This page is an index for everything I’ve written about The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Currently, it’s only my modding guide, but future content will be listed here as well.

Morrowind Installation and Modding Guide

THE 2023 UPDATE AND CONTINUATION IS HAPPENING!

My Morrowind installation and modding guide needs a lot of work to bring it into 2023. This includes many updates to existing pages, as well as several other pages to fully round it out. Since I was forced into hiatus for a long time, I’m going to list the entries and their current status here so you can see at a glance how current the different parts of the guide are.

Please note that just because an entry is updated for 2023, it doesn’t mean I won’t change something on it if necessary (e.g. a link breaks, a new tool or better mod comes out, etc.)! But it DOES mean that entry is current as of the “last updated” date listed at the beginning of each page.

Below, you’ll find the existing entries organized by how current they are. Following that is a list of updates made to each entry. And last, my tentative plans for future entries.

I update this page immediately after making any changes to the guide, so this page is always up to date.

Morrowind Modding Guide Updated for 2023:

Using Mod Organizer 2 with Morrowind – Tutorial – A basic (unfinished but usable) guide to setting up MO2 with Morrowind, as an optional supplement to the guide to be used alongside it

• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 1 – Basic Installation and Where to Purchase
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 2 – Fixing Hardcoded Gameplay Issues with the Morrowind Code Patch
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 3 – Upgrading to Widescreen with the Morrowind Graphics Extender
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 4 – Addon Installation Best Practices
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 5 – Fixing Bugs with Patch for Purists and Sorting Load Order
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 6 – Dirty Mods and How to Clean Them
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 7 – Fixing Mod Conflicts with Merged Patches
• (Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 7.5 (temporary number) – Basic Quality of Life Improvements (this one will be moved later and probably eventually split into different pages when other stuff is done, but it’ll be kept live on the site in the meantime because I view these as important mods — the temporary number is to avoid later renumbering hassles)

 

Next New Entries for 2023:

(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 8 (in progress) – Additional Fixes and Official Plugins
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 9 (in progress) – Purist Mesh Fixes and Optimization
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 10 (in progress) – Purist High-Resolution Textures

Subject to change:
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 10 (tentative planning) – Additional Graphics Modernization (optional smoothed meshes and probably shaders)
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 11 (tentative planning) – Body and Head Replacers
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 12 (tentative planning) – Clothing and Robe Replacers
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 13 (tentative planning) – Armor and Weapon Replacers

 

Older, Legacy Guide Steps to be Updated, Reworked, or Replaced:

(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 7 (old) – Improving Graphics for Characters and Clothing
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 8 (old) – Improving Graphics for Robes and Armor
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 9 (old) – Improving Graphics for Weapons
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 10 (old) – Improving Graphics for Much of the World by Upgrading Basic Meshes and Textures
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 11 (old) – Improving Graphics for Most of Vvardenfell

(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 12 (old) – Improving Graphics for Tribunal and Bloodmoon

 

Updates:

May 15, 2023 – Work on MO2 tutorial

May 14, 2023 – Clarity edits to Pt. 5 (it might still need more, tbh)

May 13, 2023 – Work on MO2 tutorial; small edits to Pt. 3 and Pt. 4; edits to Pt. 6.5 to renumber it to 7.5 to account for the new Merged Patch post (Pt. 7)

May 12, 2023 – Work on MO2 tutorial (I’ll make a blog post to alert everyone when this is complete enough to be “launched”); minor edits to Pt. 1

May 11, 2023 – Added Steam Library Setup Tool, checked all links, and made some other edits to Pt. 1; added advice for downloading and extracting archives to Pt. 2 (where it should have been already), checked all links, and made other edits to Pt. 2; checked all links and made some edits in Pt. 3; checked all links and expanded on information in Pt. 4; work on MO2 tutorial

May 10, 2023 – Extensive preparations for summarized guide version; work on upcoming bugfix post; work on upcoming conflict detection/merged patch post; work on MO2 tutorial

May 7 – 9, 2023 – Edits to live (yet incomplete) MO2 tutorial; work on in-progress guide steps

May 4, 2023 – Edited Pt. 1 to remove all references to initially testing the game in windowed mode because I honest-to-Vivec do not remember how the hell I ever did it without having MGE already installed; moved most MO2 information to Pt. 1 and cleaned it up from the many places I talked about it in other entries (mainly Pt. 2 and 4) and added links to the new MO2 tutorial where needed; clarified MCP information in Pt. 2 including a new note about the option to allow gloves with bracers and some edits to clarify a few other entries; cleaned up Pt. 2 to use actual list format (I have no idea why I didn’t do this before); cleaned up and updated MGE XE instructions in Pt. 3; made some edits to Pt. 5 to reflect that there’s an MO2 tutorial now; edited Pt. 6 to better reflect the other changes now that the MO2 tutorial exists and to include full installation instructions for Wrye Mash

