Mod status

Introduction
Once you have played through unmodded Morrowind and its expansions, you probably want to add some spice to your next playthrough: thousands of modifications (mods) are available to enhance the overall gameplay, adjust the game mechanics to your tastes, or simply improve the graphics quality. There also are mods which add new landscapes and quests – and some are proper total conversions (TCs), stand-alone games taking Morrowind's engine as a basis.

The OpenMW project has set one of its main goals to provide compatibility with each and every Morrowind mod which
 * is a pure replacer or a modification created with the original Construction Set,
 * doesn't rely on third-party software or other engine hacks,
 * doesn't contain any severe scripting errors or other crucial design flaws.

Our engine is, of course, not perfect and certain mods may fail to load or may show unexpected behaviour. If you encounter any bugs with a mod, please report them at our bugtracker or at our forums (newbies should check out our Bug Reporting Guidelines). Additionally, we have created this page to keep track of tested Morrowind mods and provide information about issues related to each of these mods.

Mod installation
OpenMW uses a more flexible method for installing mods. Check out our Mod installation Wiki page here.

Mod sources
The OpenMW team does not provide any mods or external mod tools. However, there are a couple of great mod libraries for TES III: Morrowind (this list is not exhaustive):

Further information and discussion
Anyone who is a member of the Wiki group can add details of mods they have tested; see the forum's User Control Panel and assign yourself to the group in order to get access.

We also have a Mod Compatibility subforum where any issues can be discussed thoroughly.

If you want to test Morrowind mods in OpenMW but don't know how to start, check out our Mod testing guidelines page. If you already know how to properly test mods in OpenMW, please check this page out too because it also contains information regarding posting your test results.

Working status of existing Morrowind mods
The following list of "tested", "test in progress", "needs re-testing", or "not tested yet" mods makes no claim to be complete. Every Morrowind modification fulfilling the requirements mentioned above should work with OpenMW. The statements made about a mod's working status refer to a clean OpenMW installation, only using the particular mod and its required content files.

Lists of catalogued mods

 * Alchemical and Spell Mods
 * Armor and Weapon Mods
 * Balance and Difficulty Mods
 * Bethesda Softworks Mods
 * Companion Mods
 * Creature Mods
 * Gameplay Mods
 * Mesh and Texture Mods
 * House Mods
 * Item Mods
 * NPC Mods
 * Quest Mods
 * OpenMW Mods
 * Overhaul Mods
 * Script Fix Mods
 * Sound and Voice Mods
 * Total Conversion Mods
 * User Interface Mods

Fixing mods that use fake bump maps
Bump maps produce a realistic shine on textures. Morrowind Code Patch (MCP) made it possible to use so-called fake bump maps in vanilla Morrowind. Apart from these maps not achieving the quality of real bump maps, our engine has a problem with this approach: The fake-bump-map method imports the normal map into an environment-map block in the .nif file. Both OpenMW and vanilla Morrowind will display such a model with excessively shiny or glowing textures. MCP is used with vanilla Morrowind to "fix" this by darkening all the environment maps. However, OpenMW's engine natively supports real bump maps (specifically the types called normal maps and spectral maps), which renders the hacky MCP version obsolete anyway.

Our member Lysol has created a tutorial on how to get rid of these shiny textures in OpenMW.

To cut a long story short: Mods using fake bump maps will always appear very shiny in OpenMW. This can only be fixed by editing the textures/meshes.

Morrowind Graphics and Sound Overhaul (MGSO) incompatibility
 Morrowind Overhaul: Sounds & Graphics a.k.a. MGSO is one of the biggest and best-known Morrowind mod compilations. It consists of around 300 mods and integrates well-known utilities like the Morrowind Code Patch (MCP) and the Morrowind Graphics Extender (MGE). It comes with its own installer which allows players to adjust everything to their tastes.

Unfortunately, OpenMW does not support installer-based modifications like MGSO, rendering it essentially incompatible with OpenMW. However, you may set up MGSO on your vanilla Morrowind installation, then import your data and mod list to OpenMW, and hope for the best.

In any case, we've added many of the corresponding mods to the mod compatibility lists above; check out the full list of mods included in MGSO, on our MGSO Wiki page. (The original list was formerly available at the authors' website but has somehow vanished.)

Utilities software for Morrowind
There are quite a few third-party utilities for Morrowind which allow players to increase the game's graphical quality, tweak its performance, edit content, adjust the load order of content files, and so forth. While most of these programs are not compatible with OpenMW, some of them may be used to "prepare" an existing Morrowind installation and port the results to OpenMW. At your own risk, of course.

List of catalogued utilities
Forthcoming: a column showing operating system(s), if applicable (many of these tools require MS Windows).

Status indicators: hover over icons to see their meanings.

Morrowind Script Extender (MWSE) incompatibility
 Mods that require MWSE will not work in OpenMW. This utility expands the scripting capabilities of the original Morrowind engine. It is a stand-alone MS Windows executable and does not work with OpenMW. Some of its features may be added to OpenMW after our 1.0 release (see our MWSE Wiki page for further information), and an OpenMW fork experimenting with Scripting Extension is already in advanced development (requires at least Python 3.3, Lua 5.1, and SWIG 3).

Morrowind Graphics Extender (MGE / MGE XE) incompatibility


Mods that require MGE will not work in OpenMW. These utilities improve Morrowind's overall graphical quality, make it possible to control certain graphics settings via scripts, and add several new features to the original engine, e.g., a variety of shaders. It is a stand-alone MS Windows executable and does not work with OpenMW. Many of their features have already been added to OpenMW with more on the way, and some of OpenMW's feature already surpass some of MGE's and MGE XE's. See our MGE XE Wiki page for more information.

Morrowind Code Patch (MCP) incompatibility


This utility fixes a good amount of buggy or poorly-written game mechanics, and Bethesda engine bugs, and brings a bunch of new (optional) features to vanilla Morrowind. It is a stand-alone MS Windows executable and does not work with OpenMW. Many of its features have already been either added to OpenMW or simply do not apply because the from-scratch nature of OpenMW never produced that particular bug in the first place. See our MCP Wiki page to learn more.

Testers
Credits go to Bethesda for creating an exceptional game – exceptional in every sense – with unusual modding possibilities. Credits also go to the great Morrowind modding community which is still active after all these years. Finally, special thanks go to all the mod testers who made this page feel like a true list of tested mods rather than a small selection of user-created content.

If a tester has chosen to link their talk page below, feel free to ask them for advice or assistance.