Hi all,

I just wanted to get a general idea of how people, especially experienced modders, go about selecting the mods they'll use?

'Cause I have a slight problem. I'm a mod addict. I've been collecting them for the better part of the decade since Morrowind came out and now I'm just... AHHH! :ahhh: I hit that 254 mod limit easily, and use maybe 1/5 of the mods I have, plus I'm finding more every day. (My Morrowind Mods folder stats: 35.3GB... 118,399 files... granted several thousand of those are extracted files from zips.)

So how do you get the most out of your modding experience without junking up the mod list?

I merge them with smartmerger and before I used smartmerger I manually merged them if they only added things without changing anything I merged to master with the CS
Actually Eternum it's kinda funny that you have 35.3 gigs of mods cause I was just looking over my mods and my Modder Database is 46.8 gigs and I was about to delete some cause I will never use most of them
Or you could merge them with a purpose like all the mods that are good for a thief character get merged into one mod and so on that way you can activate mods based on what kind of character you are I did that for awhile but I went back to merging the vital mods together into one esp that I named Morrowind addon.esp

But then again that's just how I do it since I'm a perfectionist I edit filenames, texture paths and folder placement Then I construct a BSA and update my Ini cause I hate the mess my textures and meshes folder look like when I'm done applying mods.

My personal criteria are:

• Do the benefits of this mod outweigh the cons?
  
• Is it lore-friendly?
  
• Does it feel like it belongs in the game / blends well with the experience?
  
• Is it free of technical defects, and if not, how much effort would have to be spent fixing them? Is it worth it?
  
• Does it invalidate, majorly conflict with, or render redundant another mod? Can this be used to shorten my load list?

Sounds simple, but you'd be surprised how much this criteria can cull down your load list. My criteria are usually pretty strict as it's taken me a long time to get things working as well I have them.

I think the most important advice I could give would be to have a clear vision of what kind of game you want Morrowind to be, and let that guide your modding decisions, instead of letting your mods dictate what your game ends up becoming. If it doesn't contribute to your vision, throw it out.

I'll try to post my complete load list on my blog soon (link in sig).

This might sound like a simple approach but for me all I look for are;

The more the merrier!

Will it be fun and memorable for me to play with?
Will it add something that I would miss otherwise?

Never been interested in if it's lore correct or fits in. As long as it's well made, interesting and is fun I'm happy. Mlox has been a wonder for solving compatability issues. There's been a number of mods that I looked at and at first thought I wouldn't enjoy, on trying them I loved them and now have to combine multiple mods into little packs to fit within the mod run limit.

Look at it this way also. All those mods that you have collected. It's more than likely that over time some of the original hosting locations will vanish so if there's a maintained archive that exists that people can update with hard to find or otherwise lost mods then all the better for everyone. Morrowind Modding History is likely to be that home for many years to come. Long story short - don't go deleting all the mods you have amassed.

I tend to add a mod, complete it then delete it. i.e. Suran Underworld + The Underworld - both great but once you're done with them there is much else to do.

The ever-staying mods for me are the hi-res retextures, better bodies, better heads, better clothes and anything else that makes it visually better.

BUT....as missiri says, merging the ones you like is a great idea if you want millions of the things and keeping only the ones that actually fit in with the game is also a good move.

There are lots of mods that add crazy stuff and crazy retextures that just dont match what you would consider to be the world of Morrowind so they really last about 5 minutes for me. If I wanted to give the NPC's digital watches I would do it myself rofl....

Have fun!