problems by re-implementing an existing design, and re-using existing art, but it's still wildly impressive.)
OpenMW got me and a friend back into Morrowind. It plays really well across most platforms.
OpenMW-CS is also really well done, to the point where we ended up maintaining our own collection of plugins in its new format for ourselves. [0]
[0] https://morromod.netlify.app/
OpenMW-CS is also really well done, to the point where we ended up maintaining our own collection of plugins in its new format for ourselves. [0]
[0] https://morromod.netlify.app/
The TES series is the site of a real clear example of the divergent paths that tech had and could have taken since 2000. One way led to a huge modding community, authoring tools bundled with the game, longevity and open implementation. Another led to Horse armour DLC, micro transaction driven mmorpgs, and the same game implemented and charged for over and over again for each system.
To be fair, TES has both horse armour DLC and an incredibly huge modding community.
I don't see a divergent path. Oblivion and Skyrim both come bundled with modding tools and have an enormous community of modders and a wealth of mods.
Bethesda themselves have also released a few really good expansions to each of their games (Tribunal, Shivering Isles, Dragonborn to mention one from each game since Morrowind) as well as a few smaller but satisfying DLCs (Hearthfire for instance).
That they also misstepped with a few shamefully overpriced minimal mods deserves being called out but does not undo any of the above.
Bethesda themselves have also released a few really good expansions to each of their games (Tribunal, Shivering Isles, Dragonborn to mention one from each game since Morrowind) as well as a few smaller but satisfying DLCs (Hearthfire for instance).
That they also misstepped with a few shamefully overpriced minimal mods deserves being called out but does not undo any of the above.
I guess this is my reminder to check in on the fan Unity port of Daggerfall.
https://www.dfworkshop.net/
I think it's actually done now? I struggled mightily to get through the tutorial dungeon when the original Daggerfall was made freeware long, long ago, and one of these days, I swear, I'm going to really play it.
https://www.dfworkshop.net/
I think it's actually done now? I struggled mightily to get through the tutorial dungeon when the original Daggerfall was made freeware long, long ago, and one of these days, I swear, I'm going to really play it.
Ha, I ended up checking up on that myself for the first time in a couple years a day or two ago. I've always been particularly interested in Daggerfal ports because that's one I never played when it it was first out. Not entirely sure why, I owned and played Arena, and Morrowind is one of my all-time favorites (Possible my absolute favorite game, actually. I played Oblivion last year finally and it was meh, I'll probably start Skyrim finally in a few months and have low expectations, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised).
I've tried to get into Daggerfall multiple times over the years (before and after the game was made free), but combined with it being testy to get running right in Dosbox, and that even when you get it running some keys seemed to not work quite right, I've never quite gotten a game more than a few hours in.
As of January, their roadmap says they are at "All game features now supported", so this seems an opportune time to try again...
I've tried to get into Daggerfall multiple times over the years (before and after the game was made free), but combined with it being testy to get running right in Dosbox, and that even when you get it running some keys seemed to not work quite right, I've never quite gotten a game more than a few hours in.
As of January, their roadmap says they are at "All game features now supported", so this seems an opportune time to try again...
Best way to play Daggerfall is with DaggerfallSetup:
https://wiwiki.wiwiland.net/index.php?title=Daggerfall_:_Dag...
LOTS of fixes and improvements, it's meant as a ready to play fixed daggerfall-installation.
https://wiwiki.wiwiland.net/index.php?title=Daggerfall_:_Dag...
LOTS of fixes and improvements, it's meant as a ready to play fixed daggerfall-installation.
I remember seeing this, but I can't remember if I tried it or pegged it for "next time". I also imagine the new engine will have more friendly movement controls. The hardest part of playing good games from the past is when the control scheme hadn't settled in what we now generally consider a superior format, and sometimes the old engines don't take well to those control schemes. IIRC daggerfall was somewhat in this camp (and for some reason I'm remembering it as more painful than arena, possibly because of more vertical space but bad mouse look?)
There's also https://tes3mp.com/ which as the name implies, lets you play multiplayer Morrowind. Yes, you read that right.
For clarity, this is a fork of openmw, and is planned to be merged into mainline at some point.
I am most excited about VR: https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw/-/merge_requests/251
If that works on Oculus Quest 2 with multiplayer mod, that'd be awesome!
If that works on Oculus Quest 2 with multiplayer mod, that'd be awesome!
OpenMW is impressive, but the modding community around Morrowind was always amazing. A selection of good mods and the original game becomes a minor distraction. Tamriel Rebuilt [0] alone is probably about as many hours of gameplay as the original Morrowind and a much larger area to explore.
