BTB's Morrowind Mod List

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The Morrowind Patch Project

Bug Fix

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Elric Melnibone

Beyond everything else, the Morrowind Patch Project is a must-have mod for this game. It fixes a shitload of bugs and problems in the final versions of Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon, rendering most other bug-fix mods obsolete. These fixes range from spelling errors to flat-out game-breakers, plus a whole lot of shit in between. This includes the infamous Brittlewind bug, possibly the most well-known of them all.

The Morrowind Patch Project is a continuation of the work begun by the Unofficial Morrowind Patch. It at one point in time was also known as the "Unofficial Unofficial Morrowind Patch", leading to a great deal of confusion about just how many of these things were floating around. In short, the Morrowind Patch Project is the all-encompassing one, and is the only patch (in mod form, at least) that you need.

The Morrowind Patch Project avoids conflicts with other mods by presenting as an .esm master file instead of an .esp plugin file. Thus, any changes made by other mods will override it seamlessly. This can be something of a double-edged sword, however, in that other mods have the potential to undo any work done by the Morrowind Patch Project if their edits don't also include the appropriate fixes. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that my list is setting out to help you avoid.

You shouldn't have to start a new game to install the patch, but I can't make any promises about it fixing any problems you may have already encountered in an existing one. If there's a bug or issue that you're aware of that isn't addressed by the MPP, by all means feel free to report it to the guys on the official Morrowind forums - those guys are always looking for new shit to fix. Version 1.6.4 (which I link to) is the latest, but there will no doubt be future versions as more and more issues continue to be discovered and corrected. In fact, version 1.6.5 is already well on its way.

Better Bodies

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Psychodog Studios
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from TES Nexus

Better Bodies is perhaps one of the most popular mods available for Morrowind, if not the most popular mod available. The reasons for this are readily apparent the moment you first lay eyes upon the moldy stick of beef jerky that you soon discover is actually your character. For as good as they were at creating beautiful game environments, Bethesda Softworks seems to suck unholy ass when it comes to recreating the human (or inhuman) form. Luckily, the good folks at Psychodog Studios suffer from no such lack of artistic talent.

Better Bodies is usually available only as a self-extracting installer, except for its home page where you can also download just the standalone files. The installer is the easier way to go, since the multiple versions of the textures (non-nude, partially nude, and fully nude) add extra steps to the manual installation process. The partially nude version only makes female characters naked, so it's a good choice for sexually insecure boys who would still like to see some titties. As for the non-nude version, I'd only recommend it for people who for some reason don't want to integrate masturbation in with their Morrowind time. And frankly, I don't think I'd want to be associated with anyone like that (and neither, most likely, would the guys who made this).

There is one strange bug with this mod that was never hammered out, however. When starting a new game as a female character, the meshes for your hands will be the ones specified for male characters ("man hands", if you will) until the game is saved/reloaded. That's all you need to do to fix the problem, and it won't come back again after you do, so it's at least extremely innocuous as far as bugs go.

Liztail's New Beast Bodies

Graphics Replacer

• Download from LizTail Studios
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls

This is basically Better Bodies for Argonians and Khajiit, neither of which were dealt with by the original Better Bodies. But unlike the humanoid body replacers, where there's one clearly-superior mod to rule them all, there are actually quite a few of them - most likely owing to the internet's rich furry community - contending for that same status with the game's two beast races. After much examination and debate, I ultimately went with LizTail's version due to its artistic quality and ease of installation: both categories in which I found it to excel beyond its peers.

The links above and this discussion both refer to the "mature" version of Lizatail's New Beast Bodies, "mature" in this case meaning "now with 100% more Khajiit penis!". Once you get past the giant kitty dong waving around in your face, however (hopefully by remembering that it's helmets and boots they can't wear, not pants), you'll notice that they actually do look a lot better than before. And while I'm sure that the internet is just full of sick freaks who would totally nail them (or "yif" in furry-speak), I'm sure that all of us normal people who only want to sex up Swedish redheads are only using Liztail's mod for its intended purpose of making beasts no longer painfully ugly to stare at.

Better Heads

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Gorg's Morrowind Mods (version 1.0)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (version 1.1)

This mod completes the Better Bodies package by providing heads that no longer look like somebody took a steaming shit on your computer screen. Every head in the game (player and NPC) is replaced with a better, non-shitty head. Like Better Bodies, Better Heads one of the oldest mods for Morrowind around. And despite the presence of many, many other mods that have since been created to do the same thing, Better Heads remains arguably the best of them all due to the fact that it tries to keep things simple and remain faithful to the game's original premise, while most of the head mods I see today appear to have been created by the same weirdos who jerk off to Liztail's New Beast Bodies. Ironically, Better Heads is actually comprised of several head mods that predated it, and was most notable at the time of its release for being a comprehensive compilation of them all.

Conflicts with Better Heads are virtually nonexistent since the mod is comprised of .esm master files rather than .esp plugin files. The worst you'll ever see is the occasional oddball mod that somehow manages to add a new NPC with one of the original heads instead of a "better" one. Some optional extra features are included in the download - including an alternate plugin version of the mod - but none of them are things that I'd recommend using. Also, though the links above both lead different versions of Better Heads, the only update made by the latest release was a handful of minor changes to Argonian heads (who all look alike, anyways). So, you can pretty much just grab either one and be done with it.

Better Clothes

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Psychodog Studios
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (addon from Darknut)

With bodies and heads that no longer make people in the game look like hideous mutants, it seems weird to see them still wearing stuff that does. While not nearly as vital to non-hideous visuals as the rest of the "better" mod family, this one is still some very nice icing on the delicious cake that is in no way a lie. Just grab the installer from Psychodog Studios, run it just like you did the one for Better Bodies, and be glad that they didn't think to include an option for crotchless underwear.

The second link is to a mod made by a guy named Darknut (an individual who is discussed at length just below), that aims to eventually replace Better Clothes entirely. At the moment, he's only replaced about half of it, which is why the original is still good to have around. You see, Darknut's textures have an amazing way of making the game's originals look more like ass than they already did, even more jarringly so when you see them side-by-side. Better Clothes, at least, can stand up to them without looking like Rosie O'Donnel's dingleberry-caked ass hair after someone shaved it onto the floor of a gas station bathroom stall. Alternatively, just use Better Clothes until Darknut's version is complete.

Darknut's Equipment Textures

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (weapons textures)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (armor textures, 512-res version)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (armor textures, 1024-res version)

At this point in the list, you may have started to notice a trend with graphics replacers in that vastly improving the visual quality of certain aspects of the game has a habit of making the ones you don't stand out even more. Enter a man named Darknut, who clearly has more spare time on his hands than can be considered healthy (much like myself). He handily deals with a good number of these things that other mods either haven't, or have but just very poorly. His distribution methods leave a lot to be desired, however, to the point that I both love and hate this man at the same time.

What's notable about Darknut's work is that he doesn't do like so many before him have tried (and failed) by turning Morrowind into some sort of fantasy kitchen sink. Rather, he just focuses on taking the original artwork and polishing it up until it no longer looks like ass. He remains so faithful to the originals, in fact, that everything he replaces actually becomes less noticeable as a result. In short, Darknut's textures look less like replacements and more like you got a better video card.

Now, for the technical stuff. First, Darknut likes to release his textures in two versions: a smaller 512-res version and a more detailed 1024-res version. Quality-wise, the big jump is from the originals to Darknut's 512-res textures. You really have to look hard to spot the far more subtle differences between the 512-res and 1024-res versions (refer to the comparison screens below), and the increase in file size (and thus CPU load) between the two is dramatic. So, unless you've got a slammin' rig with lots of unused power to spare, you'll probably want to go with the 512-res versions.

However, for reasons that will forever elude me, Darknut flips a coin on whether or not he feels like including both versions as part of the same mod. This is why I've posted two different links for his armor textures, but only one for the weapons. The weapons mod I've linked to is the final release that comprises all of the dozen or so smaller releases that he put out beforehand, but never bothered to get rid of after completing the final version. And pay attention to the file structure of the downloads, since there's no consistency at all among them.

In fact, now would probably be a good time to remind you that all of Darknut's textures should just go straight into the "textures" folder inside the "morrowind/data files" directory. Some of his downloads don't require much additional sorting, like the straight-up 1024 ones, while others take a bit more work. The armor textures are by far the worst, since there's a sub-folder for each different type of armor in the game. You have to manually copy the contents of each individual folder into the textures directory, which is a huge pain in the ass to say the least. Additionally, several folders contain later versions of the same texture, so make sure that you install them alphabetically.

Speaking of huge pains in the ass, one of the textures in the 1024-res armor download is broken. So, you'll either have to download the 512-res version and fish the "tx_a_imperialchain_f_c.dds" texture out of the "Misc" folder, or just live with the giant, black crotch flaps that the broken one will give to Imperial Chain Armor. This is completely unrelated to the "alternate" Imperial Chain texture provided by the 1024 version that, as far as I can tell, looks completely identical to the original. I'm beginning to think that Darknut is just trying to piss me off.

The armor mods also contain a single mesh file in the Ebony armor folder that needs to be placed in the "data files/meshes/a" folder. This one is technically a fix, and as such is already included as part of the Morrowind Patch Project. I have no idea whether the meshes from both mods are the exact same or not, but it's recommended in pretty much every case to install Darknut's textures after just about any other mod you might be using.

On that note, keep reading for more Darknut madness.

