A lot of people want to know what the final product looks like once installed. While it'll obviously vary a bit because of optional stuff, I think it's not unreasonable to try for this.

I have a good system and can take screenshots, so I'll try to get working on this. Help is always appreciated, though better if you have the specs to run it fairly high-end.

Need to create new labels and update existing ones. These labels also need to be applied to both open and closed issues to lay the ground work for using github-changelog-generator.

Rebase the updater branch so it shares commit history with master, then do a pull request and squash the commits so they don't clutter commit history on master. Not sure if this will close all the referenced issues in the pull request, I haven't been able to find any answer to that question. This is important for the future implementation of our auto-built changelog.

• Rebase an orphan branch on top of a feature branch

Now that this is turning in to a larger project which really encourages contributions (and hopefully something which continues to improve way beyond 2019!), should it be put under some kind of license? E.g. under cc-by-sa 4.0?

Perhaps a ## contributors section as well? IMO always nice to see your name somewhere in projects, and I think others feel the same way :) and that would be a good place to add the authors of the old guides as well.

Banner retextures have been reworked by CreeperLava into a standalone edition that doesn't require an ESP and would fit perfectly with Signposts Retextured.

I am currently in the process of following the guide to the end, so I can't accurately test this, but if it is an improvement it should supersede the original entry in the guide.

Whenever I try and run Morrowind after completing the Baseline Installation and Boilerplate part of the guide a small black window appears on my screen and freezes forcing me to close it with the task manager. Only installed to the end to the Baseline Installation and Boilerplate tab. Morrowind.exe works but with no mods. Tried uninstalling and re-installing with the same problem.

I understand that you know that fliggerty is down, and it's been down for a while now. I tried to find the download link for the mod on the wayback machine, but there was no archive of it at all. So I was wondering if you could link another BetterClothesBloodMoonPlus 1.5 in the guide

Please leave your thoughts, or screenshot comparisons here.

GH is a bit of a mess, and has been replaced with Happy Harvesting. However, HH doesn't provide the nice visual changes that GH does, so I'm waiting for Stuporstar to release the GH made in MWSE with LUA.

Once it releases, I'll swap it in and remove all references to Graphic Herbalism and related patches.

Change Log is a technically correct term, but is not widely used and not recommended by wikipedia, take a look at this issue for more information.

Here is some purist splash screens created by Petetehgoat that would be great alternatives to ones already listed: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45680

Typora should be our recommended Markdown viewer/editor. Users can view both the guide and changelog with it, as well as make fast and efficient edits before doing a PR. Did I mention the outliner that is used to quickly preview and navigate the TOC?

What makes it different among countless markdown editors in this world is that: it basically doesn’t provide syntax highlighting for markdown source nor a separated view/window for previewing, instead, it combines syntax highlighting for markdown source and the live preview function in a single window seamlessly, thus make it possible for users to read and write acticles with markdown at the same time and in one window only

This will be used for creating a base changelog. Each release will contain a set of changes tied to issues and pull requests. Most of the commits were not tied to issues however so they will have to be manually added, however this is good practice for future releases.

The custom logger should help with debugging as well as act as a short-hand way of invoking System.out.println. Should have different levels that can be chosen on runtime using JVM arguments.

Instead of downloading the current working tree, the updater should download the latest release. This requires changing the structure format of the version file and updating the code to handle it accordingly.

Markdown supports images and emojis being displayed. We should upload custom icon images to gh-pages and link them in the guide so they render as icons. The use of emojis can also be employed where it would be simpler and make more sense to use them.

From Half11:

The Shader section is very basic for 2019. I wouldn't go all out on it (too many experimental stuff), but it could use some tweaked shaders. I am currently testing a fairly basic setup what could be an improvement.

Once I get those suggestions, I'll add them to the guide

But in general, it's basic at the moment. If anyone has suggestions for improvements to the shaders section, feel free to toss them my way.

There has been an update to Redoran Arkitektora, releasing volume 2 with Project Atlas and Tamriel Rebuilt support.

There are two (known to me) mods that help to improve lighting in Morrowind, aside from MGE XE and its shaders.

• di.Still.ed Lights
• True Lights and Darkness

Out of the box these are incompatible, however, the author of di.Still.ed had this to say:

Well this mod is really simple and modify light sources behaviour and power, and ambient light tone. You can experiment by loading TLAD before and make my mod overwrite some of TLAD basic stuff (flickering effect, interior cell light), the rest should work... I could do some modular stuff if needed.

If and how these mods are added is up for debate, and will likely require a bit of testing and tweaking INI-wise to make stuff look pretty.

Emojis should be added to changelog section prefixes and release descriptions. Concerning release descriptions, every modlist update entry should be prefixed with an emoji for improved readability.

