Hello. Not exactly a noob here, though it's been years since the last time I played Morrowind. I just installed Morrowind (first time on this particular computer) and grabbed the "official" mods. Now I want to install more mods... and there's just a huge number out there, too many to do a proper job of it having been out of the scene for so long. So I thought I'd ask for recommendations.

My goal is to make Morrowind look prettier and function better without fundamentally altering any aspect of the gameplay. I'm also wary of alterations of the executable; I just don't want to have to monkey around with having to reinstall because my game was broken.... but I'm willing to try, if you guys think it's safe.

Years ago, I ran with a number of visual enhancers. These included Better Bodies, some face replacer mods, some kind of lighting mod (Darker Morrowind?), and I'm pretty sure I was running something that completely retextured the landscape or something like that. I don't recall what they all were. Has anybody put together an "omnibus" mod that combines the best of these into a single stable package?

Secondly, big packages:

MPP: I pretty sure I ran the UMP years ago, which I understand became the MPP. But I've also seen some things that suggest that the purpose of the project has drifted from simply fixing bugs to attempts at game balance alteration... which I am not interested in. Or maybe that was another big patch project; I'm not sure.

Morrowind Graphics Extender: it scares me, and I understand a number of people have had bad experiences with it. I don't really need an improvement to the raw graphics (just that the modding community has some better artists than Bethesda had back then)... but what's the general opinion on this?

Morrowind Overhaul: This is more a "let's make the whole game better" type thing than a simple graphics enhancement, right? Changes to gameplay and stuff? And it seems to rely on something like the MGE. Is this correct?

Morrowind Code Patch: Another scary one, as it alters the executable. There's some stuff in there that looks kind of cool... but is it worth it?

Finally, content additions. Right now, I'm really not looking for additions of quest lines and such (certainly not looking for additional landmasses)... but has anybody done particularly good work extending what I'm going to call "stub" quests? I'm talking about things like the Twin Lamps and such, factions and questlines that look like something Beth started working on but didn't have a chance to finish. I'm looking for work that is so good and unobtrusive that, were my memory foggier than it generally is and someone else put it in there for me, I wouldn't be able to tell if it was original content or a mod.

Addendum: I will be playing while I wait for answers. So anything recommended cannot break my savegame.

see if there is anything of interest http://arcimaestroantares.webs.com/mymods.htm and http://arcimaestroantares.webs.com/suggestedmods.htm

Thought you might want to know that the Better Clothes and Slof's Better Beasts links are broken.

Here is a great place to get good info on all the recommended mods:

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

Since you were looking for something related to TL,

Juniper's Twin Lamps: As far as I'm concerned, this is THE twin lamps mod. In spite of its age, it provides multiple ways to proceed through the main quest (giving you the chance to completely ban the slavery on Vvardenfell, if you wish so), choices with appropriate consequences and not the usual fetch quests which are unfortunately so common in vanilla Morrowind.

Then, if you plan to play as a Telvanni, these two are pretty much mandatory:

Rise of House Telvanni and Uvirith's Legacy: the first one adds 20-something quests when you become Archmagister, providing lots of choices with sometimes world-altering consequences The second one *dramatically* enhances the Telvanni stronghold, adding tons of quests (again, it often allows you to make choices on how to proceed). Unfortunately, RoHT and Juniper's Twin Lamps are "conceptually" incompatible if you play them together, since for instance you could find yourself in a situation where you have banned slavery with TL, yet you're still dealing with twin lamps in RoHT as if nothing had happened.

Other recommendations:

Havish: best thief quests I've ever seen in pretty much any RPG I've played, the original Morrowind thief questline absolutely pales in comparison. Not to mention it's strongly inspired by Daggerfall (and it shows, especially in the layout of the main city), and that's a huge plus for me.

Lothavor's Legacy: story based mod with a huge focus on NPC interaction and extensive branching dialogue trees for each one of the six NPCs you meet (they all have their own, random, schedule and interactions - for instance, they react if you get too near when they're sleeping).

LGNPC series: gives many of the uninteresting NPCs you find in the cities a personality (therefore giving you a reason to talk to them), as well as adding many well-done quests. LGNPC Pax Redoran completely overhauls the Redoran faction.

Tamriel Rebuilt: the first map has more than 100 quests, many of them with multiple paths to completion.

Archipel de Pertevue: if you can read french and spend some time to make the plugin compatible with the english version, this mod is an absolute must. It adds something like 200 quests, multiple conflicting factions, a whole town you can build and then manage with lots of inventive quests (for instance, in one of those quests, if you make a stupid decision you have to stand a trial!) and many jaw-dropping scripted effects (a ship sinking in real time)

Iredior Conspiracies: this is a beta of a mod which unfortunately was never finished, but it's truly a hidden gem: it adds a HUGE city, multiple new factions, many inventive quests which often allows you to make choices with big consequences (for instance, there's this quest where, if you are a member of a faction and you make a particular choice, you can have the Mages Guild banned from the city - then there's the whole political main questline dealing with the assassinations attempt on the king which allows you to take sides). As I said, though, the module isn't finished, is buggy and many of the quests can't be completed unless you're willing to use the console.