Darknut's Creature Textures

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (Morrowind creatures)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (Tribunal creatures)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (Bloodmoon creatures)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (addendum)

The fact that I had to list Darknut's creature textures separately from his weapons and armor bothers me almost as much as the fact that just the creature replacers alone still consist of enough links to break my layout. Why he can't just combine the downloads into a single page - or at the very least incorporate his addendum into the appropriate downloads - is forever beyond me. On top of that, I can't even just throw the links at you and tell you to go nuts (no pun intended). As always, there's a few issues that need to be discussed.

The "addendum" page has two downloads: one to correct the missing transparent wing texture for Winged Twilights, and one for everything else that Darknut either forgot to replace or just wanted to fix in the original Morrowind and Tribunal downloads. Why in the name of Odin they're two separate downloads, who in the fuck knows? Just install them both after installing the main Morrowind and Tribunal replacers. Darknut's creature textures should also be installed after Visual Pack (see below), and, of all things, the Siege at Fort Firemoth official plugin. Both mods make conflicting changes (to silt striders and God-knows-what, respectively), and Darknut's textures are the superior choice in any case.

Lastly, and perhaps most egregiously, the main Morrowind download contains a texture file that needs to be deleted prior to installation. The file "tx_kwama_foragerspit.dds" wasn't supposed to have been included in the original download, will cause (vague) problems if you install it, and there is absolutely no valid explanation whatsoever as to why it's still in there. Seriously, WTF Darknut!?

Visual Pack

Graphics Replacer

• Download from The Elder Scrolls Files
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls

Visual Pack is a compilation of several different texture mods that collectively replaces nearly every texture in the game with improved hi-res graphics. It does tend to fall into the same category as Better Heads in that it's an older mod which was fairly revolutionary back when it was the first one to combine the best parts of other texture mods into a cohesive, cream-filled whole. And also like Better Heads, the mod community has since been flooded with all manners of knockoffs that range from bad to just plain weird. It all goes to prove that you just can't fuck with a classic like Visual Pack.

My links lead to version 3.0 of Visual Pack, which is the final and most complete release. Since this is a full texture replacement mod, it will invalidate the need for most other texture replacers - a statement which would probably hold a lot more weight if there weren't 15 other graphics mods on this list. Mind that there is some overlap with a few of the other texture replacers I suggest (namely, Darknut's Creatures and Oblivion Septims), so Visual Pack should be installed before they are. Most anything that isn't mentioned on this list - Better Books or K Potion Upgrade, for example - is likely obsoleted by this mod, so install with caution. Or better yet, just avoid them altogether.

This is a somewhat large download, weighing in at upwards of 140 MB, but most internet connections today eat file transfers like that for breakfast. Likewise, most computers are now powerful enough to laugh at whatever CPU hit might have once been associated with rendering the larger hi-res texture files. In summary, Visual Pack is more than well worth the effort to acquire if you're at all concerned with making the game look better.

Mesh Improvements

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from TES Nexus (older version - not recommended)

Mesh Improvements does for the game's meshes what Visual Pack does for its textures. If you'd rather not get too technical about the difference between the two, just consider this the second half of Visual Pack and download it without asking any questions. If you must know, meshes are to shapes and objects in the game as textures are to the buildings and environments. The overall effect of Mesh Improvements is less immediately noticeable than that of Visual Pack, but the former compliments the latter exceptionally well. This is best demonstrated by the screenshots below, which I'm obviously using more to show off Visual Pack interior shots that wouldn't fit in the space above.

Unlike Visual Pack, Mesh Improvements has little to no direct competition. There's a lot fewer mesh mods out there than texture replacers, and none to my knowledge that go for an all-out replacement. This leaves Mesh Improvements as the de-facto best choice in the mesh department, and there's no reason not to use it. Though several meshes in the mod are designated as optional (the Dwemer ones, namely), I'd still suggest using all of them.

Currently, the most recent version of Mesh Improvements (1.6.1) is only available from Planet Elder Scrolls. The one at TES Nexus does not appear to have been updated in quite some time, and I thus don't recommend downloading it from there unless it does get updated at some point.

Correct UV Rocks

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Elric Melnibone

Slartibartfast's Texture Fix

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Elric Melnibone

Bloodmoon Landscape Overhaul

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Filefront
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls

Another mod brought to you by the guy whose name sounds like my spellchecker just threw up, Bloodmoon Landscape Overhaul is what began as the Bloodmoon version of Slartibartfast's Texture Fix mod and eventually grew into the Bloodmoon version of Visual Pack. The new textures provided by this mod replace the rather bland landscapes of Solthseim with nearly photorealistic ones, while the included .esm master file cleans up all of the texture references to eliminate landscape seams and compliment the pretty new visuals. And since Bloodmoon landscapes are one of the few things that Visual Pack doesn't update, the change is a very noticeable one.

There's a few mesh and icon replacements that Bloodmoon Landscape Overhaul also makes, but nothing really noteworthy. The important part is that none if it conflicts with anything else on this list. Beyond that, it could eat babies and I wouldn't care - you know, aside from wondering how it is that binary data that doesn't even have physical form has somehow managed to consume the flesh of the innocent. Truly, the robot apocalypse is upon us.

SWG's Skies

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (night sky fix only)

By now, one of the few places left to look for graphics that we haven't updated is to the skies. And to be quite honest, the game's original skies don't really look that bad compared to most of the other stuff we've replaced. Still, SWG's Skies are a marked improvement. The new sky textures are of higher quality, and the meshes have been re-mapped to fill the whole sky rather than tile across it. There are several other updates, as well, which are broken up into optional folders that can be used independently from one another. I'll go over each one, since I don't recommend using them all.

• The "skies" folder is the main sky replacer. Just copy the meshes and textures into the appropriate folders in your "morrowind/data files" directory.

• The "optional textures" folder contains alternate textures for clear and cloudy skies. They actually look like clear and cloudy skies, unlike the originals which are mostly clear and near-identical. The only thing that seems to earn them the "optional" label is their similarity to the game's original "Vanilla Skies", which SWG hates in the same way that normal people hate lawyers and child rapists.

• The "particles" folder contains better particle effects for things like raindrops, ash storm dust, and snowflakes. The readme doesn't make it obvious, but these belong in the "data files/textures" folder since they are also textures. They look very pretty, and so I recommend them.

• The "sunglare" folder contains textures that attempt to make the game's sunglare effect look more realistic. I personally think that it looks like ass.

• The "moons" folder replaces the textures of Masser and Secunda (the game's two moons). They look a bit better than the originals, so I vote "yea".

• The "Dwemer Observatory sky" folder replaces the textures of the sky as seen from the Dwemer Observatory. I have no comment on this one.

Lastly, SWG suggests several Morrowind.ini edits to go along with his new skies. Rather than having to make them yourself, however, the mod is bundled with a spiffy little program called MINI ("Morrowind .INI" editor) that will make them for you. Two sets of edits are included, only one of which needs to be used. They're named "light nights" and "dark nights", which I feel to be misleading - "dark nights" and "pitch-fucking-black nights" seem more appropriate. Even given the game's varied appearance from system to system, I'm still sure that most players will prefer the "light nights" settings since an identical effect to the alternative can be achieved simply by powering off your monitor.

All said and done, however, I don't really care for the .ini edits. Like anyone else who's ever tweaked those settings, SWG seems to be going for a more "alien" look, which just ends up being more weird than better: liquid blue skies, deep purple overcasts, and radioactive green fog that looks suspiciously like the notorious "Kryptonite Fog" from Superman 64 (because that's a game you want to be taking ideas from). Go ahead and give them a try if you want, but be sure to back up your Morrowind.ini file first - the included "reset to Vanilla" MINI template is incomplete and fails to revert several settings to their default values (including the aforementioned Kryptonite Fog).

SWG is also apparently a graduate of the Darknut school of mod distribution, since the main download has a broken night sky mesh that needs to be fixed with a separate download. There's a link to this fix on the same page as the main download, but it currently resides on an off-site host that is so shittily bad that visiting it is somewhat akin to sticking your penis in a grain thresher. So, I've done the world a favor and hosted the fix on my site until such time that SWG gets off his ass and updates his damned mod like he should have done in the first fucking place.

Oblivion Septims

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Realistic Blood

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Weathered Signposts

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (updated)

Journal, Books, & Scrolls

Graphics Replacer

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Herbalism For Purists

Bug Fix

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz ("pearl bug" fixed)

Herbalism For Purists is actually a combination of three different mods, all of which are so necessary that their collective release qualifies as a bug fix more than a gameplay tweak. For example, the inclusion of "Bloated Morrowind" in the main plugin allows bloat spores (the plants from which you can harvest the "bloat" ingredient) to appear in the game. These previously existed in the game's code, but were for some reason never activated.

The mod's most notable change is the removal of the interface for gathering alchemy ingredients. The plant "container" will simply disappear after the ingredient is successfully (or unsuccessfully) harvested, and will remain gone until it respawns. This eliminates the confusion and frustration of trying to remember which among a sea of plants you've already harvested, not to mention no longer having to click "take all" on every single one of them.

The last function of Herbalism For Purists is to make all flora (that means "plant" in Latin) that's supposed to glow actually do so. An included .bsa file makes the necessary changes, and needs to be referenced in the Morrowind.ini file in order to work. Although it's an easy edit to make, the download also includes a .bsa patcher that will do it for you. One interesting (and likely unintended) side effect of this new functionality is that the empty space left behind after harvesting glowing flora will still continue to glow despite the fact that there's nothing there.

I recommend downloading the mod from my site rather than from Planet Elder Scrolls due to a bug in the original mod which causes kollups to give you broken pearls. I've edited the main plugin to remove its edits to kollups, thus fixing the bug. Though I could probably have just fixed the problem outright, doing so seemed inappropriate. First of all, kollups are the only "plants" in the game that legitimately should function like containers instead of disappearing completely when looted. Second, the high value of pearls justifies the added inconvenience of having to sift through them.

