OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

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Rytelier
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OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by Rytelier »

Next to Daggerfall Unity there is OpenMW that aims to be a game engine supporting Morrowind. But the project got pretty controversial lately. Some people are concerned, if this project is going good and if developers approach it in good way, others say this is what Morrowind community needs and opens many possibilities.

I'll leave thoughts to you: what do you think about this project? Is this good for Morrowind modding community? Are developers doing good job? Would you change something? Would you want them to stay developing engine, or prefer Morrowind Unity?

Share your thoughts.

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Jay_H
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by Jay_H »

Since I'm on Linux, OpenMW is my only realistic option to play Morrowind. I could use Wine, but the performance requirements for vanilla Morrowind make my computer bend over in pain every time I'm in an outdoor cell. OpenMW has done excellent work so far on revamping Morrowind for lower end machines.

I was surprised to find out it's 10 years in development now. I only recently started using it, but that kind of development time must have been really crushing for the waiting fans.

I think it's very good for the modding community since a lot of the opaqueness behind Morrowind's original programming can now be entirely put aside. I like the idea of entirely new mod dimensions, which they appear to be planning for the future. Sort of like with Daggerfall Unity, eventually this path of design will let Morrowind become something far more than it was when it left Bethesda's hands.

I still can't play Lothavor's Legacy on it though, which is the one thing that keeps me coming back to play vanilla occasionally :(

Much of the disagreement appears to be rooted in programming talk, which I can't say much for. I'll leave that link for other people's convenience.

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Ziune Wolf
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by Ziune Wolf »

Overall, I am happy to see development of OpenMW, but I think the thing that draws me most towards using it is due to a separate project that utilizes the engine, tes3mp, which adds multiplayer to the game. I've tried the multiplayer in its current state and it is very playable, although some things are missing, like custom potions and spells (standard ones are usable). They've been working on a rewrite of their code for awhile, but I hear they're getting close to the next version, which should add more functionality than the previous version.

So in all, I like the project, but the prospect of being able to play multiplayer using it is what attracts me most to it.

( Also, here is the link to the tes3mp project I mentioned, in case anyone was interested or wanted to know more. They're on multiple sites, but they have links here to their discord, github, and reddit pages too. https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mwmulti )

CM August
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by CM August »

I wouldn't say OpenMW is controversial by any means. :) It's a huge positive all around - and for the most part, the recent discussions were of no concern to the average player.

The existence of tes3mp (which is a marvel in itself) and the fact that some people are now playing Morrowind on their phone is a direct consequence of the project's vision: to have a fully open game engine with rock-solid stability and security no matter what OS you're using.

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mikeprichard
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by mikeprichard »

I've been following OpenMW's progress as well on and off for many (many) years, and I also don't see any particular "controversy" in the project that would cause concern for the average user. Scrawl left a while ago, but he was no longer really active anyway. Just look at the incredible development work being done on GitLab and the prior bugtracker over the past couple years by Andrei Kortunov and Alexei Dobrohotov/Capostropic in particular, not to mention all the other longtime active developers. Although it's been an extremely long road, and there's probably another year or two until 1.0 finally arrives at the current pace, it's a testament to the strength of the community that the project still has so much energy 10 years on. I remain very optimistic about the future of both OpenMW and DFU.

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Rytelier
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by Rytelier »

Sadly there are some controversies in OpenMW. Some modders criticize design and software choices of OpenMW team, and this topic is pretty divisive. It's hard to provide an unbiased point of view, so I'll leave you to see closer what's happening there.

I'm curious what Daggerfall Unity developers think about this?

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mikeprichard
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by mikeprichard »

Is there something specific you think is relevant to DFU development? I'm not trying to be argumentative; just want to understand what exactly you're asking for/about.

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Rytelier
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by Rytelier »

I wanted to learn what people from other TES remaking related community think about this situation. Getting fresh points of view and stuff.

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mikeprichard
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by mikeprichard »

Although I do keep up with OpenMW from time to time, I'm still not clear as to what exactly is the issue. Which software is being used by the OpenMW team that others (perhaps including you) object to? What are the reasons for that objection? What other specific OpenMW developer design choices are considered controversial, and why? These details would help folks here who may not be intimately familiar with OpenMW understand the situation.

That said, as DFU is built in the broadly supported and user-friendly Unity, has an excellent modding framework (thanks to core contributors like TheLacus and his outstanding tutorials), and Daggerfall in general doesn't have a fractured community with several competing conversion/overhaul projects (I see DFU's virtual "monopoly" - if you get my meaning - on the Daggerfall renaissance as a strength; moreover, DFU, unlike OpenMW, is essentially the very first opportunity for Daggerfall modding on a significant scale), I doubt there's much to be said about any alleged OpenMW controversy from the DFU perspective. I personally also much prefer Daggerfall to the "watered-down" Morrowind and later TES games. A recent Youtube interview with Julian LeFay is quite educational in this respect, but in short, Morrowind's/Oblivion's/Skyrim's "cities" with about 20 buildings each and a "continent" about 20 km across absolutely destroy my immersion in the game world, the acknowledged flaws of Daggerfall's procedurally generated content aside.

But, I digress... I'll leave any remaining comments here to the people actually working on DFU, if any are interested. I frankly doubt any of the devs here are going to weigh in on one "side" of any debate affecting OpenMW, if that's what you're looking for, but that's up to them.

charlieg
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Re: OpenMW, Morrowind remakes

Post by charlieg »

The recent controversy was not really about OpenMW.

There were 2 issues. Firstly, one of the developers - who had been one of the most important but in recent times had somewhat stepped back - took an ideologically pure position influenced by Microsoft's recent acquisition of Github. He wanted off of Github and even floated ditching support for non-open-source operating systems i.e. just support Linux for now. Obviously not many reacted positively to this and he ragequit the project.

The other was MWSE-aligned people throwing a hissy fit over OpenMW "splitting" the modding world because OpenMW basically won't ever support MWSE. The OpenMW developers want to move away from maintaining MW script and instead use something like Lua for new features in the future. I don't think this issue is settled yet but there was almost no support for supporting extending the old MW script to support the new features added by MWSE.

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