I could happily play vanilla, but there are some mods that just make the game better, funner, and more beautiful, so I prefer using them.

oh, and I would never play without the Patch Project and the Code Patch... they fix the broken vanilla game.

In my opinion, a player's first time through the game should be "vanilla". If you don't know and understand what's there and why it was done that way, you can't make a rational decision as to what to change without making unforseen changes that can have a negative effect on your experience.

I still avoid mods that alter the "feel" of the game. Some things, like graphics enhancers, can alter the overall "look", and I try to stick with those that stray the least from that original concept. I use Visual Packs (along with VP XT and VP Nature) as a "base" replacer, but with a LOT of textures from many other texture sets overwriting selected elements of those. Better Bodies, with an even higher resolution texture replacer for that, gets rid of the "puppets on strings" look of the vanilla bodies, and does a lot to make the NPCs look less like cartoon characters, without straying from the intent of the original artwork.

Changes in gameplay, such as GCD or MADD Leveler, or the MPP and MCP, get rid of what I consider "annoyances", and correct things about the original "vanilla" game that don't mesh with the world and the way I perceive it. I add them to "fix" immersion, rather than to break it.

I often use NoM to add food and sleep requirements to the game, Morrowind Crafting (or else Complete Morrowind on rare occasions) to play a "survivalist" or "tradesman" type of character, and generally some version of MCA to make the towns and cities a little less deserted (I'm not overly fond of the more radical departures from the original game in the 5.x versions). The Tamriel Rebuilt Project's mainland expansions add huge addtional areas to the game, while remaining very faithful to the original "feel". These types of mods work "in addition to" the original gameplay elements, not "instead of".

Mods like "Rich Creeper" or "MCA 5.x", that ether alter existing elements in drastic ways or add things that don't fit the original look and feel, are what I consider either "cheats" or "difficulty enhancers". Some players like them for what they want out of the game, but I find that they alter the balance far too much for my tastes. I generally avoid those, although there are days where it's amusing to load up some game-breaking mod and just do something off-the-wall because you feel like it, then remove the mod and delete the character.

I enjoy mods but I love playing through the Vanilla game. The official mods/plugins are good for more content that is made by Bethesda and they have a well balanced feel and they are free unlike the Oblivion ones. But at the same time the endless selection of great user made mods really ads to Morrowind's replay value. Anything from simple tweaks to giant continents can be found/made.

Of course, now I am dinking around with all sorts of content-adding mods. But I think they're necessary; after all, I should be able to have a portable bedroll

I generally don’t use custom content either. I’m not even sure why! I did a little with Oblivion but even then it was mainly things like the appearance of the menu, HUD etc. I never used armour or anything. And it wasn’t that long ago I got Fallout 3 for the PC. I think (and I know this sounds snotty) there are so many garish and out of place mods (some of the hairstyles for Oblivion etc) that they just don’t fit in with my idea of the world… I’ve always wished I could ‘get’ mods but have always felt quite content playing the game as it was designed.

I'm a bit of a mod junkie so I get torn between interesting sounding mods versus those that don't exactly fit the world. I therefore have 2 installs. One that's modded with lots of world altering content that doesn't fit the lore. The other that uses only mods that (I believe) stay true to the setting. To be honest there's so much stuff in my non lore install I'm still playing through it all. Suits me fine as I intend to play the non lore install once there's some more TR maps which is obviously still some way off.

cheers
KWM

Morrowind is by far my favorite game of all time. I have played it through several times, and have not tried any mods yet. TR looks freakin' awsome and I am going to load that for sure.
I am a bit nervous to do it. I am more of a hardware type guy. As soon as I get my ol' P4 computer back, I plan to give seversl mods a try. I hope there are folks around who might give me a hand if I get into trouble?

I find people in the modding forum to be very helpful so don't be afraid to ask. Just start small and work up from there.

-kWM

Just in case anyone's been nervous about checking out the TR map extensions, there's no need to worry. I've seen a lot of mods that are "over the top" or don't fit the game as Bethesda created it, but that's NOT the case here. The TR maps probably adhere to the TES lore and spirit as well as, or better than, some of the "official" content, and even though it's still in "beta testing", the first map section is VERY playable and impressive. It could very easily pass for an official expansion, except that this project will eventually be substantially bigger than the original game. The second section (out of something on the order of 6) still has no quests, so there's a bit less to do, but it looks like it will be another "essential", once the next update is released.

I was hesitant to use mods at first when I made the switch from the XBox version to the PC version. To this day I try not to use mods that make major changes to the way the game is played, but the mods I do use I would never play without. I prefer a hi-res texture replacer over the vanilla textures. I prefer better bodies over vanilla segmented bodies. I prefer to be able to place my books neatly on a shelf instead of just being able to haphazardly stack them there. I prefer multi mark to vanilla mark. A mod doesn't have to make a huge change to the game to be great. And I would never, under any circumstances, play without using Morrowind Code Patch.

I use a lot of mods, but I don't use mods that I don't think fit in with the feel of the game. I don't want my character to look like Edward Cullen and Adam Ant got merged in some kind of horrible transporter accident. I don't want to look like Master Chief either. I don't want a huge Dark Fortress of Doom randomly being right next to Caldera, just waiting for me to move in rent-free. I don't want to buy a poodle in a Balmora pet shop. I don't care if my game doesn't show boobs.

If people do like those things, awesome, good for them. Not for me though.

If people like even less than I do, likewise, good for them.

There really is no right or wrong on this, it's completely subjective opinion.

It's just nice to have this friendly forum where we can force our completely subjective opinions down everyone else's throats.