A Flock Of Seagulls

Audio/Visual Upgrade

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Kirel's Interior Weather

Audio/Visual Upgrade

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

For the sake of immersion, this is an important mod. With Kirel's Interior Weather installed, you'll actually be able to hear the sounds of a thunderstorm even when you're inside of, say, a straw hut. This goes a long way towards making interior and exterior cells feel like they're on the same plane of existence, let alone being separated by little more than a pile of twigs. There's also a separate .esp for louder sounds that can be used in lieu of the main plugin if desired, though the original should be more than sufficient for most players' tastes.

This mod will conflict with just about any herbalism mod because of an edit it for some reason makes to kwama egg sack scripts. This includes Herbalism For Purists: using both mods together will have Kirel's Interior Weather overriding Herbalism For Purists since it's the more recent of the two. The effects of Herbalism For Purists on kwama egg sacks will be lost, but no actual in-game errors should occur.

Duncan's Atmospheric Sound Effects

Audio/Visual Upgrade

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (3.04 supporting files only)

This is bar-none the single most effective mod at adding a sense of immersion to Morrowind. You'll notice the vast improvements made by Duncan's Atmospheric Sound Effects - or just "ASE" for short - immediately after stepping into what will now actually sound like a bustling city or a lively tavern. Weather sounds have been upgraded too, as well as pretty much every other nook and cranny in the game that you could possibly think of. It is a fairly large download, or at least it was by the standards of the time it was released, but is well worth it for what it adds to the game.

Of course, not everybody will always like everything, and Duncan knew that. He wisely included a blank sound file along with instructions on how to delete any sound that displeases you and replace it with a copy of the blank one (actually, that's pretty much all that the instructions tell you). Ultimately, only two sounds of the lot have elicited my ire enough to warrant this treatment: tavern28 and tavern39.

Though there are many places online to download ASE, Planet Elder Scrolls is the only host where version 3.04 of the mod can be nabbed as a single download instead of four separate ones. It's also the only release that contains the most recent version of the plugin file, as well as a copy of MINI (also seen bundled with SKW's Skies) which will make the necessary changes to the Morrowind.ini file in order for the new weather sounds to work. Alternatively, you can get the sound files from a different source and simply download the supporting files unique to version 3.04 from this site.

When running the mod, be sure to use only the non-Tribunal version of the main .esp file. ASE addons for both Tribunal and Bloodmoon were created as part of the Illuminated Windows mod (see below), and I'd recommend using them over the original mod's attempt to cover just Tribunal.

Illuminated Windows

Audio/Visual Upgrade

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Illuminated Windows is a very prominent aesthetic addition to Morrowind in the form of windows that actually function as such: natural light will shine in from the outside during the day and artificial light out through them at night. This effect is most noticeable in the evening, when towns and cities are actually made to feel like people might be living in them. Another mod released years later called Windows Glow does very much the same thing as this one does, and the choice of which to use is largely a matter of personal taste. Windows Glow goes for a more realistic "orange candlelight" look for window lights, but I tend to prefer the more subtle style of Illumiated Windows.

Something of secondary effect of this mod is that it requires you to edit the Morrowind.ini file to enable quadratic lighting, the results of which are a massive improvement to the lighting of the game as a whole. The readme recommends some settings, but also suggests how you can tweak them to suit your own tastes. The problem that you'll probably notice with the settings provided is that the brighter light and larger radius tends to create unsightly seams where the light abruptly cuts off at the edge of a cell (just watch somebody walk around with a torch at night and it won't be long before you spot one). If you, like me, want to fix that, then I suggest the following settings instead:

QuadraticValue=4.0
QuadraticRadiusMult=1.5

It's also worth noting that Illuminated Windows will likely be the first mod on this list to freak out if you run any other mods that alter any of the game's existing buildings. This is because the plugin must individually target each and every window to achieve the desired effect, and it has something of a fit and starts lobbing in-game errors at you if you move any of them around. This includes every building in Solthseim, for which there's a separate Bloodmoon plugin included (Tribunal is covered by the main .esp and having it installed is required for the mod to work properly). Of course, Illuminated Windows is fully compatible with every other mod on this list, so you don't need to worry unless you're using ones that aren't mentioned here.

As a final bonus to the Illuminated Windows package, it also comes bundled with two additional .esp files that are actually Tribunal and Bloodmoon addons to Duncan's Atmospheric Sound Effects mod. You'll need to have Atmospheric Sound Effects already installed for the plugins to function at all, and you should be using the non-Tribunal version of ASE's main .esp file to avoid conflicts.

HotFusion's Economy Adjuster

Rule Tweak

• Download from Elric Melnibone
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (w/ edited plugins)

It's not often that I think that people who write mods say anything with any degree of eloquence, but I believe that HotFusion sums up the situation pretty well in this mod's main readme file:

"Morrowind's economy is out of control. It is very, very easy to make money (people frequently obtain millions of gold coins during the course of the game). Worse, there isn't a whole lot to spend this money on. Equipment is a serious expense at the beginning of the game, but it isn't long before the player graduates from store-bought gear and starts using loot from adventures. The result is a situation where the player makes an ever-increasing amount of money, but faces an ever-decreasing list of expenses."

Economy Adjuster is a mod comprised of several different plugins that can all be used independently from one another, thus allowing the player to choose which of HotFusion's adjustments to implement. Collectively, they all aim to make the economy much more difficult to exploit, which in turn makes the game more challenging. Economy Adjuster is also one of two mods (the other being Wakim's Game Improvements) from which my own BTB's Game Improvements mod (mentioned later in this list) was inspired. As such, BTB's Game Improvements was designed to replace a good portion of Economy Adjuster. The specifics will be discussed below in my individual descriptions of each plugin.

Note that Economy Adjuster was built around a game that included both Tribunal and Bloodmoon, so the majority of the plugins will require both to be installed in order to not have a seizure when you run them. Only the Merchant Skills plugin should necessitate a new game, however.

Merchant Skills

The main plugin of this mod deals with Morrowind's economy directly at its source: the merchants themselves. As many a player has discovered, the way that merchants deal with your character is at best wonky, and at worst batshit insane. The strange phenomenon of buying an item and then selling it right back to the merchant who just sold it to you at a higher price than you paid for it, more commonly known as the "Mercantile Bug", is put to an end by Economy Adjuster. Although, technically speaking, this issue isn't the "real" Mercantile Bug, but rather the cause of it.

In actuality, the Mercantile Bug refers to the fact that merchants eventually start offering you progressively worse prices for items once your Mercantile skill reaches a certain point. This is because the Mercantile skills of the merchants are ludicrously low, and the so-called "bug" was a deliberate stopgap put in place by the programmers to stop you from really hosing the poor bastards. Whichever way you look at it, however, the problem does have an easy fix. As several exhaustive charts of painstaking research in the mod's readme file prove, the Mercantile Bug is effectively removed from the game by raising their skills to acceptable levels.

The Speechcraft and Mercantile skills for every merchant, trainer, and service provider in the game are raised by this file. Where the higher Mercantile skills make our NPCs much more shrewd in their dealings with you, the higher Speechcraft skills make them much harder to sweet-talk into cutting you a deal anyways. To further cement its cause, the plugin also reduces the effectiveness of bribery and removes the disposition bonus to a merchant for each successful barter. This not only makes raising your Mercantile skill more helpful over the long haul, but your Speechcraft skill, as well.

The insertion method of these changes is through dialogue, which is a lot better for compatibility than direct scripting and a lot less painful than anal. Version 1.0 of the plugin uses the phrase, "Hold on... I'm busy right now. Talk to me again in a few seconds." for all appropriate NPCs in order to make the necessary changes. While the update is immediate and already applied by the time you see the message, this method does run into the problem that it also prevents certain disposition checks against your character - like if you have a high bounty, for example - unless you end the conversation and speak to the NPC again. Seeing a merchant's attitude toward you go from normal to zero at the drop of a hat is jarring, and the last thing that anybody wants is a game full of manic-depressive NPCs.

Version 1.1 takes a different approach by inserting the script via audible idle and greeting sounds (a sniff or a rude "hrmph!"). HotFusion touts this as a less annoying alternative to the method used in version 1.0. The problem here is that idle and greeting sounds are not immediate, and unless you stand around waiting for a moment before talking to most NPCs, the update won't yet have been applied. This method also suffers from the drawback of being much, much more annoying than the original one was. Version 1.1 did get at least one thing right, however, in the inclusion of several NPCs that had been missed in the first version.

Since both versions were problematic at this point, my ultimate solution was to create my own version of the original version 1.0 plugin that fixed the problem with disposition checks, as well as incorporated the missing merchant skill updates that were added in version 1.1. The latter warrants no further discussion, and the former turned out to be as easy as editing the script to force a new conversation after it runs. This had the added benefit of rendering the "I'm busy" message from version 1.0 useless, because the script finishes instantly and the NPC begins speaking normally afterward. There does have to be some text present for the script to run, however, so my version just uses the phrase "...".

Regardless of which version you're using (version 1.0, version 1.1, or my version), the script will only run during your very first meeting with any NPC. This means that unless you feel like screwing around with the console to edit every merchant you've already spoken with, this is the one portion of Economy Adjuster that requires a new game to be in any way effective.