[0] https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/
[0] https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/
I had the luxury of morrowind coming out at the perfect age for me. Plus dabbling with mods and customizing your games - perfect for someone interested in computers and gaming.
Being able to ignore it's in your face faults in a modern world, I honestly dont think any other RPGs will hit me the same way. Okay, there's one. It's Oblivion.
As much as Todd Howard has been a weasel, they've created two of the greatest RPG's ever made, imo.
Being able to ignore it's in your face faults in a modern world, I honestly dont think any other RPGs will hit me the same way. Okay, there's one. It's Oblivion.
As much as Todd Howard has been a weasel, they've created two of the greatest RPG's ever made, imo.
Oblivion didn't have levitation potions anymore though.
It also runs on Android under the name Open Microwave
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=is.xyz.omw&hl=...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=is.xyz.omw&hl=...
See also: a list of open-source game clones https://osgameclones.com
I've never played any of these games apart from Skyrim. How would you compare the two? I've heard that this game is legendary. For me Skyrim's atmosphere was awesome, but the storyline was a bit meh. Edit: thanks for all the responses they are quite insightful!
Morrowind: Dense, lot's of lore and immersion. More open, and less guided. I think at this time the cult of linear narrative was in it's infancy. And so you could kind of do more of what you wanted in Morrowind.
Oblivion: Brilliant for it's time in terms of world building, graphics and size. Famous for it's goofy elements, story line and characters. It still kept a lot of that attention to detail, but you could see it was starting to make tradeoffs.
IMO, As time has gone on, TES had traded size and grandeur for attention to detail, and Tolkien-esque world building. Skyrim was beautiful and a good continuation of the series. But it successfully struck a great balance between open world role playing, and commercial accessibility for audiences more accustomed to a single player linear narrative experience.
I'm too young to have played Daggerfall or Arena, so someone else would have to fill you in.
Oblivion: Brilliant for it's time in terms of world building, graphics and size. Famous for it's goofy elements, story line and characters. It still kept a lot of that attention to detail, but you could see it was starting to make tradeoffs.
IMO, As time has gone on, TES had traded size and grandeur for attention to detail, and Tolkien-esque world building. Skyrim was beautiful and a good continuation of the series. But it successfully struck a great balance between open world role playing, and commercial accessibility for audiences more accustomed to a single player linear narrative experience.
I'm too young to have played Daggerfall or Arena, so someone else would have to fill you in.
Arena took place in all of Tamriel. Cities were procedurally generated from a seed if I recall correctly, so they could have buildings in same locations across games, but cities were huge and filled with random people (like over a hundred buildibgs, some probably had specific structures). You could walk for hours between cities, because the land was also procedurally generated, but mostly flat. This was doable because the game looks like minecraft with a bigger block size.
It feels like a cross between a few features of a modern TES game and a rogue-like.
It feels like a cross between a few features of a modern TES game and a rogue-like.
I played Morrowind when it came out, but not for long, because the fighting was a bit boring. Something that worked very well in Skyrim. So I am curious, how it works in this version.
OpenMW is very true to the original, the intention is not to change things like the combat system. There are some modifications that go for this, but the more awesome ones need the big engine hacks that are incompatible with OpenMW.
Combat btw becomes a lot less tedious if one knows that chance to hit / block / evade depends on fatigue and fighting while exhausted is a bad idea. Modern games have sophisticated cues to make such effects known, like audible heavy breathing noises and visible screen bobbing and blur effects, etc. MW has no such cues.
Combat btw becomes a lot less tedious if one knows that chance to hit / block / evade depends on fatigue and fighting while exhausted is a bad idea. Modern games have sophisticated cues to make such effects known, like audible heavy breathing noises and visible screen bobbing and blur effects, etc. MW has no such cues.
Thx. But ... actually I remember the fighting to be way too boring and not challenging, not too hard.
The storyline in Morrowind is great, but it is told in an unusual way. At the surface it's a fairly traditional Chosen One story about killing the Big Bad, but if you dig a little deeper, listen to the various NPCs, and read the various in-game books of historical poetry, it's very morally ambiguous, and not even the facts are completely clear. And some aspects of the story implies that the Morrowind universe does not even have the notion of objective truth (look up CHIM for a rabbit hole, and the maybe-serious theory that one of the demigods in the universe literally got his hands on the Morrowind plugin editor).
Also, the game play is very old-fashioned by modern standards.
Also, the game play is very old-fashioned by modern standards.