I run some of the graphics mods, but no alterations to gameplay or world except the code patch. I want everything to stay immersive. No lingerie, butterfly wings, or bizarre six armor.

What do you mean you won't host http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lo0qD6rOz8

*cough*

You should have made a poll, OP - I bet there are many more purists than you seem to think.
I'm fairly strict myself about what goes in my game. I want enhancements, not drastic changes. Anything that I feel detracts from the atmosphere won't stay in my mod list. Most of the mods I use are bugfixe, graphical improvements and gameplay tweaks I feel improve immersion. Like Kovacius pretty much. Mods are made to have fun, and my personal idea of fun is carefully keeping my Morrowind feeling like itself. I don't see what's so crazy about liking the original game. It's entirely possible that most mods don't fit your tastes, and it's nothing to feel bad about.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I prefer chocolate myself.

..

Anyway, there's nothing wrong about unmoded game. I play myself with only some graphic enhancers like better bodies.

That was truly hilarious. I've never seen that before.





Well, I count over 7,000 Morrowinds mods on Planet Elder Scrolls alone. With so many mods available it's no criticism to say that most mods don't fit a person's tastes. It would be impossible, I believe, to find anybody who liked them all. And that's the way it should be. The more choices we have available to us the more likely we are to find something we like, no matter how peculiar our tastes are.

As far as I'm concerned, if you're using any type of mod you're not playing vanilla. MCP, MPP, personal mods, whatever.

I started with vanilla, but after a while i started to use mods. Some clothing mods i use are probably too bright or too different for some people, like kat's kastle or alakazar's lamp. But they don't harm the gameworld i find myself.
But i'm a bit of a purist when it comes to replacers, such as npc replacers, region overhauls, tilesets, etc. I don't like it to have the npc's using faces of celebs or the bitter coast region turning into cyrodiil's blackwood. And i also don't like it when the original topics and some other things are changed, like MPP changes the topic about the imperial legion. I find that such things must stay close to the original game, just like bethesda has intended. That's why i use the good old UMP from Thepal (sorry quorn). Cheats are also a no go here.
I use myself alot of clothing and armor mods, house mods, couple of companions, some graphical fixes and game fixes. I don't use MGE, not yet. The reason is that i probably can't run it. But i use some replacers and those stick close to the original.
Westly's Azura creature and statue replacer for example or Qarl's Bottle replacer.
There is nothing crazy if mods aren't your cup of tea. Each just play their game as they desire. There are no rules for that. There is also no such thing as best mod.

Fair enough but you know what I mean.

Hmm well I′m somewhat both here. I want the game as the devs intended it, but I also want to fix things that didn′t get right from the start.
In Morrowind I use about 12 mods, all altering graphics or fixing gameplay to make it better, but not easier.
In Oblivion I use Spell Delete because they didn′t get it right there, one has to be able to take away old spells. Beth, I′m looking at you :stare:
I also use Subrosa′s great Forest Friend Amulet in Oblivion, because it′s not realistic to be attacked by every single animal you pass by with the only exception of deers. Usually they flee when they notice you, even predators flee humans IRL if they don′t have cubs nearby. While they don′t flee when using the amulet, at least they don′t make me kill them all for nothing
(P.S. Sub, can you make one like that for Morrowind?)

Other than stuff like that, I want all my games vanilla

I agree, I bought it on steam because it was a great deal but I have yet to play it really. The console just feels right, the only thing I prefer on computer is of course, the RTS genre. I get out of hand with mods and it becomes too much with mercenaries, castles, interaction mods and other things and it ruins it.

I won't go completely un-modded. I consider Better Bodies to be a requirement - frankly, the game should have had character meshes like that in the first place, there was no excuse for what shipped. I also always use MCP, the official and unofficial patches, and I've recently added MGE. Beyond that, I'm generally happy with the vanilla game. I know that may sound like a contradiction in terms, but I consider all of those to be enhancers.

I will say I normally indulge in Emma's Laura Craft mod. After wandering around alone for a while, I'll go dig her up out of my mod archive. It's just so much more fun to have a companion - even if she is sometimes work to maintain.

I play ultra-vanilla. I don't even have Tribunal or Bloodmoon.

The only mod I have is wiwiland unofficial patch, which corrects tons of quest related bugs for the french version. I may one day install the master index mod, I don't know.

What I wanted first is to try to max out the possibilities in original Morrowind. Discover (almost) everything. Finish every quest, in every factions. Then I may install Tribunal or Bloodmoon.

This proved to be very hard, obviously. I first tried to finish all Fighters guild quests. When I did, I discovered later with another char that there was one in Sadrith Mora that I forgot. Woops, lets start again (I've lost the savegame). I had almost finished my retry, but then my char was hard to level up (too much "jack of all trades" style). I gave up. I also discovered the great houses that you can join, which I completely overlooked.

Hopefully I already completed the main quest once...

So I'm here right now : I reinstalled yesterday, started a new warrior. After finishing the fighters guild, I'll finish House Redoran, then MQ. Then I'll restart with some kind of wizard, for the Mage guild and house telvanni (and maybe temple), and at the end a thieve with the corresponding guild/house.

Then I'll be ready for Tribunal/Bloodmoon. Wish me luck, this is going to take years.

I have nothing that alters gameplay. I played vanilla for YEARS. It's only this recent installation that I've used mods and even then it was only to improve the visual quality of the game. Other than that there's nothing in it that alters any gameplay at all.

i use graphical enhancers. textures, meshes, MGE, that sort of thing. also bugfixes.

MCA because cities should have a decent amount of people in them. extra encounters in the wilderness is good too.

my own mod is prolly the only "gameplay" changing mod i use. even then it is to add difficulty and expand on areas of the original game i felt were lacking.