Hi everyone,

I last played Morrowind many years ago.

To be honest, I spent more time modding it than I ever played it. Never even noticed a Mainquest, but I had some really fancy robes.

Anyways, I plan on installing the game on my Desktop gaming pc and my Laptop. The Desktop has a core i5 3570k, 16gigs of RAM, a Evo830 SSD and a GTX970. The Laptop is a Thinkpad x200s, a ~2010 Core2Duo machine with integrated graphics, 4 gigs of RAM and a Evo 840 SSD. I plan to do a performance-conservative installation on the Laptop. The Desktop will get the same installation plus all the bells and whistles I can find (I think it should be able to handle pretty much anything I can throw at it as far as Morrowind goes?).

For now, I mostly need help getting a "gameplay improvements" mod setup together on the Laptop. Is there any up do date guide I can use? I checked the stickies. Alternatively, maybe you guys can help me create a (mostly) stable and (mostly) bug-free setup? I did some pretty mod-heavy Oblivion/Skyrim/FO3/NV installations before, so I suppose some of the basics should be familiar to me. I also know how devilishly hard it can be to achieve a stable game. I would love to use body/head replacements if there are any FPS-friendly ones.

Apart from that, I am mainly concerned about getting Morrowind as alive and non-generic as possible. I remember that cities, for example, tended to feel somewhat empty/dead and most NPCs felt more like generic information terminals. I'd also like to enhance (but not radically change) the games content. More quests, new lands and so on are always welcome. Finally, if there are clear improvements to thing like the AI, stealth mechanics and so on available, I'd happily include them.

Some mods I have in mind so far are:

-> Morrowind Code Overhaul + Morrowind Patch Project.

-> Morrowind comes alive, Less generic NPCs, Less generic

-> delayed dark brotherhood attacks

-> Tamriel rebuilt (no idea if this is viable / complicated)

-> Better bodies / Better heads

-> Move or Take My Place

Optional (because mentioned on a reddit Top 10 list of Morrowind mods:)

-> Sotha Sil Expanded

-> Main quest enhancers

-> BTB's game improvements and/or MGSO (not sure about these, please advise...)

Anyways, does this look viable? Reasonably compatible? Am I missing obvious game enhancing choices / great quests / anything?

You say you've read the stickies. Did you see Pluto's "Mod Recommendations for New Players" thread? That's probably got links to the main guides currently out there.

For simplicity I'd say start with MGSO as that'll take care of graphics and sound in one fell swoop. Make sure you read the thread as it's a few years old now and needs some fixes and some of the utilities need to be updated.

With that done you can look at content mods.

Of the ones you've listed they're all solid.

BTB's Game Improvements isn't an alternative to MGSO, that focuses on the game rather than teh pretties.

Starfire's NPC Additions is an alternative or addition to MCA, both have the same goal. Be warned, though, that adding NPCs can give your framerate a whack. Pretty much new NPCs and lots of objects / polygons on screen seems to be the thing which most affects FPS.

Have a look around for threads started by Darkelfguy, he's done some wonderful mod showcase videos (split by category).

For bodies I'd say Better Bodies (someone recently converted Robert's bodes to Morrowind but BB has been the standard for so long there's so much more content for those).

New head models won't really affect FPS. I'd say go with Tarnsman's THE Morrowind NPC Makeover (THE Facepack Compilation) as it's huge and includes a bunch of nice tweaks. Mackom recently released some completely new heads, which are lovely, due to the way they made them though they're not that compatible.

Another source of ideas is the Most Endorsed Mods of All Time on Nexus. Some left field ones there but gives you an idea of what other people like.