I can't bring myself to use content changing or adding mods. I've downloaded them and used them but I always feel like they're out of place. Even my own mods don't apeal to me. I once spend weeks (off and on) building this huge opulent mansion and I was quite proud of it too. But I eventualy unchecked it and never used it again because it just wasn't Morrowind-y enough. I don't even think I have that file anymore. I've made countless new races, most of which I believe to be very well balanced and lore friendly but I always go back to using the stock, vanilla races. I have no problem with the official plug-ins (I have them all naturaly) because I think of them as a part of what Bethesda intended for the Vanilla game. I can live with using "fix" mods like MCP and a few of my own that do things like make dark brotherhood armor more balanced but nothing much more than that. Is there anyone else out there who can't bring themselves to use non-vanilla content or am I just crazy?

P.S.
I didn't think this belonged in the Mods forum because I'm not actualy asking about mods as much as gameplay in general. Beside people who don't use mods aren't going to be hanging out in the mods forum are they?

That doesn't seem so odd to me. I may be biased in that judgement however as I don't use mods, at least not any more mods than you mentioned. I never rightly figured out why, but I never found them as enjoyable as most do.

It all depends what you want out of the game, and what kind of person you are. Some people want to be guided, others want to guide themselves; some want to be told a story, others want to tell their own stories. Likewise, some want the "game experience as the developers intended it," others want to forge their own game experience.

The reason I play Morrowind and Oblivion is because they allow me to use mods. Mods allow me to create my own game. When I use mods I am a Developer. I decide what is lore, I decide what the visual style of the game is. They are my games, not Bethesda's.

I play these games in order to tell myself stories. For me, each game is a different story. I make or download any mod that will help me tell that story. It's as simple as that.

I greatly enjoy using mods, but I try to maintain a list that fits with my perception of what Morrowind is. When something feels out of place to me, I end up removing it. So I can certainly understand wanting to maintain a vanilla install -- it's not odd at all =). That said, some of my best experiences in Morrowind have come from mods.

I oppose content-adding mods for the most part, and spent many years making a list of mods that worked together, didn't seem out of place, and made the game into something that I felt it should have been when it was released.

I agree with the others here, nothing odd in enjoying a near-vanilla experience.

"Whatever floats your boat." is an expression I like to use. But it's nice to see you use the bugfixes.

your just crazy.

there are plenty of mods which leave no visible mark in the world but polish what is there.. MCP for example... I mean what dont you like about being able to toggle sneak?

Have you checked out tamriel rebuilt? It is very lore friendly. I cant imagine playing merely on Vvardenfell anymore.

BTB, could you share that list of mods you made? It sounds really interesting, and may make for a better Morrowind...

Vanilla for me too. I use exactly 2 MODs, Better Bodies and The Master Index.

When people start talking about Bugs my first reaction is: What Bugs?
I recently finished a game (OC only) in which I completed every quest for every guild (only 1 house and no vamps). The only bug that I noticed was the one where you can't hit 100, with a multiplier, on some of the Attributes. I'm sure that there are more bugs than that, but I think I've played the game so often that I either just consider those bugs as part of the game...or...I just "automatically" play around them. In any event I just don't see the need for MODs.

I can understand. Mods are oftentimes fun to play with briefly, then I can't help but see most of them as alien to the game - fun to experiment with but in the end, they just don't feel right.

But then again, there are those mods that, as has been said, "polish" the game and improve what is there. Those I consider almost indispensable; I can live without purple Daedric armor but I can not imagine not using No-Glo, for example.

In the end, it really does come down to what you want to see in the game. Bethesda gave us the foundation; we choose what to build on it, if anything, and there's no "wrong" way to do it. Whatever makes the gameplay experience most enjoyable is the limit; for some people, that involves tons of content-adding mods that bring new things to the game and/or pay tribute to something they love outside of Morrowind (such as Lord of the Rings weapons, or a Catholic Church in Pelagiad mod I saw recently), while some of us are content to remove ugly stock enchanting effects or improve the shape of the bodies in-game. Either or, it's all good.

