So I bought Morrowind on Steam, and being the computer god I am :sarcasm: I decided to start modding. First to mod any steam game you have to make sure you turn auto-file check and auto-game-update off. Done. Then you have to find the game in C>Program Files x86>Steam>steamapps>common>morrowind. Anyways I knew all this, however when I install mods, like HD texture repackages sometimes they say they can't locate the required master file, which I believe is morrowind.exe, which I have, however steam games have a modified .exe. Any way I can work around this? Also what mods should I install, I basically want a prettier morrowind. So far I have installed, without trouble:

Better Bodies ((Makes bodies less weird and clunky))
Better Heads ((Improves NPC and player heads))
Shiny Septims ((Makes the coins look shiny and real! ))
Better Beasts ((Gives the Argonians and Khajiit tails and claws if you have better bodies, and gives them *parts*....also makes them look cooler...))
Animal Behaviour ((Any other similar reccomendations would be nice this mod seems a little dated, its purpose is to keep every animal from suicidally attacking me if I am in a twelve mile radius.....ughh..))

So if any of these are unneeded/conflict or you just know better tell me. Also I would like reccomendations to a texture pack you know works. The Morrowind overhaul on file planit in italian didn't work, cause it couldn't recognize my exe. But running a 6 core 3.0ghz, with 4 gigs ram, and over 896mb for my gtx 275 I think I could handle higher res graphics.

Thanks!

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1060141-mod-recommendations-for-new-players/page__p__15392814__fromsearch__1&#entry15392814

Includes a detailed section on where to find any high-res texture updates.

Not being able to "locate the master" just means the esp needs to be updated. Wrye Mash works great for that.

Since you're on Steam, you'll want to re-date your BSAs to ensure that mods work correctly.

Since you're on Steam, you'll want to re-date your BSAs to ensure that mods work correctly.

How do I do that? And what does that mean....O.o I have a feeling it means going to my .ini file? I never played on PC before, I just played the original Morrowind on XBOX, but since I played OB on PC I decided to give MW another try....

You have to redate the BSAs back to their original dates of 2002 (these are the archives of files that the game reads from your Data Files folder)
You can do it easily with http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/Attribute-Changer.shtml

Be sure to redate Morrowind.bsa, Tribunal.bsa and Bloodmoon.bsa (assuming the Steam version has the standard name scheme for the three of them)

Any specific date in 2002? Or just 2002?

Just 2002, any month and day'll do.

And here's a good list of mods for a starter: http://btb2.free.fr/morrowind.html

And now, I love you.

As you are just getting into mods, you might want to know that the reason the dates of the .esm files is important is because of the way they and mods are loaded. This is called "Load Order" and is possibly the most important aspect of using mods.

The game engine first loads .esm files, earliest date to latest date. For instance:

Morrowind.esm dated 1 January 2002 would load before Tribunal.esm dated 1 February 2002, which would load before Bloodmoon dated 1 March 2002.

This is particularly important because Tribunal contains patches to Morrowind and must be able to overwrite it and Bloodmoon contains patches to both and must load afterwards in order to overwrite them.

Though some of the larger mods use .esm files, most of the mods out there are .esp files. After all the .esm files are loaded according to date, then the .esp files are also loaded according to date.

All you have to remember is that if a mod or patch is intended to change something, it must have a later date than the file it is overwriting.

Ohhh Okay, that makes sense! But how do I use Wrye to update me esp to like my esm version, or

"Not being able to "locate the master" just means the esp needs to be updated. Wrye Mash works great for that."

If you have all the masters required by the mod, you just go to the mod window in Wrye Mash, click on the mod, right click on the column header in the bottom right hand of that window and select "update". All the masters should turn green.

Okay, only one problem now.....the link is dead for me to download Wrye Mash from this FAQ: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1106095-wrye-mash-stand-alone/

Try http://www.mediafire...002 install.exe from http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1106095-wrye-mash-stand-alone/page__hl__standalone.

Nope, same thread.....Anyways I just installed python and made my own shortcut and that worked. Yay! \o/.....now to install all the mods....I downloaded all the ones from that list Btb2

http://wryemusings.com/#WryeMash

Mysot, that's great! A lot of people get hung up on the python installation, but believe me, if you got it working, it doesn't matter whether it's the python version or the standalone. Have fun with that!

Hehe, I learned to program in Python, Turing, FORTRAN, Visual Basics, and some others in Freshman year, so it wasn't that scary to install Python and update the ESMs......although the first time I updated them I forgot to save, but then I saved the next time.....hope that doesn't hurt them/corrupt them......even if it did I made a whole backup of my original data folder *shrug* Only problem now is my load order is off, how do I use Wrye to change load order......hmmm...I tried click+drag but that didn't seem to work....

Right click on the esp->File->Redate

(first make sure you have your mods listed chronologically, so that 2002 is at the top.)

Oh okay, so just like when you told me to redate the .bsa?

Basically, but this time I mean just do it in Wrye Mash.
I also suggest http://code.google.com/p/mlox/wiki/Mlox if you don't know about it. It will make sure your load order is looking good.