Ingredients

As HotFusion more or less states in the readme, the initial values for the game's alchemy ingredients seem to be the result of either a programming error, a madman, or a dartboard. Whatever the cause, this module tweaks the value of every ingredient in the game to reflect a more proper risk-to-reward ratio. The good news is that killing creatures for their body parts is now a far more profitable venture than before. On the other hand, Hackle-Lo Leaves no longer rival pot in terms of street value.

The other effect of this plugin concerns the commonality of pearls. As one of the most expensive alchemy ingredients available, and at least relatively easy to find, HotFusion decided that something had to be done about them and reduced their appearance rate from 50% to 10%. I personally disagree with this edit on the basis that his "Merchants" plugin already does enough to prevent players from earning lots of easy money early on by pearl diving.

In the end, I don't recommend using this plugin. Rather, I've used it as the basis upon which to create the "Alchemy" portion of my own mod. And as I mention rather frequently in the main readme for BTB's Game Improvements, I owe much of it to the inspiration provided by HotFusion's work.

Crime

Crime is another major issue to be addressed by Economy Adjuster. Have you ever wondered why the penalty for brutally assaulting people in broad daylight was about the cost of a loaf of bread and travel fare back to Balmora? Well, with this plugin enabled, crime is actually punished rather harshly. Why this module is so important is that it tends to make turning a profit from murder at the very least much more difficult. Where previously it wasn't uncommon to slice open a merchant and sell his entire inventory to the guy next door for massive financial gain, the penalties for doing things like that are high enough with this plugin that it just really isn't worth it anymore in most cases.

Version 1.1 of Economy Adjuster was an important update for this module, as it addressed a number of oversights in the original version. A typo in the bounty threshold for a death warrant was corrected, properly setting it to 5401. This is equal to one murder (5000-gold penalty), one assault (400-gold penalty), and one of any other crime of your choosing. It also updated all of the special "you're a criminal" NPC dialogue to be somewhat more lenient about the value of your bounty so that people no longer run cowering in fear from an accused pickpocket.

The only crime that wasn't addressed in either version of the plugin that probably should have been is trespassing (unlocking stuff, basically), which remains a wrist-slapping offense at a paltry 5 gold. For those of you who agree with me, I've once again taken matters into my own hands and addressed the issue myself. The download from this site contains an edited version of the Crime module that sets the fine for breaking and entering at a much more reasonable 1250 gold, which coincidentally is the exact same penalty that this plugin sets for pickpocketing. This provides an incentive to be as discreet with picking locks as you are with picking pockets, and oh, yes, I do believe I just made a funny.

Daedric Drops

What this portion of the mod aims to do is remove a major source of free stuff by causing Dremora Lords and Golden Saints not to be giant pinatas for kickass equipment. The loot lists for these guys are toned down, and the mod compensates for taking away the phat Daedric weaponry from these total badasses by scripting "bound" equipment to them that disappears when they die. So, they're still just as hard as ever to beat down, but the rewards for doing so are no longer more than enough to make Scrooge McDuck turn green with envy.

As great of an idea as this is, it's not entirely necessary if you're also running the Morrowind Advanced mod (shown later in this list), which does more or less the same thing. I'd recommend passing on this module and going with Morrowind Advanced, since the changes that Morrowind Advanced makes to Golden Saints and Dremora Lords are built into it as part of a much larger whole. Also, this plugin will conflict with Morrowind Advanced.

Misc

Everything else that didn't fit in any of the other modules went here. And as it turns out, "everything else" entails quite a few changes, most of which I happen to really agree with. I agree with them so much, as a matter of fact, that I've incorporated nearly all of them into my own mod. As such, BTB's Game Improvements is meant to replace this module of Economy Adjuster, just as it replaced the "Ingredients" plugin.

That being said, here's a quick rundown of the changes made by this module:

• The "barter" AI settings have been removed from Creeper and the Talking Mudcrab, removing what is easily one of its largest financial exploits.

• The contents of the chests in the Balmora Fighters' and Mages' guilds are replaced with identical but commercially worthless items. This is the only change that was not incorporated into BTB's Game Improvements.

• The value of all self-made potions has been set to 0, preventing the player from turning a massive (and easy) profit.

• The cost of fast travel has been multiplied by ten.

• The cost of training has been multiplied by five. Combined with the "Merchants" plugin, this is actually a very harsh adjustment. BTB's Game Improvements is a bit more lenient with this setting, while at the same time doing a bit more than Economy Adjuster does to prevent the player from amassing insane amounts of cash in the first place.

• Version 1.1 reduces the value of loaded (and unloaded) soul gems to one hundredth of the original amount. BTB's Game Improvements takes this change one step further, since grand soul gems are still insanely overpriced even with HotFusion's changes (and let's not even mention Azura's Star).

BTB's Game Improvements

Rule Tweak

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

One of the earliest mods to implement tweaks and rule changes to the game - that still stands in the minds of many players as one of the best - was Wakim's Game Improvements. Content with using it for quite some time, I started noticing things about it that I wanted to change. A few minor tweaks turned into a few more, and before I knew it I had a full-blown release of my own on my hands (no, not that kind of release). Yes, kids, uncle BTB has finally made a contribution to the mod community aside from writing snarky commentary on the ones he likes.

In addition to Wakim's Game Improvements, my mod also takes a good deal of its inspiration from HotFusion's above-mentioned Economy Adjuster. But unlike Economy Adjuster, which I still use and recommend using to a certain extent, BTB's Game Improvements was conceived as a complete replacement of Wakim's mod, hence its removal from this list. You may have also noticed two other mods gone missing from it: Level-Up Birthsign Remover by SpectaclesOfDoom and CalSurGuardMod by DaNang. Both have been incorporated into BTB's Game Improvements - the former as part of the mod itself, and the latter as an optional extra feature - and thus also no longer needed to be mentioned separately.

Following the lead set by both Wakim and HotFusion before me, my mod is presented as a series of modules that can be used (and will be explained) independently from one another. As for the descriptions below, they will be kept short and to the point (a rarity for me). The main readme for BTB's Game Improvements contains extensive commentary on each plugin - far too much to reprint here - and there are individual changelogs which detail all of the edits made by each of the five modules. Tribunal and Bloodmoon are needed for two of them, by the way, so just a heads-up on that one.

Character

Based on the module of the same name from Wakim's Game Improvements, this plugin edits the game's birthsigns and racial abilities, powers, stats, and starting skill bonuses. It also includes the Level-Up Birthsign Remover script by SpectaclesOfDoom, which allows the stat bonuses provided by certain birthsigns to extend past the 100-point cap. The focus of this plugin is to make all of the birthsigns more awesome and the races more distinct from one another, a goal which I hope I've accomplished. This was the very first plugin I created for this mod, and as all of the feedback I've recieved about it thus far seems to suggest, it's the flagship module of BTB's Game Improvements.

There is one change made by this plugin that deserved some special attention, however. It sets the Khajiit Eye of Night spell as a permanent ability, which reportedly causes some pretty nasty wash-out on some computers (obviously not mine, but you get the idea). So, the download also contains an alternate version of this plugin which omits that change, thus allowing people who do have such machines to enjoy all of my other changes.

Spells

This is one of the original two plugins from my mod (the other being the "Character" module), and represents a great deal more work and effort than all of the others combined. It has its roots in a handful of plugins from Wakim's mod that seemed to have no real business being split apart. What it does is edits the game's pre-made spells, spell effects, and sets more appropriate starting spells. It also overhauls the spells available exclusively to NPCs.

There's a lot more to be said, particularly about that last part - see the readme for a much more thorough explanation.

Alchemy

Inspired directly by the "Ingredients" plugin from HotFusion's Economy Adjuster, my mod attempts to take his work one step further. Not only do I edit the values of ingredients to be more appropriate, but I also adjust their weights and effects to make more sense. This involves removing effects that only appeared once and/or were pointless to begin with, all the while trying to keep things as balanced as possible.

Since this also edits ingredients from Tribunal and Bloodmoon, this is one of two plugins in my mod that requires both expansions.

Equipment

This plugin has two general purposes. The first is to drastically lower the values of the game's most expensive equipment to prevent the player from becoming richer than God from selling it, and the second is to restrict access to and/or lower the effectiveness of some of the more easily obtainable powerful equipment. This is speaking in very general terms, of course, and the readme will go into these changes in a lot more detail. Also note that this plugin removes the "barter" AI settings from Creeper and the Talking Mudcrab, just like the "Misc" plugin from Economy Adjuster does.

Oh, and since both Tribunal and Bloodmoon are also covered, this is the other plugin that requires both expansions.

Settings

This is something of a "miscellaneous" module, since it houses most of my changes that didn't seem appropriate elsewhere. The changes made by this plugin are also probably among the most controversial of my tweaks, particularly a handful of the GMST edits. Aside from (evil) GMSTs, this module also edits the game's skill progression rates, lowers the value of soul gems, and raises the value and durability of repair items.

The readme goes into more detail on this module than any of the others, due to the fact that just about every change it makes warrants an explanation. Check it out for more information on this plugin.

Service Requirements

Rule Tweak

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from TES Nexus
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Describing this mod is a bit complicated, since I'm actually having to describe two of them. The other is Wakim's Game Improvements, namely its "Faction" module, of which Service Requirements is largely an extension. The combined purpose of the two is to make guilds and factions somewhat more exclusive, thus providing a much greater sense of reward and accomplishment as you advance throughout them, not to mention in most cases giving you a reason to join up in the first place.