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/44656/?

(sorry if this isnt the right way to do this ive never used git hub)

also the version of antares' big mod linked is (slightly) out of date, new versions up here http://arcimaestroantares.webs.com/antaresbigmod.htm

Use a project called github-changelog-generator that can automatically generate a changelog based on custom configurations and repo labels. Here is an example.

All of Arkitektora volumes are Atlased and include those files as optional downloads. Since we are installing Atlas, we should direct users to download those optional files.

Shadow gradle plugin is building executable jar files with too large of a file-size. I am guessing this is due to it packing the entirety of dependency libraries inside. This issue needs further investigation before we can resolve it.

For longer docs this I find a table of contents to be really useful. This is also something which is supported in GFM syntax (inlcluding spaces).

What do you think about a TOC? Will others find it useful? Is it worth the effort? I mean it would need to be updated every time a header is added or changed/moved, which kinda is a pain... it seems like it can be automated with this though.

Think about adding these two mods to the list:

• Detailed Settlements - These plug-in's improved the settlements in morrowind by adding more detail.
• Detailed Interiors - Brings new life to morrowind's interior cells.

These mods were recommended by Bluttier over at MW Discord server.

Looking for some clothing textures that were better than Better Clothes and Good Clothes and Closer to HiRez Better Clothes I stumbled into some excellent clothing textures. They are Included in DassiD's Morrowind Enhanced Textures mod but not clearly stated that they are. So.. most people using that mod end up overriding with inferior clothing textures. Should def. be used in this guide. Here's just one for example. MET on the left and Better Clothes on the right.

when using the Tamriel Data Patch you mentioned in "Major Mods to be aware of" you mentioned you needed a patch which linked to Graphic Herbalism Addons. but if you try using this it refers to an something that is no longer used because the tamriel data file changed at some point. maybe i missed something but the core file still works fine with tamriel rebuilt but when i try using that addon mod it mentions something along the lines of dummy files couldnt be found for some scripts.

my game is working fine without the addon (so far) but it is still very early in the game so im not sure if i might eventually run into issues. just posting this as maybe i just overlooked something or they are no longer compatible for some reason and can let other people know if they are having issues.

The non bump mapped version of Dunmeri Urns - Aestetika is broken and will crash the game when approaching certain cells. (I initially encountered it while moving towards the Vivec boatmaster.) Amusingly, Thastus, reddit turned up an old post of you having trouble with this and also the solution:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/55o4ig/i_followed_the_step_guide_but_im_getting_a_few/

I can confirm that replacing with the bump mapped version of the mod fixes the error. The guide could either just blanket tell people to use that edition, or else offer the other suggested fixes. (Not confirmed by me as solutions, though.)

The load order I have now is just from Mlox, however, I am concerned it may not be sufficient. Morrowind 2017 had a load order for the plugins, but it's now quite outdated and several plugins have been added/removed. Not sure if it's applicable anymore.

The issue is caused by Unofficial Morrowind Official Plugins Patched (UMOPP).

It's specifically caused by the Bitter Coast Sounds plugin. However, this means anyone using the "Merged" version will also encounter this.

Note that you likely won't see this issue on Wyre or Manual installs, it seems to be related to any form of linking or virtualization. NMM, MO2, Vortex are all affected.

This might be exactly what we've been looking for:

JSmooth is a Java Executable Wrapper. It creates native Windows launchers (standard .exe) for your java applications. It makes java deployment much smoother and user-friendly, as it is able to find any installed Java VM by itself.

When no VM is available, the wrapper can automatically download and install a suitable JVM, or simply display a message or redirect the user to a web site.

The project is quite outdated and does not support x64 builds.

His left (visual right) eye is modded, but his face texture is the vanilla one as far as I can tell.

Screenshots should compare Smooth and Regular version of UV Mudcrabs.
This needs to be done so people can make an informed decision.

From my EU4 mod project:

Custom commit style provides standardized workflow, improved readability of commit history and fun! Unlike the standard commit convention that uses category keywords to help recognize relevant commit, we're using emojis. Using emojis on commit messages provides an easier way of identifying the purpose or intention of a commit with only looking at the emojis used.

