Quick question: as many of you will be aware, Morrowind's world map will cease to function if you replace _land_default.tga with anything bigger than 256*256 pixels. This would not be much of a problem if that texture was not also used extensively in the West Gash area. You hardly notice it if the textures you use are either vanilla or don't go over 512*512 pixels, but beyond that the difference is very evident.

I am considering the option of having a high-res (i.e. 2048*2048) version of my new _land_default texture as the standard option for my 'combined' Morrowind retex, but am a tad worried that people would be disgruntled over the fact that, suddenly, their world map was gone.

So what do you think? Add the HD texture as default or go the inverse route and have it as an option (which many downloaders will likely never notice)?

I guess it's always best to leave users the option to use it or not.

Now, when you say that the world map will "disappear", do you mean just the markers, or really the entire island on the map? Not that it matters for seasonned MW players though: I think most of us could navigate the gameworld with just a paper map.

Is the bug that causes it something that the "Morrowind code patch" authors would be interested in fixing?

I'd say leave it as an optional thing. I know I personally would mind not having a world map.

Thank you for your comments.

@ Kalon - it causes your map to go completely blank. All that is left is a pointer indicating your direction.

Kalon does have a point. I wouldn't mind using your hd texture if static map could be used, like the one Vality made few years ago.

HD as optional is my vote. I never knew about this bug... it does seem like something hrnchamd could fix in the code patch though.

Optional. Any way you can give a screenshot comparing the small resolution with the HD one you're talking about? I'm drawing a blank imagining what the issue is you're wanting to resolve.

@MD, IIRC hrnchamd discussed a world map issue in his thread from about one to two years ago. It seemed that he said part of it was an engine constraint and that it was not a trivial thing to address. I don't know if it was the same issue that's being raised here.

Here you go:

High-res texture, menus and map closed

http://i.imgur.com/X1ltTWe.jpg

High-res texture, menus and map open

http://i.imgur.com/y0OhVBT.jpg

Please note that the local map will continue to function. Only the world map is affected.

Low-res texture, menus and map closed

http://i.imgur.com/McWeini.jpg

Low-res texture, menus and map open

http://i.imgur.com/PfMgOEk.jpg

I will be including both a high-res and a low-res version in my texture pack; what I am in two minds about is what I will put in the 'textures' folder and what I will put in the 'optional' folder. Low-res in the 'textures' folder may be best, but as you can see it doesn't look nearly as good.

Personally I'd rather have the map than one 2048*2048 texture.

My vote goes to having the hires replacer as an optional. Personally, I wouldn't want to be w/o the map, but more importantly users aren't that good at reading readmes or even previous comments in release threads etc., so my guess is that you would get a lot of questions about the suddenly missing map if the hires texture was the default option.

That said, it would be nice if this could be fixed somehow, partly because of the lowres landscape texture, but also because it would be nice to have a better worldmap, esp. when you can zoom in when using MCP.

For me having access to the map is definitely a high priority, so I'd vote for having the texture be optional by default.

As for fixing the bug. IIRC remember there's a program somewhere that places grass meshes based on the ground texture. That means it is possible to read the ground textures from ESMs/ESPs, so in theory it should be easy enough to do some find/replace and swap out any instance of the land_default.tga ground texture with another of your choice.

Thank you. Those gave a clearer picture of the trade-offs. I'd prefer optional, too. The world map is too important to the way I play the game. At the start of the game, it helps give me a Q&D refresher of the areas that my char has visited and/or been told about, and because it changes as I actually visit an area, I have a reasonable reminder of where I've physically visited. And when I'm out wandering, the markers for the various towns provide a landmark for direction to travel.

ISTR that too. Wasn't it by Fliggerty?