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Morrowind PC/Installation/mod help

Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 3:03 pm
by Draiath
I seem to have gotten myself into a sticky situation :(
The other day I installed the Morrowind game of the year edition which includes Bloodmoon and Tribunal. So today I had the bright idea to add a few mods into the mix to see it they would improve the graphics a bit so I installed them as I would in the Elder Scrolls Oblivion, into the data folder and from here things went downhill >_>

I finished installing and went to turn on the game and I got an error pop-up which didn't surprise me because I had a feeling I'd installed the mods wrong so I went to try and back up my files but ended up messing that up too so I just deleted everything with the intention of re-installing (install wouldn't work).

I deleted everything and put in the CD and clicked install and I get to the menu which tells you to install Morrowind first, Bloodmoon 2nd etc.. but where the button for install on the Morrowind option isn't there and it just says "Play" and "readme". I've backtracked and tried to hunt down and delete any rogue files to do with morrowind but nothing will work...
Any advice as to how to get re-install to work would be appreciated :) I've really messed things up :o

Edit:
-Nevermind I got it to work :) Manual installation works wonders ^^

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 2:10 am
by Kipi
Welcome to GameBanshee! :)

I take it you manually deleted the files and did not use uninstaller? In that case there were traces in registry of the game, and the autorun thought that you still had the game installed. As you said, manual installation works fine, and for future reference if you don't use uninstaller it may be good idea to use a tool to remove those ghost registry entries. I myself use CCleaner for that.

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:16 am
by Draiath
Good to be here! Seems like a nice forum :D

Yeah I did the manual delete as some of the files which I kinda ruined included the uninstaller! Thanks for the advice about deleting the files, hopefully I won't have any reason to need it in the future :laugh:

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:31 pm
by Lemmus
As for your mod problem, that error message doesn't mean that the game won't run, just that the main executable thinks that the dates are wrong. You can fix this by opening each mod in the TESCS, then saving it, which will update the date embedded in the file. Or you can just ignore the error and run the game, it will probably work.

You do have to worry about conflicts between mods though, and with the game having been out 8 years now, and being one of the first big modifiable games, there are a LOT of mods available, which means a lot of opportunity for conflict. You basically have three options.

1) Keep it simple and hope for the best. This is a fire and forget style of modding. Download a few that look interesting, see if it works, then add a few more. The more you add, the more likely a conflict will be, and the harder it will be to track down the problem. If you are just using texture mods, check out the visual comparison at Thepal's Amazing, Wonderful and Spectacular Morrowind Texture Pack Comparison Page, download all packs of the chosen system, and play the game. You probably also want to grab Better Bodies, which improves models and textures on NPCs. If you start adding in other mods, consider options 2 & 3.

2) Do some forum research. Read over past articles here, and on your preferred mod download site, for advice on popular mods and groups of mods which work well together. This will also give you general info, such as which types of mods to only use one of (game play changes, like levelling systems), which to be careful with (faction/ quest changes which may overlap NPCs/ scripts), which are usually okay (dungeons, unless there's map overlap). Problems are most common in the popular cites, such as Balmora and Vivec.

3) Do direct Mod research. This will be very time consuming, but is the only way to get exactly the mods you want, and be sure they will work together. There's a useful tool at Morrowind Landmass Conflict Checker - aka MMGUM - Planet Elder Scrolls which has world map locations for thousands of mods, but requires you to do a lot of research.

You may also get some use out of :
Starting out with Mods (Self explanatory, will teach you the basics.)
Telesphoros' List o'Mods (Good forum list of popular mods)
Planet Elder Scrolls - Maps, News, Oblivion, Cheats, Downloads (my mod site of choice)
Galahaut's Morrowind Mod List Wiki / Mod Conflicts ( a reasonably up to date list of known conflicts on popular mods, there's a broken link, but you can find the image here : http://www.mwmythicmods.com/MAPoMODSbyCyronaut.jpg)
The Elder Scrolls Nexus - Oblivion mods and community (the other popular mod site)

Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 8:45 am
by Draiath
Thanks Lemmus! That's actually really handy advice for me considering I'm the sort of person who forgets about research. I didn't know there were comparison sites for mods so this should help alot! Thanks again! :D