I'll start with Wakim's Game Improvements. Wakim took somewhat of an issue with the fact that the minimum stat requirements to join up with most factions were roughly equal to the lowest possible stats that you can start the game with, so he made it more difficult to both become a member of and to advance in rank through these fine establishments. He also changed one of the Tribunal Temple's favored attributes from Agility to Willpower, citing something about the official strategy guide being a self-contradicting piece of shit. Lastly, Wakim was by all accounts the first person to ever think to step in and stop NPCs who claim to refuse service to non-members from servicing non-members.

What Service Requirements then came along and did was flat-out put an end to these people offering their services to any bum who happened to wander in off the street. It specified that in order to obtain most services from any faction, you must first be of at least a certain rank. It basically took what Wakim's Game Improvements started and finished it - whereas Wakim's mod made it more challenging to join up with and rise up through these organizations, Service Requirements gives you reason to do so.

Where it all comes together is when the author of Service Requirements finally got the idea to merge his mod with the changes that Wakim made. There are two plugin files included in the download: the original Service Requirements plugin and a version that's been merged with the "Faction" module from Wakim's Game Improvements. Use the latter instead of the former if you want to use both sets of changes together. And in case I haven't driven the point home enough already, these two mods go together like Swedish redheads and eyepatches. So use the merged one.

There is one last issue that warrants specific note. Though this mod does make the game more challenging, one aspect of it is almost maddening. Since most of the game's spell vendors will now refuse service to you until you're of sufficient skill to be a part of their little group, you'll have to find some other way early on to get your hands on some decent spells to practice with. I recommend the "Spells" plugin from my very own BTB's Game Improvements mod (</shameless plug>), which does a lot to provide starting characters with plenty of newbie-friendly spells to play around with.

HotFusion's State-Based Hit Points

Rule Tweak

• Download from Elric Melnibone
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

State-Based (sic) Hit Points makes a small, but very important adjustment to how the game calculates your maximum health. Rather than being based on your endurance at the time of leveling up, your maximum health gains per level will be applied retroactively based on your current endurance and strength stats. In other words, your endurance can be raised at your convenience for exactly the same effect as if you had rushed it, where previously it would have resulted in a much lower maximum health. Why the game was programmed that way to begin with is beyond me.

To elaborate, the exact calculations of the mod establish the average value of your strength and endurance as your "base" health, and then applies additional health bonuses based on your endurance and level. So while strength does still play a role in determining your maximum health, that role is greatly eclipsed by the the one played by endurance. That brings me to my next point.

This mod has a secondary effect in that it lends some degree of purpose to fortifying your endurance stat. Since the helath calculation script runs in real-time, your maximum health will be immediately boosted whenever you raise your strength or endurance. This has a trade-off, however, in that attacks which drain your endurance are now much more deadly than before. Black-Heart Blight, in particular, is usually outright fatal to any but the most powerful characters. This effect is so bad, in fact, that my personal edit of the Morrowind Advanced mod - which actually makes the game more difficult - removes the endurance drain from Black-Heart Blight so that it doesn't one-shot most players.

There's also a handful of bugs with the mod's calculations that HotFusion either isn't aware of or just isn't letting us know about. They're obviously not serious enough problems to warrant disuse of the mod, but you should still know about them just the same. For your added convenience, I have also included all of the issues listed below in a separate readme file in the download from my site.

These issues are as follows:

• Advancing to level 2 provides twice the endurance-based health gain that it should. The script, which is supposed to give you endurance/10 health per level up, instead just gives you endurance/10 health per level (counting the first). It only does this after you move past level one, though.

• Stat gains provided by birthsigns will not count towards your "base" health (the average value of your strength and endurance stats) at level one. Combined with the above issue, expect to see a large health increase upon reaching level 2.

• The mod's calculation for "base" health is supposed to ignore the game's default health bonus for a high starting strength stat. However, this bonus will remain with a newly-created character throughout the game unless you go back to adjust anything at the final confirmation before your papers are stamped at the census office. Electing to alter your name, race, class, or birthsign - even if you don't actually make a change - will remove the bonus. Again, this bug only affects new characters.

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Additionally, three more issues arise if you're using this mod in conjunction with the "Character" portion of my own BTB's Game Improvements mod. This is due to the Level Up Birthsign Remover script in my mod, which State-Based Hit Points seems to have a hard time getting along with.

The additional issues are as follows:

• The "base" health for characters with The Lord birthsign (which grants an Endurance boost in my mod) will always be slightly (and inconsistently) off. The cumulative health gains per level remain correct, however.

• A level 1 character with The Lord or The Warrior birthsigns will have their maximum health incorrectly calculated to a value of 30 after either leaving the excise office or saving/reloading the game (I'm still unsure as to what exactly triggers it). This problem goes away after reaching level 2.

• Changing your birthsign too much during the character creation process (specifically to and from The Lord or The Warrior) causes something to zero out in the process, causing you to die immediately after signing your release papers. You die from filling out paperwork, basically.

Morrowind Advanced

Added Content

• Download from Elric Melnibone
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (edited plugin only)

While there's quite a bit that Morrowind Advanced actually does, its primary function is to make the game more challenging by adding more powerful variations of existing creatures to the levelled lists, as well as by dumbing down some of the loot from its toughest foes. As a result, the strongest equipment in the game is now much harder to find, so you no longer end up with mountains of the crap lying around. Secondary effects of the mod include the addition of a few new weapons and dungeons for high-leveled characters, plus the fact that you can now find more than one Daedric Right Pauldron in the entire game. Also, there's some other stuff.

Be sure that you're nabbing version 1.82 of the mod (both of my links should be pointing there). This is important, as version 1.82 sets Morrowind Advanced as an .esm master file instead of a plugin. There's still a "required" plugin that you'll need to use in addtion to the master file - this setup was simply necessary to correct the infamous "doubling" bug present in the straight-up plugin version of the mod. You still should make use of a levelled list merger if you're using any other mods that edit them (nothing else on this list does), lest you override the changes made by Morrowind Advanced with some other, crappier mod. You shouldn't have to start a new game for Morrowind Advanced to work, but you will have to have Tribunal installed.

On a final note, I had initially wanted to create a plugin for BTB's Game Improvements that added diseases to the game which were included in the dialogue and editor, but you could never actually catch. I aborted this idea for the same reason that it was never included as a bug fix in the Morrowind Patch Project: potential for conflict with other creature-editing mods. And since Morrowind Advanced just happens to be one such mod, I just edited the "required" plugin from version 1.82 to make my changes. I also removed the endurance drain from Black-Heart Blight so that users of HotFusion's State-Based Hit Points don't die instantly from it. For more details and a full list of changes, see the readme included with the edited plugin.

Dark Brotherhood Armor Replacer Expanded

Added Content

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (edited plugins only)

Dark Brotherhood Armor Replacer Expanded (henceforth referred to as "D.B.A.R.E.") replaces the game's default "deep-sea diver" Dark Brotherhood armor with a set that looks like the outfits worn by the ninjas from Mortal Kombat. I defy anyone to look at the yellow outfit - of the many different colors available to choose from - and not immediately yell, "Get over here!" at the top of their lungs. This mod also adds a few new pieces of exclusive Dark Brotherhood equipment, thus its "Added Content" tag instead of being designated as a mere graphics replacer.

This mod technically also qualifies as a rule tweak, since an alternate version of the required plugin will delay the Dark Brotherhood attacks until you've gained enough of a political reputation to warrant them. And anyone who's ever pimped out a first-level character in a suit of their armor should know just how important of a tweak that is. I previously linked to a pair of mods in this list which did little more than just that (one of them also gave crappier equipment to the lower-level assassins sent to kill you), and I feel that this mod is a worthy replacement. Bottom-rung goons are still sent out in full Dark Brotherhood gear, but I've since mostly dealt with that issue just by lowering its value in the "Equipment" module of BTB's Game Improvements. And that brings us to a bit of a problem.

This mod conflicts with BTB's Game Improvements, since it and the "Equipment" module from mine both edit the same thing. D.B.A.R.E. elects not to edit the stats of the existing Dark Brotherhood equipment at all, and the stats of the new equipment it adds seem much more in line with the game's default settings (read: ludicrously overeffective and overvalued) than with what any sane person might think up. Thus, I created a pair of compatibility plugins that not only resolve the conflict with BTB's Game Improvements, but also apply my changes to the new equipment in order to bring it in line with everything else. Refer to the included readme in the download from my site for more details.

The optional extra features of this mod include (as mentioned above) several different color choices for the new Dark Brotherhood armor (the default color is black), as well as a set of alternate plugins containing a sheatheable version of the new Hattori Hanzo Hissyo Katana it adds. The latter is still in beta testing, so I'd advise against using it. Though, if I get any requests, I'll go ahead and edit the alternate plugins to be compatible with my mod.

Tribunal is rather obviously needed to run this mod. Starting a new game isn't required for it to work, but you will probably get you a warning message if you try to apply the Delayed DB Attacks version to an existing game. It can be safely ignored, and saving/reloading should get rid of it.

Farrp's Weapon Compilation Mod

Added Content

• Download from Morrowind 4 Kids
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (Updated .esp file only)

One of Morrowind's flaws is that its equipment tends to be rather lacking in the variety department. While there are dozens upon dozens of mods out there that add weapons to the game, this is one of the select few that adds dozens upon dozens of weapons. Farrp's Weapon Compilation Mod is a massive collection of community-made pointy things all tossed together into a huge pile of pointy goodness, which is then judiciously distributed throughout the game world. Massive amounts of effort went into making sure that each and every one of these weapons were powerful, yet balanced within the confines of the game. To wit, the most expensive weapon in this mod is worth 9,000 septims, just shy of falling victim to that oh-so-popular internet meme. Judging by the size of this mod, I'd say that whoever took the time to do all of that is probably insane now.

