Morrowind remake modders release 20 minutes of new footage, still no release date

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: An ambitious effort to remake Morrowind within Skyrim's engine still has no release date after a decade of development. To raise interest and hopefully recruit more volunteers, the modders released a 20-minute gameplay video showcasing the mod's unique visual and gameplay changes to mark the 21st anniversary of Morrowind's original release.

Modders released a lengthy new video demonstrating their progress on Skywind, the long-in-development total conversion aiming to rebuild content from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind using tech from its more advanced successor, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It's still unclear when Skywind will be available to the public, but the development team has volunteer openings.

The 20-minute gameplay reel shows what the Elder Scrolls Renewal team has done with a quest from the original Morrowind – Necromancer in Mawia. The conversion isn't a straight port of Morrowind's content into Skyrim's graphics, nor is it a simple adaptation of the Morrowind setting into Skyrim's gameplay system.

The modders have rebuilt many environments and character models from scratch while making gameplay changes to set it apart from Morrowind and Skyrim. The user interface and dialogue system are new, the latter featuring remastered audio. Skywind incorporates Skyrim's quest compass while retaining Morrowind's tendency to give players detailed directions to objective locations. A combat encounter at the end of the quest is slightly different from the original version.

While the video appears highly polished, the team didn't indicate how far along the whole project is. Its goal is to reimagine everything from Morrowind and its expansions, and TESR has been working on it since 2012. The group plans to eventually start a closed beta. When Skywind publicly launches, downloading it will require legitimate copies of Morrowind and Skyrim, whether they be the disc, GOG, or Steam versions.

Nvidia's RTX Remix could lead to a separate, equally interesting revisit of Morrowind. When demonstrating the upcoming set of mod tools, Nvidia teased the idea of adding real-time path tracing to the game while improving its textures.

Meanwhile, TESR is also developing two other total conversions. Morroblivion, a remake of Morrowind within The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's engine in development since 2007, is fully playable and freely available but technically still in open beta. Skyblivion, which started development around the same time as Skywind, plans to rebuild Oblivion in Skyrim.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98532-morrowind-remake-modders-release-20-minutes-new-footage.html

 

[guillejp]

What would it be?... 2026 maybe? 15 years after Skyrim?

 

[yRaz]

Morrowind had 2 really big problems that make it nearly unplayable for anyone who isn't a die-hard today. 1)the inventory and barter system is crap. It is so bad compared to what we're use to that the amount of mods it would take to fix it make it nearly impractical. You can do it, but it's gonna take awhile.

2)The animations are just so bad. The character models and textures need some rework, but they're forgivable. For the most part, you can fix the texture problem. But as far as animation goes, it's not any 1 thing, it's everything. It's walking, fighting, looking, enemy pathing. Even at release the animations were considered bad compared to other games.

RPG elements and gameplay mechanics were revolutionary, no one gave a crap at the time because never had a game brought such freedom to a game. Othergames had lots of freedom, but it brought deep RPG elements to the mainstream. Then Bethesda took away some of those elements in oblivion but fixed tons of other issues so it was great. Then we got Skyrim which was basically not an RPG and took away interesting game mechanics all while leaving us with a pretty crappy story. The only good thing Skyrim was that it was fun for awhile interacting with all the parts of the game that didn't matter. I mean I loved beating Naveem to death with a chicken but the voice acting was cringe worthy and the story felt like it was written as a 7th graders creative writing assignment.

Thankfully we got ESO out of the whole deal and I've been happily playing that for ~10 years now. Base game is meh but the DLCs are fantastic.

What am I talking about again? How do I always end up several tangents deep?

 

[LAMBDA471]

Morrowind had 2 really big problems that make it nearly unplayable for anyone who isn't a die-hard today. 1)the inventory and barter system is crap. It is so bad compared to what we're use to that the amount of mods it would take to fix it make it nearly impractical. You can do it, but it's gonna take awhile.

2)The animations are just so bad. The character models and textures need some rework, but they're forgivable. For the most part, you can fix the texture problem. But as far as animation goes, it's not any 1 thing, it's everything. It's walking, fighting, looking, enemy pathing. Even at release the animations were considered bad compared to other games.

RPG elements and gameplay mechanics were revolutionary, no one gave a crap at the time because never had a game brought such freedom to a game. Othergames had lots of freedom, but it brought deep RPG elements to the mainstream. Then Bethesda took away some of those elements in oblivion but fixed tons of other issues so it was great. Then we got Skyrim which was basically not an RPG and took away interesting game mechanics all while leaving us with a pretty crappy story. The only good thing Skyrim was that it was fun for awhile interacting with all the parts of the game that didn't matter. I mean I loved beating Naveem to death with a chicken but the voice acting was cringe worthy and the story felt like it was written as a 7th graders creative writing assignment.

Thankfully we got ESO out of the whole deal and I've been happily playing that for ~10 years now. Base game is meh but the DLCs are fantastic.

What am I talking about again? How do I always end up several tangents deep?

I disagree that bad animations in Morrowind made it unplayable nowadays. The animations were bad, but I think the connection between sound and and visuals is where the problem lies. You swing your weapon and you hear the most underwhelming sounds accompanying it.

I can't say anything about the bartering system as I never really used it, I only recently finished Morrowind and Tribunal and Bloodmoon, but I admit I used the console to give myself god mode, because I couldn't be bothered to play the game normally.