Personally, I like to only add what I feel is necessary for me. I like to experiment with other mods, but in the end it only ever comes down to a few for me. I suppose I compare it to Morrowind on the Xbox and ask myself "what would I want on the Xbox version?" and go from there. For me, I'm happiest with the minimum and in the end, get more out of that.

Though quest mods are another story, and add more play time when I'm done with all the stock quests I can do.

I haven't made anything too big. Mostly just little tweeks. Certainly nothing that requires scripting (don't know jack when it comes to that.) Nothing that other haven't done before me. I just didn't want to take the time to hunt the proper mods down. I never released any of these and don't have any plans to. Not big enough to bother with.

"Tweeks"(keeper)
-I made one that removes the clavical pieces from chitin pauldrons. I think they're ugly.
-That same one also makes the command spells and demoralize human spell affect based on illusion rather than conjuration.
-It also makes the female bosmer the same hight as the males (also adjusted their weight to match.) It strikes me odd that bethesda would make them like that. They did the same thing in oblivion so I don't think it was unintentional, I just don't like it.
-Finaly it changes the power and value of dark brotherhood armor from tribunal so it's far less effective (a little better than chitin.) It made it way to easy for low level characters to make tons of money. Septims are easy enough to get in Morrowind without that.

"Armors"(keeper)
-Makes a full set of light "Hardwood" armor that acts as in between armor. Just to add something between (the now weakened) DB and glass. Uses chitin meshes.
-Makes a full set of medium "Wyvern Bone" armor thats comapirable to glass and ebony. Medium armor has some of my favourite designs but it doesn't have anything good in the high level department. Uses selected bonemold meshes (don't remember which ones now I'd have to look.)
-Makes a full set of medium "His Hands" armor that's compairable to daedric. Another addition to medium armor. Used indoril armor meshes (and Her Hands greaves from tribunal.)

"Birthsigns" (Various mods)
-The Jester(R.I.P.) - designed with dunmer mages in mind. Adds a 75% weakness to fire (cancels natural dunmer ressistance for balance) and adds 1.5 maximum magicka forification with a 25 point fortification to endurance.
-The Prophet(R.I.P.) - designed with breton mages in mind. Adds a 50% weakness to magicka (cancels natural breton ressistance for balance) and adds 1.0 maximum magicka forification with a 25 point fortification to endurance.
-The Angel(R.I.P.) - I was experimenting with an RP idea for a fallen angel race that would use this sign. I don't even remember what it's atributes were now.

"Malis' Vault"(R.I.P.)
This is the huge mansion that I mentioned. It was made with redoran building components. It had a huge entrance hall, a ballroom with overlooking balconies, a room that was going to end up as a library, a room that was going to be an armory/museum, an alchemy laboratory, a storage room and several bedrooms. It took me forever to find and fix all the overlaps and gaps but it ended up looking pretty decent. I never added any decor though. I deleted it because it was part of a larger mod that contained all of the others mentioned above and it was getting hard for me to keep track of them all so I remade all of the ones that I wanted as seperate individual plug-ins and deleted the big one losing this in the process. It wasn't a huge loss seeing as I never used it for anything. I had the most fun making it anyway. I never found a good spot for it so I just made a door in the side of a cliff near balmora that led to it.

There were also countless races, most of which had custom powers and abilities. I don't remember the stats for every one of them. None of them exist anymore anyway. I started working on one recently that adds javalins to the game. Just throwing spears. I never use the throwing weapons that are in the game already so even if I do finish it it likely wont get much use.

I have all of the official plug-ins combined into one file so they don't clutter up my nice neat data files list.
I also have both tribunal and bloodmoon.


