Seriously, playing Morrowind without mods is a big missing out imho.
Just recently I got in the mood of playing Morrowind again and, being a big fan of mods in general, I went installing mods spree.
It probably won´t be of much use but it shouldn´t hurt to list a few mods which I consider to be must have for my installation.
The Unnoficial Morrowind Patch - no comments
Better Bodies - what it says, bodies are smooth, nonsegmented, natural
http://www.psychodogstudios.com/betterbodies/about.htm
Vvardenfell Visages - replaces original heads and hair with much better looking ones, giving npcs more distinctive qualities, I would like to see more of the ugly faces included but overall it´s great
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.detail&id=5883
screenshots:
http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules/gallery/VVVI?page=1
Morrowind Comes Alive 5.2 - again, what it says - randomly adds a lot of various NPCs in towns, caves, ruins and wilderness and generally makes the environment much more breathing with life, it also adds hostile npcs and various lore-friendly undead monsters
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.Detail&id=5047
Illuminated Windows - overhauls game´s lighting system which gives a huge atmosphere boost to game, especially at night
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.detail&id=1131
Extended Sounds - a great audio-atmosphere enhancer, adds a lot of well chosen sounds throughout the game plus weather sounds in interiors
http://www.pirates.retreat.btinternet.co.uk/Sounds.htm
Abot´s Water Life - breathes life into Morrowind´s waters
http://abot.silgrad.com/guppy/articles.php?lng=en&pg=43
Abot´s Where Are All Birds Going - breathes life into Morrowind´s skies
http://abot.silgrad.com/guppy/articles.php?lng=en&pg=42
Piratelord´s Creatures X - probably the best creatures adding mod out there, all creatures are carefully designed and lore friendly, also adds some non hostile ones to breathe more life into wilderness
http://www.pirates.retreat.btinternet.co.uk/Creatures.htm
The White Wolf Of The Lokken Mountain 2.0 - probably best quest mod I´ve played
http://lovkullen.net/Emma/lokken.htm
Julan Ashlander Companion 1.3 - a great companion designed to be with player during the main quest, has a lots of cool companion features, interesting personality, rather elaborate quest and makes the main quest fresh
http://lovkullen.net/Emma/Kateri.htm
Darknut´s Greater Dwemer Ruins Vol. 1 - makes the end of the main quest really memorable and rather challenging by making all three MQ related ruins much bigger and meaner, lots of traps, puzzles and the final confronation overhaul
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?id=6068&view=Mods.Detail
trailer (contains endgame spoilers):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUy6RenrYuc
Well, I have about 150 mods installed but these are the ones which really enhance the experience the most, without detracting from the overall game´s feeling, or having some problematic features/bugs.
As for the visual enhancements, there´s a vast amount of various replacers and retextures available and it´s a matter of taste of course, but these are my favourites (unlike the previously listed, these have a bigger impact on framerates):
Visual Pack - retextures most of the game, without detracting from the original art,
with much more detailed textures, I use it as a base which I later overwrite with other textures
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2915
Connary´s textures - really, skills of this man are impressive, I use most of his retextures since they´re great work of art and as close to original concepts as possible
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=User.EntriesListing&id=29044
Plangkye´s Hi-res Telvanni Textures - again, original art-friendly and shroomy
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=4253
Jarrod´s Bloodmoon Pack - retextures Bloodmoon, especially snow now looks great
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=370
Darknut´s textures - yet again, as close to original art as possible, only much more detailed, I use his creature retextures for the creatures not retextured by Connary, all of his weapon and armor retextures and also Dwemer architecture retexture since it goes well together with his Greater Dwemer Mod
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=User.EntriesListing&id=119915
Real Moons, Real Stars - both make a night sky much more atmospheric and complement each other
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=3917
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=3743
I also use Swiveller´s Molag Amur retexture which gives the whole region a fresh, desert-like look but it detracts a lot from the original concept:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6165
There are also two replacers which I consider rather essential:
Weathered Signs - makes all road signs readable
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=133
Book Jackets - gives nice unique covers to every vanilla book in game
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=User.EntriesListing&id=22915
Well, and then there are Vality´s Bitter Coast Mod, Ascadian Isles Mod and Balmora Mod which replaces vanilla trees with "speedtree-like" versions, makes the forests more dense and the affected regions really beautiful. Right now, the version 4 of the Bitter Coast mod seems to have some mesh related issue in my game so I´d recommend using the previous version 3 which works flawlessly.
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=User.EntriesListing&id=63014
Finally, Morrowind Graphic Extender is now under rapid development and the features it has now available are simply mindblowing.
Infinite view distance, stunningly looking reflective water, ability to use antialiasing and other modern features in game, like HDR alike shaders for example.
The newest addition is the animated grass. It requires Vality´s grass mods which are normally available at
http://vality7.googlepages.com/grass but the page is giving me 404 right now but it will be fixed in short time I guess.
For the news and the most recent versions of MGE I´d recommend looking at this thread
http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=880254
It contains screenshots and videos as well.
Since some of the above recommended mods add to game´s levelled list it´s needed to merge levelled lists to make all work properly.
Testool is an easy utility to do it:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=utilities.detail&id=34
And since Testool isn´t perfect in that regard, additional use of levelled lists resequencer is recommended:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2726
Hm, I see me getting carried away a bit
. Well, I like tinkering with mods.
All mods I listed should be easy to install and after merging levelled lists there shouldn´t be any conflicts in game.
There are three "multi-mods" which I consider essential as well but they need to be installed more carefully, or with adjusted mod order:
Wakim´s Game Improvements - a modular version of this mod sensitively overhauls magic system, faction system and generally rebalances the game
http://www.hiredgoons.net/MWFiles/
It´s in the middle of the page.
With this fix it works great -
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=4302
Complete Morrowind - adds a lot of various crafting possibilities into the game thus making it more interactive and adding to roleplay factor.
It´s woodcutting part is prone to conflicts, but without it I had no problems with the mod.
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2542
Less Generic NPC Project - makes dialogue much less repetitive, adds a lot of personality to affected NPCs, adds a lot of small quests throughout, most notably makes the Redoran House questline much more interesting
http://lgnpc.sabregirl.com/
I use all of them since they somehow work together. It´s better to adjust the order so that the lgnpc mods load near the end, with PAX Redoran being the last.
The load order can be adjusted with Testool.
Downloading mods from fileplanet is free but requires registration.
Careful reading of readmes before installation should be mandatory.
Ok, that´s it
.