Although it's not necessary to start a new game to make this mod work, you will need to visit the excise office in Seyda Neen to activate a certain script that makes the legendary weapons appear in the game. Or, just manually run the script via console with the following command:

StartScript "farrp_PerformLL_scr"

Removing the mod is messy, but doable if you for some reason want it gone. Farrp's Weapon Compilation Mod is fully compatible with everything else on this list, and any conflicts that do occur with other mods shouldn't be anything that a levelled list merger can't handle. Tribunal is required for the mod to work due to the scripts it uses, and this is also one of those mods that hasn't been updated since Morrowind's final release. Because of this, the plugin will generate a harmless error message when the game boots up unless you use TESTool to update its header. While the mod itself is way too large for me to host, I have posted an updated version the plugin on my site for your downloading convenience.

I've also updated the link to pont to version 2.0 of Farrp's Weapon Compilation Mod, as opposed to the original 1.0 version that's still posted on Planet Elder Scrolls. Version 2.0 adds more weapons (including bows, which were sorely lacking in the previous version) and fixes some of the problems that existed in the mod's initial release, so I strongly recommend using it instead of the original. Currently, Pseronwyrd's filespace at Morrowind 4 Kids is the only place online where version 2.0 is available - if and when this changes, I will gladly update my list.

The LGNPC Project

Added Content

• Download from Sabregirl's site (mod's homepage)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (Less Generic Tribunal)
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls (Less Generic Bloodmoon)

The Less Generic NPC Project, more commonly known as just the LGNPC Project, attempts to make the game's NPCs, well, less generic. It does so by giving them all something more interesting to say aside from "welcome to Seyda Neen! I like swords!", even going as far as to add several new quests and items that tie in with the new deeper, more immersive dialogue. It's almost enough to make me want to stop going around indiscriminately murdering people, at least not until I've talked to them beforehand.

As you can appreciate, the sheer scope and magnitude of this massive undertaking eclipses most others before it. Because of this, the LGNPC Project is presented in a modular format - one "mod" is released per town or general area of focus (like a Great House). As of this writing, about a third of the game is finished, with the rest of it not looking like it's going to get done anytime before I start collecting social security. Updates do happen on occasion, though, so be sure to check the mod's home page every once in awhile for new versions.

Speaking of updates, Less Generic Tribunal and Bloodmoon are the LGNPC modules for the expansions. They were written by Ostar (a member of the LGNPC team), and are linked to separately above because they have yet to be posted to the LGNPC Project's main site. Earlier versions of the Tribunal module had caused some issues with broken quests, which the recent update (version 1.1) aimed to fix. As of this writing, no known problems exist in either of them, so get the updates if you haven't already.

The Neverhalls

Added Content

• Download from Filefront
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls

As a general rule, I tend to strongly oppose mods that add new quests, dungeons, equipment, or even buildings to the game. Rare exceptions like Morrowind Advanced or Farrp's mod notwithstanding, these mods are a dime a dozen and almost never worth it. When they're not causing balance issues or conflicting with other mods, they're mostly boring, stupid, or seem like they were made by a 15 year-old who plays too much Final Fantasy. Often, they're all of these things. So, it would then seem somewhat peculiar that I've included such a mod on my list.

Now, I could sit here and come up with all sorts of excuses about how the dungeon it adds really is quality work that doesn't interfere with other parts of the game, seem horrendously out of place in the game world, or introduce any overpowered rewards that turn you into the living reincarnation of Chuck Norris. And these would all be perfectly valid reasons for not only why I've given the mod a position on my list, but also why The Neverhalls is currently the highest-rated Morrowind dungeon mod hosted on Planet Elder Scrolls (which, given the trash I've seen those fuckers vote up, really isn't much of a compliment). But the honest fact of the matter is simply that I'm a huge sucker for the dungeon's Oblivion-style architecture.

Siege At Fort Firemoth

Added Content

• Download from Bethesda Softworks
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls

Area Effect Arrows

Added Content

• Download from Bethesda Softworks
• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls

Healers

Miscellaneous

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Seyda Neen Fast Travel

Miscellaneous

• Download from TES Nexus
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Quieter UI Sounds

Miscellaneous

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Quieter UI Sounds reduces the volume of various sounds in the game that are otherwise jarringly loud and tend to detract from the game experience. This includes sounds made by things like putting on equipment, dropping stuff, brewing potions, using soul gems, and so on. I personally find many of these sounds to be annoying, and thus the effects of this mod are very noticeable to me. Even if you aren't as irritated by them as I am, or think that this seems like an insignificant change in theory, I still imagine that most players will still appreciate the results of Quieter UI Sounds in practice.

Quick Char

Miscellaneous

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz (with edited plugins)

To give you an idea of how annoying the opening sequence is after sitting through it for over the 9,000th time, this is my favorite mod ever. Of all the alternative chargen mods out there (there's surprisingly few of them, actually), this is the only one that allows you to cut straight through the bullshit and get right to the game. For anyone making or testing out mods, this one is absolutely vital.

Quick Char works by presenting you with the option just as a new game starts to fill out your character sheet (natch) immediately and be sent straight to Sellus Gravius near the exit of the census office, meaning that you still have the ability to do things the normal way if you're some sort of diseased fuck who gets off on suffering. All of the chargen scripts are edited to disable the tutorial mode, which in turn does away with the message boxes that pop up if you choose to head back into the census office to loot the place before leaving.

Because this mod edits every chargen script, it will conflict with Farrp's Weapon Compilation mod. Farrp's mod sets activating the door to exit the census office as a trigger to run the script it uses to insert legendary weapons into the game. And since Quick Char will override Farrp's plugin, the script will never run if the two mods are used together. Granted, you could just as easily run the script manually via the console (and save yourself a trip back to Seyda Neen if you're installing the mod on an existing character). But I'm lazy, and I'm sure that most players won't feel like doing that.

So, I removed Quick Char's edit to the final chargen script. The quick character generation will still work normally, but the tutorial mode will be still be active in the last room of the census office. The only real effect that this has, however, is that you'll be forced to talk to Sellus Gravius and receive your package before you'll be allowed to leave, which seems at least somewhat appropriate.

And if you think that's lazy of me, I even made another edited version of this plugin to automatically adjust the game's timescale - another extremely simple console command that controls how fast time passes in the game - to 1/5 of its original speed when you start a new game. You can read more about it and the Farrp compatibility edit in the readme file(s) included in the download from my site.

Morrowind Code Patch

Bug Fix

• Download from TES Nexus
• Download from Fliggerty's Forum

The Morrowind Code Patch is an external utility which edits the game's source code in order to repair what no mod previously could. Unfortunately, its creators went somewhat mad with power and liberally expanded their interpretation of "bug" to include things that they just didn't like. As a result, only about half of their changes qualify as actual bug fixes, but at least they were at least nice enough to let us choose which ones we want to use.

To install the patch, simply copy the contents of the download into the main Morrowind directory and then run the installer program. The interface is fairly self-explanatory: you can choose which of the fixes you'd like to use, and then apply them to Morrowind.exe file. A backup copy of the original Morrowind.exe file is also automatically created. The patch and its supporting files can all be deleted at this point if so desired, since the updates are now contained entirely within Morrowind.exe.

The effects of these fixes are all proudly showcased in the form of an included "demo" plugin which hasn't been updated since version 1.3 of the patch. Unfortunately for the patch, it's the fixes since version 1.3 that are the most demanding of a visual demonstration of what in the fuck they actually do. As it stands, I still have no clue what the effects of several of the latest fixes are, even after reading their (occasionaly) detailed descriptions.

I'll briefly (yes, briefly) go over each of the MCP fixes below.

Savegame Corruption Fix

One of the more important fixes, this does several things to change the way that Morrowind creates savegame files. Is addresses flaws in the previous system that could cause disappearing objects and the occasional CTD (crash to desktop) when loading. It also makes Morrowind "clean" your savegames whenever a mod is added or removed, greatly reducing issues caused by doing so.

Mercantile Fix

As I explained in my commentary for HotFusion's Economy Adjuster mod, the infamous "Mercantile Bug" isn't really a bug. It's the deliberate result of shoddy gameplay design and lazy programming, and it's effectively removed by a mod (Economy Adjuster) which corrects the gameplay issues that it was created to restrain in the first place. This "fix" is therefore entirely unnecessary.

Unarmoured Fix

This fixes a bug where your Unarmored skill has no effect unless you're wearing at least one piece of armor. Even though your armor rating will report correctly in the inventory screen when you're all naked and stuff, it remains ineffective in practice unless you put something on. I'm still waiting on a bug fix for people who think that words like "armor" should have lots of unnecessary u's in them.

Calendar Bug

One of the more prominent bugs in Morrowind is the missing month of Morning Star, which until now was something that couldn't be fixed. This fix also gives each month the correct number of days, so as to match the months of the only real-world calendar that actually matters.

Merchant Equip Fix

This fix makes merchants stop equipping really awesome things that they buy from you. While most certainly aggravating at times, and simply downright hilarious at others, one would be hard-pressed to refer to this practice as a bug. To claim that it's otherwise impossible to get the equipment back from the merchant is incorrect, as a thorough slaughtering will also get the job done, and usually with interest. Then again, I suppose that this fix might be a bit more appealing to players who don't go around compulsively murdering people like I do.

On further reflection, this does make it impossible to kill NPCs just by selling them a constant effect Exquisite Robe of Kill Self, so I guess that I will agree that this qualifies as a bug fix.