If you re-read my OP you find that I in fact do use MCP (and FYI I do use the toggle-sneak feature.) Tamriel rebuild looks to me like it would be a very large file (more likely several files.) On a good day, I can only get a 40kbps dial-up internet connection. In fact right now I'm running on 28kbps (I live too far from any providers to get high-speed, to many trees around to get satalite and hell will freeze before I can get cable out here in the boonies) so something of that size would literaly take me days to download in it's entirety. Thats a long time to block the telephone. That's not why I don't like mods though as most are signifcantly smaller.

BTB's sig has http://btb2.free.fr/morrowind.html

Oh, BTB's a user. I thought it was short for something. Well I feel stupid

"Is there anyone else out there who can't bring themselves to use non-vanilla content or am I just crazy?"


Heck NO, I cheat like a mug....... ;o)-)

played vanilla for quite some time,was ok with that,but after you have gone the "mod-way" there is no return.

I do have a sort of clean install with only bb,one visual pack,one face pack,but going back to original entirely is out of the question.
My play-install is full of them mods,change after what I′m in the mood for,vampire-mods and such for example.
That depends entirely what experience I′m after with that character,if I′m undecided I′m going all in with them mods

Well, it IS short for something... >.>

Yep, same here. Still remember my first time playing GHD with DN's Greater Dwemer ruins too. Add in Scripted spells as well and you've got yourself a dream combo.

I enjoy playing without mods either. Usually during my playthrough i'll do all the vanilla quests before moving onto modded material as it tends to break the balance of the game from time to time.

Mind you, as a player who knows the game inside and out, I often tend to break the balance (no cheats) of the game to progress at lower levels.

I will confess that I've never used a totally unmodded game. I started with my first char having a Rich Creeper. It taught me how to use the CS or at least made me a little braver about it. I don't want to spend all afternoon (real time) negotiating with a Scamp.
But I played the vanilla game otherwise, without the expansions.
My second time through the MQ the expansions were loaded.
After that, I used some mods nothing game changing.
But I'm addicted to good companion mods. Try 'em! You'll like 'em.

That's really about the only type of cheat that I actually use.....I use "A Better Ra'virr"...which gives him $90,000. Time is better spent not having to negotiate with the Scamp with high priced items.....Otherwise I use mods that only slightly change the game like "Plain Paper Fix" and a bedroll you can carry and use in the wilderness. The Marksman mod is a must have.....but absolutely no game play altering mods......also I keep the look of the game vanilla using no texture or atmosphere mods of any kind....except for head replacer mods.....Town expansions mods are OUT.
Favorite landmass mods like Silgrad's Tower and dungeon mods like Neverhalls I will go with also....
I build my own house mods with plenty of high capacity (Dwemer usually) storage containers.

I guess if you had a X-box you'd have to settle for Vanilla....but with a PC ?......Nah.

I have downloaded about 20+ and had to reinstall morrowind once because overload of mods messed the game up. So to answer your question no. For a long time I played vanilla even without the plug ins.

I can see why you would want to stay vanilla. Morrowind is such an incredible game that adding things like Dunmer with bat wings can be a bit unsettling. I use mods, but I am very picky with them and only employ ones that fit smoothly with the game. And I agree with jeff - I originally hated the idea of companion mods, but well-made once can be excellent!

I agree, I only play vanilla MW and always will... dunno why, its just funner.

Back when I used to play Morrowind on the pc (curse moving and getting rid of my own pc), I used a myriad of different mods.

The main one however was GCD, a levelling mod which made my mage experience more fun. Aside from that I used better bodies, various face mods, and various clothing mods. Occasionally I used Vampire mods or the like, but not a great deal.

Now, I'm saving up for a gaming rig, and once I get it, Morrowind is gonna be the first thing on there. I know for a fact I'm going to use the mods I used to use, and a bunch more. Quest mods, texture mods, roleplay mods, everything.

Don't get me wrong, the vanilla game is my favourite game ever created. But with mods it's mindblowing.

I am vanilla mostly... I have a treehouse mod for storage and views, but that is about it. Oh yeah, and better bodies, but that doesn't change the game. I've tried other mods but lost interest. I played XBOX for two years so I really fell in love with vanilla.