Every year or so (give or take a few months or a year here and there) I like to do a poll to see how you guys utilize third party applications in your game. I find it fascinating how it changes over time and how people accept these applications as they begin to offer more features and more mods are made with them.

So the question is simple: which of these do you use in an active game?

Also, an elaboration on the nature of your use is welcome. While this year's poll is far more complex than previous ones, I don't think I can account for each combination available.


For those who may not be entirely familiar with the acronyms, here is the explanation:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=utilities.detail&id=8 -- Morrowind Enhanced
The earliest of the third party applications, made by Aerelorn. It is utilized by mods such as Combat Enhanced, Blocking Enhanced, Writing Enhanced, Oblivion-Style Spellcasting, and more. The link here goes to the dev kit, which actually includes v1.6, the latest version of the program. It is considered by many to be inherently unstable; however many of the mods it makes possible cannot be duplicated with other utilities.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mwse/ -- Morrowind Script Extender
An external program that adds extra script functions to the game of Morrowind. This allows for the creation of plugins that are impossible or at least very difficult while running the game alone. At this point there are several dozen mods made for it, offering a wide variety of new features and game behavior.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/morrgraphext/ -- Morrowind Graphics Extender
MGE is a project that wraps the various DirectX dlls used by Morrowind. Despite it's name, it wraps the input and sound dlls as well as graphics. It also interfaces with MWSE to make even more functions available to modders. It enables features such as distant land, bloom, hdr, and many more.

http://www.fliggerty.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1008 -- Morrowind Code Patch
This is considered by many to be the indispensable bug fix utility. It actually patches the exe file to address many bugs in the engine, as well as add/modify some features. All changes made are optional. It does not run in the background, but rather is something that you only need to run once.

Voted "Not Sure" for the last question. If you can add an option for "Ah, but I do use MWE, MWSE, and/or MGE" then I'll change it to that.

Oh, you can't avoid answering just one question? I haven't used this new forum's poll feature before. I added a "Not Applicable" option.

I won't ever stop using MWE until there's a journal mod like Journal Enhanced for it. There's simply no better way to keep me in all of my different characters mindsets and play styles.

That said, I've gone to MGE's vs of MWSE for the moment. Still playing from a netbook, I'm lucky to get MGE working at all let alone all the rest, had a big problem with MCP for a while it wasn't liking me not being able to use a CD on this machine but that problem seems fixed. Still 90% of MWSE functionality is lost on me atm since the netbook can't handle it

I want my computer back.

I use MWSE and MCP. Dont use the other two.

I use MWSE, MWE, MGE, and MCP. Incidently, I get a small but noticable boost to fps by using MWSE and not the internal version of that in MGE, I really have no idea why this is.(perhaps the programming is more efficiently handled as separate processes when compared to just one?)

Since getting my desktop nearly two years ago and developing my current install, I've been using MGE for both distant land and the very convenient built-in MWSE. Very nice to not have to worry about launching MWSE separately, and I've never had any issues with it. That said, the three MWSE mods I had in my install were removed a few months ago when I was retrying Morrowind under WINE (I dual-boot, and forgot that I'd have to exclude MWSE mods under WINE). I never put them back because I haven't played much during those months, sadly. I'm trying to get back to it.

I don't let MWSE dissuade me from trying any mod, but I won't necessarily add it to my main install. That goes for non-MWSE mods too, though.

MWE mods are out for me. Before I was playing on this desktop, I was using my old laptop that couldn't run MGE. Before that, way back, I was playing Morrowind on our now-old family desktop. I tried MWE mods back then and had a lot of save game corruption, a lot of weird crashes, and such. I didn't have all the knowledge or tools I have now that might have saved the character or at least the install, so in the end I started clean without mods and stayed vanilla for a while. Not until I was on my laptop did I trust mods again (and good thing, too!), but I've never gotten over the fear of MWE. I wish I could use it for Journal Enhanced, though =/.

The Morrowind Code Patch is a godsend and absolutely essential. I don't use every single adjustment, but that's why they are optional. A few don't apply (like double-width buttons) and a few are undesirable for me (like strength based hand-to-hand, given that it made my last high level character die in two hits to werewolves), but almost all the rest are in use.