Restore/Drain Attributes Fix

This fixes a bug that prevents drained or damaged attributes from being fully restored so long as they're fortified by an enchantment, spell, or potion. Because the game doesn't see the fortification, it thinks that the fortified value is actually the base value. And since it knows what the unmodified base value is actually supposed to be, it won't let you restore the attribute past that point. In other words, without this fix, the magnitude of any fortification is the same amount that you'll be unable to restore that attribute if it gets drained or damaged unless you remove the fortification.

Interestingly, birthsign bonuses are not affected by this bug. This is because of the different way that they're applied to your character - notice that a birthsign bonus won't turn the value of an attribute white like a normal fortification does. It's quite possible that this oversight is to blame for the fact that this issue wasn't noticed or dealt with by the developers before the game shipped. Me, I blame their habitual crack use.

StreamMusic Volume Fix

This prevents the game from constantly setting the music volume to maximum level every time the StreamMusic script runs - basically, whenever the music changes. Although technically not necessary if you like leaving the music volume maximized, there's still no point in opting out of the fix.

Calm Spells Fix

The bug addressed here is that Calm Humanoid and Calm Creature spell effects will always remove their target from combat, regardless of magnitude. This is incorrect, as the effect is only intended to do that if the magnitude is sufficient to reduce to target's aggression level to zero. This issue is demonstrated in the "showcase" plugin, where the target will continually drift in and out of combat like a retarded manic depressive on crack due to the fact that these effects continually call for the StopCombat script as long as they're active. This fix stops that, effectively removing the bug.

Vampire Stats Fix

This fixes a bug where your stats are permanently increased by more than they should be when becoming a vampire while under the influence of any constant-effect "fortify attribute" enchantments. It's basically the Restore/Drain Attribute fix applied to a different situation. But unfortunately, it won't fix this problem if you already have it when the patch is applied.

Reflected Spells Fix

When "absorb" spell effects are reflected normally, they end up cancelling themselves out due to the caster and the target being one and the same. Whether or not this was intentional or merely shitty programming is anybody's guess, but I think it's safe to say that you'll be a lot more careful lobbing them around when your enemies can pull a Soviet Russia on your ass and absorb from YOU. The fix works the other way around, too, so you can also be Soviet Russia if you want. Though, if YOU are Soviet Russia, then what does Soviet Russia do to... oh, fuck, my head just exploded.

Show Transparent Clothes In The Inventory

This one is sort of an odd beast, and the description isn't very clear about what it does. It claims to allow clothes and armor with the "transparency" effect to display correctly on your character in the inventory screen. Basically, it stops the background layers from texture files (usually seen in your inventory as giant patches of black or white that shouldn't be there) from appearing. An example of this would be the giant, black crotch-flap that normally shows up when you are wearing the female version of the Imperial Chain Cuirass. There are many other examples.

This fix reportedly can cause unspecified "issues" with some graphics cards and/or drivers. Given that this isn't an entirely vital fix, the writers of the patch and I recommend that you discontinue use of this fix in the event that it causes your comptuer to go all Skynet or some shit.

Enchant Glow In Fog Fix

This fix stops glowing enchanted items from turning white in fog, dust storms, underwater, and pretty much any other environment that confuses the game's graphics engine into not knowing what colors are anymore. A technical explanation for why this bug occurs and what the patch does to fix it is provided in the readme, but I don't have a fucking clue what any of it means.

Show NPC Health Bar On Healing

With this fix, NPC health bars will display when you're healing them just as they do when you're trying to kill them. This is particularly helpful when you're trying to keep someone else alive (which, I suppose, is the only reason that you'd be healing them in the first place).

Enchanting Increases Item Value

Technically, this is only a bug fix because it makes sense that an enchanted item would be worth more than its unenchanted counterpart (unless the enchantment plays endless bagpipe music or something, in which case good luck trying to unload that motherfucker). That being said, there's a very good reason why enchanting stuff doesn't make it any more valuable by the game's default rules - it's so that you don't enchant everything you sell in order to acquire enough money over the course of the game to buy a small continent (or even a large one).

Allow Stealing From KO'ed NPCs

This is the only bug fix that addresses a bug caused by one of the official patches. It's also the only bug fix that creates another bug in the process. The fix allows you to steal from NPCs that have been knocked out, where previously you would get a 'you are in combat' message. As an unintended side effect, it also also lets you to talk to hostile NPCs if you can sneak up on them before they start trying to kill you. It's kind of a neat trick, actually.

The other potential problem with this is that it can cause issues for hand-to-hand combatants who have the "attack" and "activate" functions mapped to the same controller button. The further beating of a downed opponent becomes needlessly difficult in this case, as the victim's inventory will continue to pop up and interrupt you after each blow (not to mention that stealing is a more heinous crime in most cases than assault is). That's pretty much the main reason I avoid using this fix, the other reason being that it makes hand-to-hand fighting even more overpowered than it already was.

Spellmaking Max Magnitude Increase

More of a gameplay tweak than a bug fix, this raises the spellmaking and enchanting magnitude limits (not just spellmaking, as the name suggests) from 100 to 1000. The - albeit reasonable - justification for this is that there are many spell effects (Burden and... um... Burden) that are somewhat worthless prior to hitting triple digits. The rather obvious drawback here is that there exist many more spell effects in the game that are plenty powerful when confined to the magnitudes of mere mortals, and they become criminally apocalyptic under the anarchistic rule of this so-called "fix".

BTB's Game Improvements deals with this issue by adjusting most of the game's pre-made spells to be no longer useless, setting many of them well over the 100-point magnitude cap. More importantly, it does this without opening the floodgates for a 999-point fireball of flaming world destruction. Personally, I feel like my mod loses something when you're able to duplicate the effects of its spells on your own. I'd say to go ahead and use my mod instead of this fix, but I suppose that it would be like handing a child a nuclear weapon and then telling him that he can't play with it.

Spellmaking Max Duration Reduced

Like the above, this one really can't be described as a bug fix. While I totally agree that whoever set the spell/enchant duration cap at 1440 seconds was on drugs that are all sorts of illegal, this still isn't a bug fix. Feel free to ahead and use it anyways, since the only thing that should last longer than the new 300-second limit is me having sex with an eyepatch-wearing Swedish redhead. It's still not a fix, though.

Exhaust NPCs With Damage Fatigue

Lowering an NPC's fatigue to below zero has always caused them to collapse, which is part of why this fix is so confusing. What it really does is allow the damage and drain fatigue effects to do the same thing - previously they never could reduce fatigue past zero. At least, this is how it should work in theory. In practice, I haven't noticed it actually doing what it claims to do. Maybe I'm just retarded. Either way, I'd caution against its use simply because making NPCs easier to knock out with spells can make the game way too easy.

256 Map expansion (For Tamriel Rebuilt)

This fix is meant to make the game's map work better with mods (namely Tamriel Rebuilt, as the name implies) that add a lot of land to the game by expanding the visible map area to fit everything in. If you use such a mod, then this is the fix for you. If not, then don't use it. Pretty simple, really.

Rain/Snow Collision

This claims to make rain and snow stop falling through static objects, thus allowing you to take shelter under buildings and trees. It seems rather pointless on the basis that precipitation has no actual effect on you, and it also increases CPU load during these conditions. Also, I can't seem to get it to work as advertised, nor do I really enjoy the Morrowind.ini edits that it suggests/requires to largely increase the size and frequency of raindrops and snowflakes. I say pass on this one.

Increase Light Falloff Range

The short explanation of this fix is that it makes light fade out gradually over distance rather than stopping abruptly at the edge of its effective range. The long explanation makes no sense no matter how many times I read it, and the fix doesn't seem to have any effect whatsoever. However, this may be due to my use of the Illuminated Windows mod, which requires that Morrowind.ini be configured to use quadratic lighting instead of linear.

Bump/Reflect Map Local Lighting

Makes graphics that consist of bump or reflection maps (like glowing enchanted stuff) dependent on local lighting. Thus, the glow gets less intense as the local lighting gets dimmer. I don't really see the point, since I always assumed that glowing stuff was sort of supposed to be visible in the dark.

Over-the-Shoulder Third Person Camera

This is a fix intended for people who don't find the game to be vomit-inducing enough. Less than thirty seconds of trying it out nearly gave me a seizure and caused me to go into a violent swearing fit about how it manages to combine every aspect of bad camera work that I fucking hate about modern video games and dump them all onto the one last shining beacon of hope left in my life that is Morrowind. So, no, I don't recommend this fix.

Strength-Based Hand to Hand Damage

This allows your strength stat to affect the damage done by bare-fisted attacks, which actually makes some measure of sense (previously, it was based entirely on your Hand-to-Hand skill). The tradeoff is that it makes an overpowered skill even more powerful, setting a strength of 40 as equal to the game's original damage formula and increasing it beyond that point. At 100 strength, unarmed attacks will do two and a half times the damage that they did before, which is rather painful given the skill in question. Still, the fix makes enough sense that I'd recommend it in spite of all this.

Spellmaker Multiple Effects

This allows you to add the same spell effect more than once to custom-made spells or enchantments, presumably so that you can set them each with different parameters. It makes sense, I guess, even though I can't really imagine a situation in which I'd actually want to do something like that.

Spellmaker Area Effect Cost

This fixes the formula that the game uses to calculate the spell cost of area effects. The original linear formula allows for large area effects on powerful spells with very little added cost, which is bad for game balance and realism. The new formula is exponential and also dependent on the spell's magnitude, which in turn largely increases the cost of area effects for most spells.

Worthy of note is that using this fix also tends to make many of the spells edited by BTB's Game Improvements even more appealing due to their (large) area effect settings.