Skyrim had that thing where every cave you go into there is a generic story told inside by a letter on a dead body. The world was full, but it was filled with generic stuff like that, utterly uninteresting after you realize what's going on. The main story was not strong and the balance with the only storywise mighty dragons that were ingame quite weak was completely off. Auto-leveling of quest items made quest rewards worthless.
Oblivion was unplayable because of the extreme auto-leveling, if you weren't extremely lucky with how you played it or fixed it with a mod.
Morrowind had none of those flaws. There was auto-leveling (mainly leveled lists with a small range, iirc), but the effect was small and felt organic. And the world is less filled with generic bs, no shoved in story told in every cave. The lore presented and the atmosphere was awesome, with the local gods and their path to power, the nerevarine part of it and the diverging perspectives (though a modern game might have used that for a non-linear story, which MW completely failed to do).
I also got the impression that the stories written in the ingame books were a lot more interesting in Morrowind. In the later games that got too boring fast, in Morrowind I actually read most of them. Might have been me becoming less patient over time, but I read somewhere the authors changed, so not impossible my impression is valid.
Graphics are obviously worse, Quests can be a bit off - especially the guild quests. Not only are they strange in what they ask from you, breaking immersion; Like in Oblivion and Skyrim following those quest lines and becoming a guild leader does not amount to much. Only do one, then it's okay. Some game mechanic can be broken rather easily, but if you don't search for ways on Youtube I doubt that's an issue when just playing - but Oblivion and Skyrim are a bit more stable there.
I liked Morrowind best, but it was also the first I played and the one I wrote simple mods for.
Oblivion was unplayable because of the extreme auto-leveling, if you weren't extremely lucky with how you played it or fixed it with a mod.
Morrowind had none of those flaws. There was auto-leveling (mainly leveled lists with a small range, iirc), but the effect was small and felt organic. And the world is less filled with generic bs, no shoved in story told in every cave. The lore presented and the atmosphere was awesome, with the local gods and their path to power, the nerevarine part of it and the diverging perspectives (though a modern game might have used that for a non-linear story, which MW completely failed to do).
I also got the impression that the stories written in the ingame books were a lot more interesting in Morrowind. In the later games that got too boring fast, in Morrowind I actually read most of them. Might have been me becoming less patient over time, but I read somewhere the authors changed, so not impossible my impression is valid.
Graphics are obviously worse, Quests can be a bit off - especially the guild quests. Not only are they strange in what they ask from you, breaking immersion; Like in Oblivion and Skyrim following those quest lines and becoming a guild leader does not amount to much. Only do one, then it's okay. Some game mechanic can be broken rather easily, but if you don't search for ways on Youtube I doubt that's an issue when just playing - but Oblivion and Skyrim are a bit more stable there.
I liked Morrowind best, but it was also the first I played and the one I wrote simple mods for.
I do not understand what is wrong with environment story telling? It is more then just letter and journals, sometime there are only different objects and skeletons placed around you fill the rest if you care to look at the details, most of those stories I never noticed. I also like it how it used in the Fallout games so I am curious what aspect of it you dislike.
There's nothing wrong with environmental story-telling; what's wrong is boring environmental story-telling, or environmental story-telling that is as generic and poorly-implemented as "Hey look, the body has a letter on it."
It could be done better, but IMO it adds more then it subtracts and you are not forced into reading all the letters or looting all the stuff. I am most annoyed with games that fill your map with "?" markets for some garbage and does not give you an option to hide it.
I understand that we have different preferences and it is fine, my wish would be to have more unique dungeons in the next games.
I understand that we have different preferences and it is fine, my wish would be to have more unique dungeons in the next games.
Like the above poster said, doing it once or even a handful of times is cool. It happens all the time, though, and in a less-than-polished way. It's lazy.
I normally love things like that in games. I read everything and there's not a game I own that I don't have a 100% in. In Skyrim it's barely even storytelling.
I normally love things like that in games. I read everything and there's not a game I own that I don't have a 100% in. In Skyrim it's barely even storytelling.
OK, probably depends on how we play the game. What is your strategy to 109% Skyrim? There are locations that are not linked to quests or the quests for them are not easy to find.
I don't play that much so when I play I use a mod that gives you a different start/origin story and try to role play a bit, avoid the man quest as much a s possible.
I didn't really have a strategy at the time, I just had time. Like, a lot of time. "It was one of the only games I could get to work with WINE and I had no hobbies because I was a child" amounts of time. Time, an abundance of characters and UESP made it possible. I think UESP has a completion page now, but it didn't when I did, and the one it does have seems to be missing a lot of things.