May 3, 2023 – Work on in-progress guide steps and a new page about MO2 (it’s time, I can’t deny it anymore)

May 2, 2023 – Clarified information about downloading the MCP and using it in conjunction with MO2 as well as a bit more general MO2 details in Pt. 2

May 1, 2023 – Clarified information about MO2, OpenMW, and MWSE, switched some information around to emphasize the importance of installing outside of C:\Program Files, and cleaned up further installation information (including the usage of discs) in Pt. 1

April 29, 2023 – Set a temporary featured image for Pt. 6 because it was annoying that sharing that post tended to embed the screenshot of cleaning Patch for Purists from the section where I was specifically saying NOT to do that

April 28, 2023 – Minor edits to all current entries; added more information to Pt. 2 about making multiple backups of Morrowind.ini; slightly clarified instructions for Wrye Mash in Pt. 5

April 24 – 27, 2023 – Extensive work on new bugfix post and on “how to clean mods” post

April 23, 2023 – Work on several new parts of the guide including mesh fixes, textures, and an all-new bugfix and UMOPP post, which may be Pt. 6 pushing the existing Pt. 6 forward (bugfixes and UMOPP may be split into 2 posts if it gets too long), this also means some more renumbering of already-in-progress entries but I’m not changing the numbers of the entries in the below changelog, it’s too confusing already

April 22, 2023 – Minor edits to Pt. 4 and Pt. 5; updated information in Pt. 6 including a Nexus link for Talrivian’s State-Based HP Mod and a Wayback Machine link for Book Rotate since Morrowind Modding History seems to be truly dead now (RIP)

April 21, 2023 – Returning from undesired and involuntary hiatus caused by real-life aggravations; minor edits to Pt. 1 through Pt. 3

February 3, 2023 – Work on the new Pt. 7; work on general update alert post; initial planning for working UMOPP into the existing guide pages

January 27, 2023 – Extensive work on the new Pt. 7 and split it into two entries so I can give the mods more attention and detailed information without it becoming obscenely long (also means a lot of work was done on what is now the new Pt. 8 as well); added MCP beta to Pt. 2

January 26, 2023 – Revisions to Pt. 1; switched order of Pt. 2 and Pt. 3 to put the MCP ahead of MGE XE as is required now (although I’m not changing previous update notes to reflect the new numbering), reorganized some information in Pt. 1 through Pt. 4 to reflect the new guide order, and made some small revisions to those parts as well

January 25, 2023 – Reworked some things including an expanded introduction and added some GOG-specific details to Pt. 1

January 20, 2023 – Added a note to activate “Hi-def cutscene support” in the MCP in Pt. 3

January 19, 2023 – Forgot to say that I’ve also been working on the new Pt. 7 alongside another new post to announce the updates since the beginning of 2023; added Playable Uncompressed Vanilla Textures Replacer to Pt. 5

January 16, 2023 – Added a small note about running MGE XE through MO2 to Pt. 2 and Pt. 4; made a tiny edit and added information about using MO2 and Wrye Mash together in Pt. 5; added information about using the MCP with MO2 to Pt. 3 and Pt. 4

January 12, 2023 – Various small edits to Pt. 6; tiny edit to Pt. 5

January 11, 2023 – Added more Steam information and adjusted some wording in Pt. 1; added more information (mostly MWSE and MO2-related, plus how to adjust your UI size in MGE XE) to Pt. 2; expanded a bit of info (including a note about MO2 and clarification of which .exe to look for when patching MGE XE with the 4gb Patch, plus a note about lore-correctness relating to MO2’s option to remove breasts from female Argonians — I love Bethesda for being weird enough that I’d even have to look this up) in Pt. 3; added a bit more MO2-related info and a suggestion to use 7zip for manual extraction in Pt. 4; added and clarified some information throughout and added a bit of MO2-related info to Pt. 5

January 9, 2023 – Updated a small part of the instructions for Wrye Mash in Pt. 5; updated Pt. 1 to reflect that I’m using Windows 10 and 11 now

January 5, 2023 – Fixed a small error and clarified some information about how Improved Vanilla Leveling works in Pt. 6

January 3, 2023 – Checked all links on Pt. 5, expanded information about Wrye Mash, added SKTimeStamp utility as another option for manual file dating, minor formatting; added MS Game Pass to Pt. 1 as another vendor with restrictive DRM; checked all links on Pt. 6 and switched recommendation from Talrivian’s State-Based HP Mod to MWSE State-Based Health for hit point recalculation, added Expansion Delay, added Improved Vanilla Leveling with an explanation of “multiplier chasing,” clarified Switchable Scriptures a bit, minor formatting, added a note at the end saying you can actually stop modding here if you just want purist fixes and gameplay improvements and don’t care about high-resolution graphics