Example of how I used it there:

• ➡️ ➕ Migrating code to a new file
• 🚸 ⭐ Implement new user feature

22:03:24.736 [D] setting file times on esps
22:03:25.067 [D] Load Mechanism: Mod Organizer
22:03:25.492 [D] Updating VFS mappings...
22:03:25.966 [D] VFS mappings updated <linked 256 dirs, 3 files>
22:03:25.970 [D] Spawning direct process < "C:/Morrowind/Mopy/mash64.exe" , "" , "C:/Morrowind/Mod Organizer 2 (Archive)/profiles/Default" >
22:03:25.971 [D] Creating process hooked: < ""C:\Morrowind\Mopy\mash64.exe"\u0000\u0000" >
22:03:26.048 [D] Waiting for spawned process completion : mash64.exe (10416)
22:03:27.688 [D] Waiting for process completion successfull
22:03:27.736 [D] removing loadorder.txt
22:03:29.604 [D] C:\Morrowind\Mod Organizer 2 (Archive)\profiles\Default\loadorder.txt saved
22:03:29.607 [D] C:\Morrowind\Mod Organizer 2 (Archive)\profiles\Default\lockedorder.txt saved
22:03:29.608 [D] setting file times on esps

Of all the Hlaalu retextures I've seen, this one offers the best visuals (imo). Makes the buildings look weathered and crisp.

I'm pretty sure this isn't how they looked in vanilla and there's several mesh problems.

I also ran into an annoyance where using water walking in there left me totally unable to climb out of those water pools. However, vanilla could've had that same mesh issue, so idk.

Examples: https://imgur.com/a/N4EOHoc

This mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/46069

Considering adding it. However, concerned about the compatibility with:

• Better bodies (the default)
• Robert's bodies
• New Beast Bodies - Clean Version
• Wey's Argonians (the default)
• Improved Argonians
• Better Morrowind Armor
• Less Bulky Pauldrons

Testing and help with this is greatly appreciated, though I'll do some of my own.

I always prefer this retexture for VIvec-Velothi:
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/32886/

It adds a layer of antiquity to interior textures that other mods don't imo.

Solstheim - Tomb of the Snow Prince v1.3

This is an ABOT-updated and much-fixed version of TOTSP

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d70l2lbjvm0xloo/WestlyHeadsAnimFix.zip?dl=0

Fixes blinking and mouth movements with Westly's heads. Source.

An user interface mod that expands UI functionality with searching, filtering, and more visual feedback. It was requested on our channel and recommended by Corsair.

The guide's current grass generation protocol leaves TR lands without groundcover; I have done research on the new Old Ebonheart update and can only find a mod that works with Vurt's groundcover:

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/45973?tab=description

I've confirmed personally that this is a working option, if you're willing to also use Vurt's only in Vvardenfell. That could be offered as the intermediate solution while I investigate the possibility of getting the, in my opinion, superior Ozzy's grass working.

From testing the new assets in this guide, I've found that Vurt's trees in particular cause a medium to high performance hit in some areas of the world. They are also not the best visual options in my opinion, but that aside, they are not compatible with MOP and are also not recommended by some of the big player on MW Discord.

A note from Morrowind Optimization Project state that:

This will overwrite meshes you already have installed. Do NOT use this with Vurt's Trees.

I've started a short discussion about which trees are best for an optimized MW setup and I was told this:

Vurt's trees are horribly optimized, I go with Rem for Ascadian Isles, Melchior's West Gash trees (vanilla friendly as well). Grab all the trees in MOP, Rem's Ascadian isles, MD's West Gash and that should be optimized enough without using vurt.

The updater application is unable to update itself while it's still running. Need to find a solution to this problem, instead of directing the users to move the files on their own. Here is a good place to start looking for a solution to this problem.

In the instructions for Connary's Fine Vials it states disable tx_rustedmetal0. However this isn't the name of any of the textures. There are, however, textures tx_rustedmetal00 and tx_rustedmetal10. (With the github font that's hard to see). Does anyone know which file should be disabled?

The standard method of using ZipEntry and ZipInputStream does not work with 7z archive types. This can be resolved by using Apache Commons Compress library.

References:

• Extract files from a 7-zip stream in Java
• Apache Commons Compress

It has occurred to me that if this guide is going to include MWSE mods that it should have a section of its own. Since it would allow you to separate out these mods from the others and give explanation on how to use them, install MWSE (which is rather easy), and other such things. This would of course avoid people installing these mods without MWSE and then getting confused when they do not work.

However, discussing this in the discord it has been brought up that it might also be confusing in another regard due to people being confused about these mods not being with the other of their kind. So alternatively, you could have a section on MWSE at the beginning in boilerplate or just a small standalone section explaining the gist of what MWSE is and how it works, and then saying that MWSE mods will be noted as such, and have the mods be in the relevant section. Or do a little of both, and have a section explaining MWSE, put the mods in the section they belong and then have a section for optional MWSE mods or a subsection in optional.

These are just my thoughts on this matter. Hopefully they are of help. And that my language is not too opaque or obtuse (though nothing editing this won't fix).

We can use the GitHub native Projects functionality to organize this task. It will mostly be used by me for now, but it's still a good way to get started using the full potential of GitHub for our guide development.