Arrow Enchanting

This allows you to enchant arrows, bolts, and throwing weapons. It seems like a sensible fix at first, at least until you realize how horribly broken it is. There's a reason that the area effect arrows added by the eponymous plugin are so underpowered, after all. While a good idea in theory, this fix in practice makes the game easier than my ex-wife.

Fortify Maximum Health

This changes the fortify health effect to increase both maximum and current health. The purpose of this is less to make the effect more useful and more to make using it no longer a death sentence, since you still lose the extra health when the effect ends.

Disable Map Smoothing

This fix makes the world map (in the menu mode screen) appear more crisp and less blurry. The documentation describes it as also making the town markers appear "chunky instead of smoothed", which makes me think more of peanut butter than it does graphics. The overall effect of this fix is pretty subjective, but I'd say that it's an improvement. And isn't my opinion the only one that really matters?

Main Menu Button Size

Supposedly, this fix doubles the allowed width of the main menu frame and buttons, but only when used in conjunction with texture replacements to support them (which, as far as I know, don't actually exist). So, yeah... moving along, then.

Display More Accurate Item Weight

This makes the in-game description for items display weight to two decimal places instead of one, which is the same level of accuracy that's shown in the editor. It's a sensible fix, particularly since some item weights actually do use that second decimal.

Disposition Fix

This prevents permanent disposition loss when speaking to an NPC under the influence of a personality fortification that would push their disposition over 100. It's the same problem that the Restore/Drain Attribute Fix and the Vampire Stats Fix both deal with, just again in a different situation.

Spell Magnitude Fix

This causes spells with variable magnitudes to have an equal chance for any of them to be used, where previously the higher ranges had a much lower probability of appearing. A spell which does 15-30 damage, for example, now has the same probability of doing anywhere between 15 and 30 damage, whereas without the fix it would almost never do above 25 or so. Definitely one of the more useful fixes.

Dispel Fix

This prevents Dispel effects from inivisibly stacking if used repeatedly, so that a 100% effect can no longer be achieved simply by repeatedly casting the spell at a lower magnitude. This is one of several fixes that has no purpose other than to prevent you from cheating, and is as such recommended.

Creature Armour Damage Fix

Again with the unnecessary u's in words that aren't even supposed to have them! This allows creatures to damage your equipment when they attack you with their bodies. I'm really not sure where they get off calling this a fix, or how they even thought it up in the first place, but I will say that it makes raising your Armorer skill over time a hell of a lot easier.

Rare Inventory Bugs Fix

I dislike how the name of this fix implies that any of the other things dealt with by this patch aren't rare and weird. Anyways, this prevents crashes when you do things that confuse the inventory, like drinking the last potion through a quickslot and then trying to click on it. Ironically, these issues are probably a lot more common than the creators of this patch might think.

NPC Potion Use AI

This fix makes NPCs take breaks in between drinking potions, as they previously would just shotgun everything they had without waiting for the first one to have any effect. It also allows them to use restore magicka potions, where previously they could only use restore health and fatigue potions.

Blind Fix

This corrects the blind effect to give the player an attack penalty instead of an attack bonus. This is the sort of fix that horrifies me simply by being necessary, as I can't even begin to imagine what other crap managed to get past Bethesda's radar if they managed to let this shitbomb fly under it.

Gloss Map Fix

I have absolutely no fucking idea. I read the description about twelve times and all I can come up with is how much I like kitties. You assholes can figure this one out for your fucking selves: I quit.

Particle Effects Fix

See previous comment.

Lighting Fixes Group

This appears to have some sort of vague-ish effect on the game's lighting. I can't really tell, either from reading the description or testing the fix myself. As I stated earlier, this may have something to do with the fact that I've edited my Morrowind.ini file to enable quadratic lighting.

Projectile Aiming Fix

This fixes the incorrect trajectories of projectiles when you aim them too far up or down. It also corrects the aiming in the 3rd person view to the point of actually being useable. Great job, Morrowind Code Pacth! I was beginning to wonder if any of your fixes were going to make sense anymore.

Waterwalk Fix

This prevents you from taking fall damage if you try to waterwalk on a body of water after falling into it. A more realistic fix would probably have made falling 500 feet into a lake cause some sort of damage outright, but I'll take what I can get at this point.

Training Price Fix

This corrects the price of training to be based on your base skill levels rather than their drained or fortified values. This is now the fourth fix that is technically just the same calculation error being corrected in a different scenario. I mean, couldn't they have just been combined or something?

Guild Guide Price Fix

This makes guild guides (travel via Guild of Mages) actually charge the prices that they claim to. The correct prices - adjusted for mercantile skill and disposition - would previously be displayed, but the base cost (read: much lower) would actually be charged. This is a rather important fix if you're running a mod like BTB's Game Improvements that increases the cost of this type of fast travel.

Timeslip's .exe Optimizer

Bug Fix

• Download from Timeslip's site
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

This is a nifty little utility which optimizes the code of the Morrowind.exe file, greatly reducing crashes to the desktop. There are a couple of adjustable settings for people who know what in the hell they're doing (which, aside from Timeslip himself, is nobody), and even he recommends just using the default ones. You're also presented with detailed changelogs after the optimizer is run, presumably to mock your lack of understanding of them. Timeslip's .exe Optimizer is at this point deleted from my hard drive with extreme prejudice.

Oh, and make sure you run this after installing the Morrowind Code Patch, otherwise the MCP won't work.

Make MW Fonts

Audio/Visual Upgrade

• Download from Planet Elder Scrolls
• Download from Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

Morrowind Graphics Extender

Audio/Visual Upgrade

• Download from Sourceforge
• View official documentation

This is pretty much the end of the line as far as my scope of support is concerned. While I will describe - in particularly lengthy detail - what the Morrowind Graphics Extender is and what it does, there's absolutely no way that I'm going to subject myself to the pain and suffering of trying to help people use it (or, in some cases, even begin to understand it). That's what the official forums are for.

First of all, you'll need a couple of things before you even begin using MGE (as it's more commonly known). You'll need .net 2.0 if you don't already have it, as well as a DirectX update that you likely don't have unless you've been pimping out your rig to run some other ridiculously demanding game. You'll also need Visual C++ 2008, though not having it installed doesn't seem to have the negative consequences (read: MGE no worky) that lacking the other two does. Given my overall knowledge of MGE's inner workings, however, you may want to take that statement with about a quart of salt.

MGE is, to put it simply, an external utility that allows Morrowind to achieve graphical feats of which it was previously incapable. One of its most popular features is "distant land", which allows static objects like buildings and trees to be visible beyond the normal view radius. Combined with the ability to disable or push back the in-game fog, you'll be able to see much farther than before.

This has two side effects, one of which was probably unintended. First, it eats up a lot of processing power, easily setting Morrowind on par with today's most technologically demanding games. Two, and less-commonly brought up, you begin to realize just how small Morrowind really is. If you never noticed before, you will when you step off the boat at Seyda Neen and can see Vivec in the distance.

It's for that last reason in particular that I'm not really impressed by the screenshots that show over half of Vvardenfell visible from the cantons of Vivec. I don't know about the jackoffs who those pics were meant to appeal to, but I want something that will enhance my gaming experience, not cripple it. To this end, my recommendation is to keep the fog on and to keep the number of cells set to display distant lands low - 4 or 5 at the most is plenty, and the closer ones should be lower still. This gives you the benefit of being able to realistically see large objects in the distance, but without sacrificing atmosphere or dropping your FPS rate into the single digits.

Another concern is that the game's graphical flaws are made increasingly more noticeable by all of this. Distant loading, in particular, is still an issue. "Drawing" is just merely replaced with objects popping up out of nowhere, which is just as annoying, if not worse. I suggest setting the draw distance to one cell beyond the maximum fog distance (I use 4 and 3, respectively), thus eliminating any drawing issues. The CPU power I save by keeping these values low is then spent by lowering the minimum size for distant statics to 100, and set the nearest distant lands to display them (the next furthest out goes up to 300, and then 500). This does away with objects popping up out of nowhere.

Also, when running the distant land generator (this is required to create the graphics used for distant statics and must be run before you can alter any of the distant land settings), be sure to set the quality at "very high" or "ultra high" if you think your computer can handle it. Any lower than that in my experience shows distant land doing strange things when changing altitude. For a good in-game example of this, take a walk from Seyda Neen to Pelagiad and watch what the distant land does when you're walking over the hill leading into the Ascadian Isles region.

MGE has several other settings and features, as well. You'll need to specify a number of graphics card settings in the other tabs, you can set the game's resolution to any custom value you want (vital for widescreen owners like myself), and you can disable the game's intro movie (thus saving precious seconds of your life). There's also a macro editor which allows you to remap any key to another key, specific console command, or preset function (such as toggling the 1st-person crosshairs on and off or taking a screenshot). Taking a screenshit is actually one of the more important functions of the macro editor, if only because MGE's driver disables the conventional method of doing so.

One last thing that needs to be mentioned is the relation of MGE to MWSE, or "Morrowind Script Extender". MWSE is a utility which adds more script functionality to the game, thus allowing for mroe robust and otherwise-impossible mods to be written (at the moment, the only MWSE-dependent mods I use are Fliggerty's Dialogue Closer of Doom and Arrow De-Nocker). To make things a hell of a lot easier, MGE contains an internal version of MWSE, so there's no need to download the latter since using the former automatically allows you to use any mod dependent on it.

And that's about it. I hope you've enjoyed the list, and I hope you enjoy the game. If there's something that you want to let me know about, feel free to write me at btb@abusemynipples.biz, and I'll be glad to talk to you. Especially if you're an attractive Swedish redhead.

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