January 2, 2023 – Began 2023 update and continuation. Checked all links on Pt. 1, clarified the section about some vendors using DRM that prevents .exe alterations, minor formatting, updated note at beginning, added instructions for turning off the Steam overlay; checked all links on Pt. 2, clarified note about mod managers, minor formatting, updated MGE XE instructions; checked all links on Pt. 3, updated MCP section, minor formatting; checked all links on Pt. 4, expanded on information about manual installation versus mod managers, added a sample directory structure using Steam, minor formatting

July 26, 2021 – Added Perfect Placement and Switchable Scriptures to Pt. 6 with a recommendation to use them instead of Book Rotate; small correction to Pt. 5

July 25, 2021 – Work on new Pt. 7

July 24, 2021 – Initial beginnings of 2021 update. Checked links and made small changes to Pt. 1; checked and updated links (created archive.is link to a Bethesda forum post that’s going away, etc.) and explained a bit more about Mod Organizer earlier in Pt. 2; updated information about Timeslip’s .EXE Optimizer and the links in Pt. 3; clarified a bit in Pt. 4; updated and clarified information including info about the Morrowind Patch Project and Patch for Purists in Pt. 5; expanded on the explanation of the “Endurance rush” (possibly unnecessarily) and other general updates to Pt. 6

February 19 – 27, 2020 – Numerous small updates I forgot to document, plus work on an Updates and Revisions post to announce the 2020 update

February 18, 2020 – Began work on the new Pt. 7 which will replace some of the later parts of the guide (and cause others to be renumbered)

February 17, 2020 – Added information about manual installation versus mod managers to Pt. 4; changed the order of mods and added more information to Pt. 6

February 16, 2020 – Added information about mod managers and clarified addon/mod terminology to complete 2020 update to Pt. 4; changed focus of Pt. 5 to Patch for Purists, removed outdated information, and updated a screenshot to complete 2020 update to Pt. 5; clarified some information and added PfP-related info to complete the 2020 update to Pt. 6; more update passes across the site to prepare for additional changes

February 15, 2020 – Began 2020 overhaul; completed 2020 update to Pt. 1; updated MGSO information, MGE/MGE XE sections, fixed broken links and made various other changes to complete 2020 update to Pt. 2; added new items from MCP 2.4 and reworked EXE Optimizer section, completing 2020 update for Pt. 3

May 1, 2017 – Added some more Better Clothes fixes to Pt. 7; reworded some of Pt. 5 for clarity and to add some script fixing mods

April 30, 2017 – Added Robert’s Bodies to Pt. 7; replaced Better Clothes Patch with a pluginless version that doesn’t cause its own issues

April 27, 2017 – Rewrote some of Pt. 5 to account for the MCP update, mention Wrye Mash, and explain the “One or more plugins…” error

April 26, 2017 – Slight rewording in Pt. 2; updated Pt. 3 for MCP 2.3; updated some dead links

January 21, 2017 – Added GOG.com as a digital Morrowind retailer to Pt. 1; added Timeslip’s EXE Optimizer to Pt. 3

January 14, 2017 – In-depth examination of the entire guide in search of entries that need to be updated due to time having passed; made some minor fixes here and there

August 15, 2015 – Minor tweaks to all entries

June 7, 2015 – Added Improved Weapon Meshes – Ebony to Pt. 9 and HiRes Robes to Pt. 8

February 10, 2015 – Pt. 6 now properly opens in a new tab like the rest of this list; added more comprehensive Steam information to Pt. 1; added a reminder to turn overlays off to Pt. 2 along with instructions for taking screenshots with MGE 3.8.0 since the wiki I’d linked to has vanished into Oblivion; updated MCP info (for new version) in Pt. 3; minor clarification to Pt. 4; added instructions to Pt. 5 for redating original .bsa files for Steam modding; fixed dead PlanetElderScrolls links in Pt. 6, Pt. 7, Pt. 8, and Pt. 9, and fixed a typo

November 30, 2014 – Updated Pt. 1 with a little more Steam information; updated Pt. 9 with Pherim’s Broadsword alternatives

July 7, 2014 – Updated Pt. 7 with LizTail’s Fixed BB Meshes

June 20, 2014 – Updated Pt. 1 with correct info regarding Steam version

June 18, 2014 – Checked all links

 

Tentative Planning for Future Entries (May be Rolled into the Above):

(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 13 – Improving Graphics for Creatures and Items (forthcoming)
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 14 – Advanced World Graphics Improvements (forthcoming)
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 15 – Unique Graphics for Unique Items (forthcoming)
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 16 – Going Deeper into the Morrowind Graphics Extender (forthcoming)
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 17 – Preventing Addon Conflicts and Maintaining Morrowind’s Stability (forthcoming)
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 18 – ??????
(Re)installing Morrowind, Pt. 19 – PROFIT!

And more…