Hi Fliggerty - I started to use the poll but then stopped - I'm not sure you have the question correct at the end

You ask if the right mod was created would you use MGE, MWSE or MWE

A yes answer won't tell you if the voter is saying yes they would use all of the above or one or more of the above

I've tried modifications of MGE - assuming shaders are modifications - but have not been interested in MWSE or MWE, but the poll won't reflect my answer?

I'm slowly seeing more people making things for MWSE.

mwse makes my game CTD when i load a save game, so just MGE & MCP, though i used to use mwse on my old computer though it was so old (11 yrs) it didn't run MW very well.

I use MWE (Yay! for both Writing Enhanced and Journal Enhanced; I simply could not imagine playing without both of them...), MGE w/ internal MWSE enabled (though I have used the standalone MWSE in the past), and MCP. I do find if I run certain MWSE dependent mods, my FPS drops down to Balmora-esque levels, so I try to keep them to an essential few. (I may never get over having to un-install Arrow De-nocker.)

I put down that I use MWE--which I do, when I can (as with theskymoves, for Journal Enhanced)--but often I find that it crashes my game...so lately I've been playing without it.

Using MGE with MWSE built into it, and the Morrowind Code Patch. I'd be surprised if there are any people who still don't use the MCP. Or at least, not after checking it out after finding this thread if they hadn't heard of it before.

Unless it's incompatible with certain MW releases.

Woot to both my Journal Enhanced brethren! I don't know how others play without it myself :foodndrink:

I used to have MWE loaded for Combat Enhanced, but then my game became a crashfest, so I had to remove it.
Currently, I use MGE with the internal MWSE and MCP. At first, I tried to avoid MWSE mods thinking it would make the game more unstable, but after trying a few, it proved to be quite stable.

Flig, you need a 'None' or 'Not Applicable' for each question.
This way will only let you give positive results! ;O

Yeah, the "do not" option isn't applicable with 1 and 2, so the vote is void.

Good point, I've added those options. I'm used to my site where you don't HAVE to put an answer on all of them to vote for any. :hehe:

I use MGE and MCP... although my game has started crashing on load unless I disable MGE. Nothing that I know of changed, but one day it worked, next day it don't. I may just stop using it, because it seems almost more trouble than it's worth.

I do love to stand and jump straight up using Icarian flight just for the view with distant land and motion effects, though.

Have yet to find a must have MWSE mod - now that I have a worthy computer to run MGE I guess I might give them a go

To be honest I would prefer to have a single utility that included MGE, MCP, Mash, MLOX, the 4GB patch and MWSE all in one easy to use package - can you build one of those Flig?

Nice poll! MGE (plus it's internal version of MWSE) and MCP are the only two mods I use, aside from Tamriel Rebuilt.

I use everything but MGE. It makes my computer lag to hell and gone, even with no mods active. I can use the rest (and FPS Optimizer) all at once with a ton of mods and not get the lag for some reason.

Q1: I use MGE and MCP.

Q2: I use MGE when using a mod that requires MWSE, it gives me the ability to change other setting to make MW look better.

Q3: Yes i would, as a matter of fact that is what happened with my current character. I found your Mod Arrow de-nocker and i really believe that it is a essential mod for a character using marksman.

I have used them all, several versions over the years. I had high hopes for MWE and used a few of the MWE mods you made, Fligg. As soon as I found out it was MWE causing my savegames to stop working, I ditched it and them. Currently, I use MCP, MPP, and MGE with internal MWSE.

For a time there were two mods which I felt were must haves, but they conflicted because one *required* the newest version of MWSE (which hadn't yet been included in MGE) and the other *required* the built-in version of MWSE in MGE. The two mods were a sneak mod that allowed you to just press the key and stay sneaking (req MGE's MSWE) and the other was a multimark/companion teleportation mod (req standaloneMWSE).

Since then, the problem has been fixed twice over. The constant sneak function has been added to MGE and the internal MWSE was updated; also the teleport mod was updated to be compatible with MGE's MWSE. In case you're wondering, until the fixes came out, I disabled the internal MWSE and went with the teleportaion mod. The end result was that I ran both MGE and MWSE side-by-side and had no problems. I would do it again if the need arose.

There are two things I'm curious about though. Have the most recent updates to all the 3PP made MWE any more stable?

I run MWSE and MCP. I occasionally run MGE (rev 118 or 161), but more often GEM/Voodoo.


I don't think that's possible, MWE does some stuff to saves that eventually breaks them.