As for ESO, I don't know what you see in it to play it for almost 10 years. I got it in 2015 before the Tamriel Unlimited update launched and I think that update dumbed the game down and ruined it as I could no longer enjoy the only thing I enjoy in MMORPGs - the leveling in the overworld. Now I can walk around naked and punch mobs to death, which I don't find as enjoyable and much prefer the game as it was in 2015 where I could overpull 2-3 mobs and get my butt handed to me.

 

[yRaz]

I disagree that bad animations in Morrowind made it unplayable nowadays. The animations were bad, but I think the connection between sound and and visuals is where the problem lies. You swing your weapon and you hear the most underwhelming sounds accompanying it.

I can't say anything about the bartering system as I never really used it, I only recently finished Morrowind and Tribunal and Bloodmoon, but I admit I used the console to give myself god mode, because I couldn't be bothered to play the game normally.

As for ESO, I don't know what you see in it to play it for almost 10 years. I got it in 2015 before the Tamriel Unlimited update launched and I think that update dumbed the game down and ruined it as I could no longer enjoy the only thing I enjoy in MMORPGs - the leveling in the overworld. Now I can walk around naked and punch mobs to death, which I don't find as enjoyable and much prefer the game as it was in 2015 where I could overpull 2-3 mobs and get my butt handed to me.

There have been lots of updates since 2015. As far as mobs go, they're just called "trash" now but there is such a thing as solo bossing now and the Dolmen's in new DLCs are TOUGH. One of my favorite new features is that in deadlands they introduced what I'm going to call "megabosses". They spawn randomly on the map and just wander around. Talk in zone chat try to organize some people to take it down because they drop VERY valuable loot.

Then you have PvP. You can't gear or level your way out of it, you actually have to be good. It rewards you for learning the game mechanics, investing the time to make a proper build and pair it with a unique combination of gear. I've made some builds where I built it around weapon effects and tactics rather than a spreed sheet of DPS numbers.

If you get board in ESO you're playing it wrong. If your favorite thing to do is just run around and grind well, go play black desert or something. ESO isn't a JRPG. I insist it is an Elder Scrolls game because you can do what you want. Once you hit the "level cap" you don't just stop leveling but you don't have to keep leveling either. Once you hit CP160 you can slow down, quest and craft or you can go the hardcore route doing veteran trials. Veteran Trials are so hard that I'm CP890 (level cap is 3600) and I have yet to complete a single veteran trial.

It sounds like you're a JRPG fan and something that makes ESO great is that it has done a good job of staying way from as many MMO stereotypes as possible.

 

[LAMBDA471]

There have been lots of updates since 2015. As far as mobs go, they're just called "trash" now but there is such a thing as solo bossing now and the Dolmen's in new DLCs are TOUGH. One of my favorite new features is that in deadlands they introduced what I'm going to call "megabosses". They spawn randomly on the map and just wander around. Talk in zone chat try to organize some people to take it down because they drop VERY valuable loot.

Then you have PvP. You can't gear or level your way out of it, you actually have to be good. It rewards you for learning the game mechanics, investing the time to make a proper build and pair it with a unique combination of gear. I've made some builds where I built it around weapon effects and tactics rather than a spreed sheet of DPS numbers.

If you get board in ESO you're playing it wrong. If your favorite thing to do is just run around and grind well, go play black desert or something. ESO isn't a JRPG. I insist it is an Elder Scrolls game because you can do what you want. Once you hit the "level cap" you don't just stop leveling but you don't have to keep leveling either. Once you hit CP160 you can slow down, quest and craft or you can go the hardcore route doing veteran trials. Veteran Trials are so hard that I'm CP890 (level cap is 3600) and I have yet to complete a single veteran trial.

It sounds like you're a JRPG fan and something that makes ESO great is that it has done a good job of staying way from as many MMO stereotypes as possible.

The problem is in 2014 and 2015 ESO was better. Now it's worse and it's dying. They chased away all their original players since nobody liked how dumbed down the game became and when someone talked about this on the forum, the toxic minority who are bad at the game and this change was welcome for them started mocking them and telling them to go play something else. Some were even passively aggressively attacking veteran players and when those players tried to defend themselves, the moderators issued temporary bans and warnings. Making those players feel unwelcome into the game.

If you are suggesting me that I should play boring and shallow games like BDO, then you don't understand anything. Maybe you haven't played ESO in 2014 and 2015 so you don't know what the game has lost and how it's become worse.

Yes, it's entirely possible to get bored with ESO. It's not some kind of a universal masterpiece, it has always been a mediocre MMORPG, now it's just worse than before. I don't enjoy grinding, I enjoy playing the story and having a decent amount of challenge in it, like it used to be. If you pull 2-3 mobs you get killed, because it required understanding of gameplay mechanics. There was a feeling of thrill and adrenaline knowing that if you mess up you can die. Now you can walk around naked and punch mobs to death. If that's your idea of fun, you probably haven't played older games or my theory is proven - you haven't played ESO when it launched.

I hate JRPGs and if you're calling a fan of JRPGs, then you haven't played any of them and have no idea what they are about. ESO doesn't allow you to do whatever you want any more than Vanilla WoW or Lineage 2 allows you to do. ESO has devolved into a game for scrubs and noobs who can't take a challenge because they suffer from an inferiority complex. If they added an optional Hardcore mode, I would play the game again, but they won't do it because it means swallowing their pride and realizing they have ruined their own game. Like how the combat in ESO sucks, and ZOS tried for years to fix it and when the realized they couldn't do it, they started preaching about how people should learn weaving instead.

Just face it ESO has been trash for years now and it only keeps getting worse. They can't even make interesting chapters anymore and chapters have been reduced to the size of old DLCs and DLCs are even tinier and more pathetic.