This, of course, isn't a comprehensive list of quest mods, since there are many other good ones - I'd advise you to search on Fileplanet and/or on Morrowind Nexus (that's how I found Iredior, for instance).

On the UMP/MPP: The author of the MPP has stated that it is probably best that everyone go back to the latest version of the UMP, which is 1.6.3b if you have the expansions, 1.2.2b if not. As the current author, I can tell you that all versions have something or another wrong, but the latest UMP doesn't break anything that I am aware of. Note that I have not yet published anything to continue this project.

As a primary tester of the Morrowind Code Patch (MCP), I can assure you that it's safe. It makes a backup of the .exe, and you can always make one yourself (which you should anyway). You can apply and remove any part of the patch at any time, provided you don't further alter the executable. Some things are optional, and most of those are off by default, but there are plenty of things fixed that can be fixed (truly fixed, like unarmored working without armor) by no other means, and it helps with game stability. If anything, you should take this at the very least, and be sure to read everything in the documentation and the patch launcher. A few mods may also require changes made by the MCP.

You may also consider http://morrowind.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=36873, as it greatly improves dialogue and book/journal clarity at higher resolutions.

As for Morrowind Graphics Extender, it seems to not agree with everyone, but I've had no problems. MGE doesn't affect the 'raw graphics' as you put it, by which I'm guessing you mean things like texture packs. Shaders do change the way things look, but it doesn't actually replace anything as traditional graphics mods do. You don't have to use extreme settings; you don't have to use increased view distance or distant statics at all, but the new water at the very least is a huge improvement. Shaders can really make the game look nice, but they can easily bring your game to a crawl. You can have grass like Oblivion and Skyrim too, if you can handle it. MGE XE, has shadows and cleaner coding. I recommend it; the shadows really make the world feel alive. There are plenty of people in the dedicated threads that can help if it doesn't work. Not all MGE mods and shaders work with XE however, but it has its own shaders and some HUD mods are available.

Note that the MCP and newer versions of MGE, including XE, requires MW 1.6.1820.

Morrowind Overhaul is a mult-part project. One is graphics and sound, the other is gameplay and is not yet finished. I've not used it, but the graphics and sound portion is very popular, as it compiles many of the replacers available and simplifies their installation. The MCP is included as well, as is MGE, and I think it's all optional as well. Note that some graphics mods may require the MCP to allow for some things to render. Again, there is a thread where people are likely to offer help.

I can't offer much in the way of quest recommendations since most of my time playing has been vanilla in hopes of continuing the UMP. There are for sure some mods that allow you to join the Twin Lamps, but I can't vouch for them. There hasn't been a whole lot of quest expansions that I know of for existing quests and joinable factions outside of the Great Houses, and even then, Telvanni seems to have gotten the most attention. Immediately I can think of some involving Sharn and Galbedir of the Balmora Mages Guild. Your best bet would be to search for quest mods.

Tamriel Rebuilt, while a landmass – and a huge one at that – is adding the mainland and trying to be as lore-friendly as possible. Many quests, but their policy is not to touch the original game content.

Edit for typo.

Hope this helps: http://www.automatichamster.com/keening/topten.shtml

Also, in case no one has linked you to Overhaul, there's a link at the bottom of that page.

Juniper's Twin Lamps looks very interesting. Does it play nice with the vanilla Morrowind questlines? Does it hew to the overall "style" of Morrowind?

Yes and yes. Actually, quality-wise, its quest are quite a lot better than most vanilla ones.

Well crap. Tried installing the Overhaul. It gave me an "out of memory" message while I was running the installer, which I directed it to ignore. Seemed to successfully finish installation. Then I tried to run Morrowind, and it complained that MGE wasn't configured. MGEgui promptly crashes the moment I attempt to execute it. Probably going to have to completely uninstall and wipe it clean.

Assuming that's what I end up doing (you guys don't have any other ideas), when I do so, should I install the official mods and the Twin Lamps mod before or after installing the Overhaul?

This happened to me the first time I tried it. Are you running the GUI as admin? Try running it both ways. Also you could reinstall MGE outside of MGSO using the latest non-XE version.

FWIW, remember that MGSO is a compilation. IIRC, its homepage also lists the individual mods. So in a next to worst case scenario, you could download the mods in that list and install them individually. A hassle for sure, but...

And there is an official MGSO thread on this board where your question might get answered quicker and in greater detail

Well, the Out of Memory error, unless it somehow caused the problem with MGE, doesn't seem to have been a problem. But the Overhaul was exactly what I was looking for; Morrowind looks great! I've got that, Juniper's Twin Lamps, and all the official plugins except Bitter Coast Sounds, which seems like it would be redundant with all the sounds added by the Overhaul.

One oddity is how incredibly loud Balmora is at night. There seems to be a constant howling (pretty creepy sound, actually) wind... though that may have just been the weather these past few nights. And though Balmora's size is scaled down to "video game" scale relative to how large one would expect such a community to be, with the barking dogs, screeching cats, occasional rodent sounds, distant muffled shouting (like people calling out to each other in the distance), Balmora sounds as big as it should be. It's pretty cool, actually.