Hello,

I wanted to ask you about your opinions on mods like Animated Morrowind, Morrowind comes alive, Starfire's npc additions etc. I mean I can read their descriptions, but I wanted to know your personal opinions on the mods, or if there are any more mods like these.

So far, I'm using Animater Morrowind I + II + Expanded, which add hand-picked NPCs (I mean not via leveled lists) at given places and give them new animations (readers, smiths working on sword etc.)

From what I know, MCA and Starfire's mods add NPCs via leveled lists. I haven't tried any of these two yet. I also read that they should be compatible (at least AM + MCA and MCA + Starfire's, not sure about AM + Starfire's). Of course, I'm a bit worried that with more of these mods than just one, the world will look a bit overcrowded.

So what are your hints about each of these mods? Do you use some of them together?

Thanks in advance, I'll appreciate your opinions

Anything that adds NPCs reduces Frame Rates. Since machines today have more processing power, this is not as big an issue as it was 5 years ago. But, I do remember significant frame rate drops when using these mods in places like Balmora and Vivec.

MCA mostly gives the existing NPCs a schedule so that is fairly low impact. As for animation mods, most of the time pick one or the other, not both. It all depends on what the mods modify and you don't want one NPC to have two different animation mods fighting for control of movement.

You can just use your test character save (the one you made with no mods installed) and load up the mods, test them in Balmora and Vivec to see the performance impact before you load them on your main characters. The last thing you want to do is add a NPC mod, then remove it, then put it back on a character.

From my experience, Starfire's mod blends into the game better than MCA. The NPCs it adds wear familiar garb, are all named which can make them stand out less. But it doesn't have so many features, especially for hostile encounters. I think I've tried combining them, but I'm not sure how well they work together. I imagine they work just fine together except for potentially decimating your frame rate because they both function by placing new spawn points.

Well, Starfire says they work just fine together: "This mod was designed as a standalone NPC adder but is completely compatable with MCA."

So it really depends on what you're looking for. If you just want cities to feel more crowded, I'd go with Starfire's or both. If you want more enemy encounters, I'd go with MCA or both.

No, it mostly adds new passive and hostile NPCs. It doesn't touch schedules. That would be Living Cities of Vvardefell, LCV.

To be honest, I'd like to see something entirely new done with NPCs. I'd like to see most generic NPCs turned into creatures to reduce their impact on performance. Most wouldn't talk except to have a default greeting if you activate them. Seriously, how many common-folks are going to give you their life story once you tell them their clothes look nice a couple times. They'd have generic names (or preferably, no names at all, though I know Morrowind just displays the ID if no name is given...) and more of them could be placed in cities with smaller impact on performance. Basically, it'd be MGNPCs.