My experience with Skyrim did lead me to developing strategies for other games, after having less time, but at the time I definitely went about it in one of the longest ways possible.
It's probably time for a replay.
My experience with Skyrim did lead me to developing strategies for other games, after having less time, but at the time I definitely went about it in one of the longest ways possible.
It's probably time for a replay.
Cool, a fellow wine user, Special Edition has some issues with wine though, the Script Extender takes a long time to hook the game and I get some crashes (I suspect is the lightning effect) , so combining the 2 issues makes me dread opening the game though I am very tempted to finally reach level 80.
The game I had too much time to play was Gothic for me, this one has no quest markers and I also had no internet so I had to struggle with it but I still have it burned in my memory.
The game I had too much time to play was Gothic for me, this one has no quest markers and I also had no internet so I had to struggle with it but I still have it burned in my memory.
Why use SE? Did it add content?
The game looks better in general, SE uses the Fallout4 engine so most features in Fallout4 are present including 64 bit. Characters are looking a bit better, there is more grass and flowers/mushrooms around you can collect(for alchemy), the lighting looks better. If you don't plan to put many hours then is not worth it, but if you want to put a lot of hours and use many mods then my personal opinion is that is worth it. Modding support for it is good the only issues might be the wine/proton related stuff and the mod manager support issues.
I already have SE, I just wanted to know why I'd ever use it; from what you list it seems like everything can be covered via mods in the regular edition?
It's the always part of it. There is not a single abandoned cave I remember. In every single one there is a necromancer that died in an experiment and lived to wrote about it right till the moment the zombies turned against him, died an adventurer while writing his last words, ... It's cool if it's an occasional thing, that adds to creating a realistic world. If it's always, it breaks the immersion. It becomes clear they had a level enrichment team go through a list of every single location to add one of the same type of stories.
FNV did that way better - but okay, FNV did everything better.
FNV did that way better - but okay, FNV did everything better.
I am not sure that are that many though, aren't more caves populated with bandits(makes sense) , crypts populated with undead or necromancers(makes sense) and ruins populated with treasure hunters(makes sense too). All those letters and journals add a bit of lore and most people do not read them anyway. From time to time you find unique characters though with unique stories and sometimes side quests.
There are a lot of issues with Skyrim, there are some very funny videos about it, but for me personally those quirks are not significant enough to complain.
There are a lot of issues with Skyrim, there are some very funny videos about it, but for me personally those quirks are not significant enough to complain.
> All those letters and journals add a bit of lore and most people do not read them anyway.
But that's just it: They don't add lore, they add noise. If this kind of story telling is done well and occasionally, then players would actually read those letters. You are right, here they don't, and that's not surprising if they are placed everywhere.
But that's just it: They don't add lore, they add noise. If this kind of story telling is done well and occasionally, then players would actually read those letters. You are right, here they don't, and that's not surprising if they are placed everywhere.
Last year, OpenMW 0.46 also introduced limited support for
opening files from Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas. See: https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/topic/4715-openmw-046-bri...
Anyone else super blown away by that visualization of development activity?
That's done in Gource. Very awesome and easy-to-use tool - takes any VCS as input. https://gource.io/
I’ve been playing morrowind on openmw since 2013. It’s such a fantastic project. It’s a stable and clean way to experience morrowind, but half the enjoyment is in the community surrounding it. The video updates have been a cherished ritual for me for many years now. And the website has a very thoughtful atmosphere with the strider lurking overhead. It’s honestly been an important part of my life. And this of course was all preceded by my original fascination with morrowind, which is certainly one of the finest video games ever made despite its user-hostile qualities. The soundtrack has never been equaled. The game was made in a time when video games weren’t a billion dollar industry and where the nature of the game reflected the nature of the people who made it — and morrowind was made by a band of intellectuals, idealists and pioneers. It simply does not happen that way anymore in mainstream games.
What works: everything. Everything I tried. What did I try? All the parts of the game listed above, plus 20-30 plugins, including one obscure library plugin that's not on Nexus. Used Mod Organizer2, IIRC. No problems. Worked great. Know what's amazing? No crashes. Not. A. Single. One. Anyone who played Morrowind back in the day remembers all the crashes. So many, even with stability mods and later versions of the game. This? Rock solid.
What doesn't: plugins that patch or wrap the Morrowind .exe file. That's about it. Oh well.
Bonus round: you can crank up the view distance to fairly high levels on even a medium-good rig, much farther than in the original game. Definitely improves it.