Morrowind The Unofficial Morrowind Patch (UMP) by Thepal

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Was installing one of my all-time favourites, Morrowind, on my laptop and I came across this thing on the net:
http://www.etherealsoftware.com.au/patch/

"The Unofficial Morrowind Patch (UMP) fixes almost all of the bugs and problems with Morrowind and its expansions. While the official patches by Bethesda only fixed a couple of dozen bugs, this patch fixes several hundred. The goal of this patch is to make the game completely bug-free (within the abilities of the TESCS)."

I normally wouldn't touch anything unofficial, but I sometimes make an exception when we're talking strictly bug-fix. Anyone has any experience with this thing?
Here's what it claims to be about:

Fix any bugs in the quests that make them incompletable or skip you ahead.
Correct spelling & grammar mistakes in the dialogue and object names, and give them a uniform appearance.
Make global scripts end when they are no longer needed.
Make quests be marked as Finished so they no longer appear in the Active Quest list when they should be.
Correct any mesh or texture problems in the objects.
Correct incorrect subtitles
Add any objects that were not included in the ESM files, but were included on the game CDs
Fixes many other bugs and problems with the game


Sounds good to me. What do you think?
 
It's working for me so far, and I have about sixty mods installed over it.
 
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Definitely have to keep this patch in mind. I want to start another game of Morrowind some day..... and actually finish it. ;)
 
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Not touching anything unofficial is not smart in the Case of TES III and IV. There is so much out there that works perfectly and in no way conflicts with the original (neither technically, aesthetically, nor lore-wise) that I can see no reason not to enhance the game with it. I may not be neutral, :) but I am specifically not talking about my own stuff here.
But specifically: I have never played without the UMP, and never experienced a problem. It's a professionally made mod.
 
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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 :).
 
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Yes, but you're forgetting that mods are heresy. :D

I'm also a bit surprised that while there seems to be a lot of knowledge about useless stuff like fancy water or new textures or lights etc... there's so little knowledge about something as wonderful as that UMP thing.

I mean... bug-fixes?!?! Everyone loves them, right!? :D
 
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Hehe, I´d actually say that in the case of Morrowind, the heresy is not to use them.
 
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I love the game just as it is. Everytime I play it, it makes me feel like coming home after a long journey of playing lesser games. I don't want to change a single pixel. But I'm all for bug fixing. Like that baldurdash pak for baldur's gate, it was great.
 
Yeah, that´s perfectly understandable of course.
For me, the "coming home" feeling is carried by the in-game soundtrack and I´d never replace that with something else :).
 
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I'm also a bit surprised that while there seems to be a lot of knowledge about useless stuff like fancy water or new textures or lights etc... there's so little knowledge about something as wonderful as that UMP thing.

Didn´t notice this before.
There is knowledge about UMP of course, I just left that one uncommented since you already covered that :). Everyone should use that.
For example at PES it has almost 40000 downloads now and that´s probably for the newest version only:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2083

Also, there´s even an "Unofficial" Unofficial Morrowind Patch 1.6.3 in development: http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=858979

Plus, there´s another patch in works which should fix things unfixable with scripting alone:
http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=879297

As for the fancy water etc.:
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i201/Vality7/Screenshots3/nivd_15.jpg
http://www.liztail.com/mge_tweak_6.jpg
What´s not to like? :D
 
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Does the patch stop you from playing through the entire game in 10 minutes ?

I played some of morrowind and it was quite fun for a little bit. But after finding you can finish the game in 10 minutes. I found the main storyline cannot be anything to exactly be thrilled over, since the main storyline is what I ussually enjoy the most I just gave up on it.
 
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You cannot play throught the "entire game" in 10minutes.
It would take several weeks.

"The entire game" is not the main storyline

Morrowind is not about finishing the main story as quickly as possible,
and it took me way more than 10minutes and I think
The main storyline is very good. Plus - there's the expansion packs' "main storylines"

the fact that some idiot found a way to complete the main storyline in 10 minutes
is not a reason not to play one of the best pc rpgs ever.

Wasn't there a similar "look mom, I finished the game in 10 minutes!" for fallout2 too?
 
Does the patch stop you from playing through the entire game in 10 minutes ?

I played some of morrowind and it was quite fun for a little bit. But after finding you can finish the game in 10 minutes. I found the main storyline cannot be anything to exactly be thrilled over, since the main storyline is what I ussually enjoy the most I just gave up on it.


Huh? That's a speedrun exploit, involving creation of a super-potion and cutting straight to the endgame. Unless you look up how to do it, you won't figure something like that out until you know the game very very well, and then only if you specifically try, no chance to stumble over it. The MW main quest is a solid linear main quest of, I would guess at least 20 hours, if you really rush. And while not at all spectacular, it is interesting if you get invested in the lore background of it.
 
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Huh? That's a speedrun exploit, involving creation of a super-potion and cutting straight to the endgame.

Yes, that super-potion thing is a bug IMHO, so I was woundering if the patch fixed it ?
 
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I played Morrowind for close to 100 hours, and never even touched the Tribunal or Bloodmoon areas...


I ended up burning myself out before I finished it, excellent game for "explorers" like myself though, I had close to 90% of the world map revealed.
 
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some idiot

Well, this is pretty inappropriate wording, I´d say :).

I find a lot of those speedruns pretty impressive and usually one has to know the game and its mechanics really throughoughly and make a lot of detailed planning beforehand to do something like this.
For example, Wanderer´s Gothic speedruns are really cleverly planned, skillfully executed and fun to watch.
Baldur´s Gate speedruns are great as well.

In the case of Morrowind, it´s not that fun, but still quite interesting.
I think that the fact its main quest can be theoretically finished in 10 minutes doesn´t degrade the game at all, it just shows how open-ended the game is, or something :).
I guess that people who make those speedruns probably played the respective game x-times in normal fashion and the speedrun is just a new way how to squeeze some more enjoyment out of it.

As for the Morrowind main quest´s length, with both expansions I´d say it´s somewhere between 50 - 60 hours of solid entertainment.
 
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Yep, if your computer can handle it DEFINITELY grab MGE. The more recent releases seemed to have GREATLY improved performance for me going from 18-20FPS to about 30FPS outside now with a goodly view distance and higher detail settings, plus a bunch of statics, tons of other mods.

Indoors now pegs to VSYNC for me, whereas before it used to be a bit less than max.

Still haven't tried Vivec or other crowded areas yet, but I imiagine that the prformance will still be very good.

[EDIT]
Oh yeah, the Telvannis Revuilt IIRC adding the Morrowind mainland is nice. They've released map 1 (NE Morrowind - Firewatch and surroundings) and map 2 should be out soon IIRC, or at least a playable beta.

Most of the mods listed above are just very nice to have, but I'd also look at how close you want to keep the game to vanilla, esp if you've never played before.

I always end up just exploring, and rarely do much of the main quests although I tend to do most of the guild quests as some of them are fun...
[/EDIT]
 
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