.... when directors make movies, it takes millions of dollars, thousands of hours, and so much coordinating and positioning, and hiring actors, scouting locations, and getting props, writing down a script, etc etc. A movie is nothing more than a piece of artwork in motion. Which is exactly what Morrowind is; a piece of artwork you delve yourself into. You become it. You feel it. You being to see all those faces around Balmora, knowing each persons name before your crosshair even touches them, bringing up their name. You begin to see, in your mind, the day-to-day basis these NPCs, these PEOPLE made of strings of code and tangents of zeroes and ones, and you begin to love them, remember them forever. Much like you can quote a favorite movie, so can you quote a favorite dialogue response from an NPC, or a quest that you hardly made it through, being saved only by that one last health potion and being able to run out of the dungeon with the loot. So much like a world you can envision yourself within.
When I play Morrowind, I get a mystic feel in my mind. Like I know whats going to happen, as I've played the game for years, but a part of me tries to block the remembrance out, to be mystified and enamored with what I see around the next turn on the road north of Caldera, or in that murky ancestral tomb. I feel like the Telvanni towers are growing out of my own imagination, and every time I look up at the sun high in the skies over Vvardenfell, I feel like I am right up there with it, admiring the thick brush of the Bitter Coast, gazing over the gentle hills of the Grazelands, and loosing myself amongst the ash in the Ashlands. Much as a I know you feel when you see the timber houses of Solstheim enveloped in this snowy haze, the feeling of the Nords' pride running through your heart as you roam the icy wastes in search of a cure for Lycanthropy. Or as you feel when you hear your favorite song on the soundtrack come on while you're deep within the heart of Dagoth Ur itself, feeling like you can hear your own footsteps echoing off the Dwemer metal, feel your hand gripping that Daedric Katana. And that's why you made your art. You feel your imagination grow with each texture you make, each part of this world of Morrowind, one which resides in your mind to forever take credence over your own imagination, your own little world to escape to and dream for hours and hours, and you make this world seem so much more alive. So much more cultural and foreboding and eerie and magical and living, BREATHING. You take a part of your own soul and put it into the game world for everyone to remember you by. So everyone can say 'I'm living in connarys fantasies, and I am, in turn becoming part of these fantasies.'It's what makes Morrowind what it is. An escape. A canvas. A blank slate. A lifestyle.
And much like movie directors and producers, they make their art into a living form [...]
Wow..... that's one of the most expressive things I've read on a message board, or probably anywhere else online, in a long time.
Because you're totally right. Playing Morrowind (or any video game, I guess, but especially one as unique & stylistic as MW) is kinda like stepping into a movie, or into a piece of art.
It's also stepping into the imaginations of countless numbers of people .. all the developers, conceptual artists etc at Bethesda, and also of course all the (hundreds) of people who've spent hours & hours creating the dozens & dozens of mods most of us here are likely using in game at any one time.
It's actually kinda humbling if you think about it ..... Every time I load up the game and go to Balmora, or Ald 'Ruhn, or Vivec or wherever, and look around, I'm actually seeing &
experiencing the cummulative result of an amazing amount of creativity & work by an amazing number of different people.
So umm, anyway ... what MA said:
All i can say to you is do whats in your heart and the community will be 100% behind you. I know i will.
Its not said often enough on these forums, but thank you. Thank you for your work, thank you for opening up new levels of morrowind texturing. Thank you for taking the time to make the textures.
» Fri May 27, 2011 12:25 pm 
) 
). There is nothing to stop a virtual thief from stealing one's work, whatever you do, that's the base line. If one is afraid that will happen, he/she shouldn't start modding in the first place - because it will probably happen regardless any measures will be taken (always consider the worst).
