OpenMW: Porting Morrowind to an open source engine

[Gord]

Considering how many "bug-fixes" still seem to contain almost-features of the original engine (like e.g. how respawns had been handled pre-0.39) and how some graphical features are still missing after the engine switch, I would wager that 1.0 is still 6-12 months away.
But it might be possible to complete Morrowind using openMW already, I think.

 

[Akratus]

I don't know how complete it is, but what I do know is that every subsequent version has 0.01 added to it's version number, as they've stated. So we might see a jump from any number to 1.0 once they have all that morrowind had, rebuilt. So the number itself doesn't represent their progress directly.

 

[Perkel]

So... how complete is it at this stage? What's missing?

game is playable but content wise it is pretty much done. Now mostly they focus on getting right weird aspects of MW engine.

What is i think most awesome about omw is that once it will be done people will be able to fully modify it without jumping through 100feet walls. Like body animations which are now old could be completely replaced same with models (so no longer blocky faces). Same with core mechanics of the game. They will be able to add remove anything as they see fit, redo UI etc.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

So this may actually be 'the one' that actually gets finished? These kinds of things very rarely do get finished.

 

[Gord]

I think they might actually be dedicated enough to pull through. At least up to the point where 1.0 is released.
That should offer better performance and support for a couple of modern features, while being a fully compatible and faithful replacement. But beyond that, who knows.

Then again, imho to really make sense the project still needs to go well beyond that or what could be done already with a few mods.

 

[Perkel]

I think they might actually be dedicated enough to pull through. At least up to the point where 1.0 is released.
That should offer better performance and support for a couple of modern features, while being a fully compatible and faithful replacement. But beyond that, who knows.

Then again, imho to really make sense the project still needs to go well beyond that or what could be done already with a few mods.

Once 1.0 will hit game will be at state where all mods for original morrowind will be working like they were always made for omw. Which is why they focus for now on faithful reproduction ( down to even weird behavior of mw engine), And they already did most of the work they are basically finishing things now.

 

[Old One]

I tried OpenMW 0.38 a few weeks ago, and it was really great. Even though it was missing shadows and there were still a few graphical imperfections, it was much faster and more stable than my regular GOG.com version of Morrowind. Most of the mods I tried worked with it too. I've seen posts from people who completed the game using OpenMW, and I don't doubt it.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Impressive. If I ever replay MW it will be in this then.

 

[laclongquan]

I tried OpenMW 0.38 a few weeks ago, and it was really great. Even though it was missing shadows and there were still a few graphical imperfections, it was much faster and more stable than my regular GOG.com version of Morrowind. Most of the mods I tried worked with it too. I've seen posts from people who completed the game using OpenMW, and I don't doubt it.

This

Impressive. If I ever replay MW it will be in this then.

Yeah, if I ever have the urge to replay MW, might as well try this. I dont think I would have urge to play Skyrim.

 

[Archibald]

Hows the legal stuff? Bethesda not going crazy about this?

 

[Gord]

Don't think there's much to be worried about. It still requires original assets, so they don't distribute any stuff Bethesda has a copyright on and the code is all their own original stuff.

 

[Archibald]

I understand that assets are not distributed, but can't Bethesda claim that this is replicating their "game design" or something like that? Or can you do that as long as you are not using their assets directly?

 

[ThisNameIsFree]

Depends how butthurt Bethesda about this (if at all). I doubt OpenMW devs have money for lawyers. Tetris won several cases vs clones.

 

[Gord]

Now, that might be complete nonsense, but I doubt they can shut down a piece of software simply because it is able to use their (non-encrypted) stuff.
After all it's just a replacement for the engine - all the actual game design is still loaded from Bethesda's assets, which the player has to own.
Writing new code that does stuff similar to other code should be fine legally, I doubt they can prevent that as long as one doesn't replicate copyrighted stuff or violates any patents.

Now, I know that common sense is not something lawyers are concerned about, but I would even say that such a project is beneficial for Bethesda, as it might get more people to actually buy an old game and increases its longevity.

 

[ThisNameIsFree]

I checked OpenMW wiki and seems they had it cleared up with Bethesda already: https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails

 

[Gord]

Interesting, that email exchange seems to deal mostly with the possibility of Android/iOS ports, which is something Bethesda apparently doesn't want them to do (at least not openly).

Also: Fuck, that new water shader is a resource hog...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Bethesda has embraced modding so unless there is believed to be impact to revenue or blatant copyright infringement their take would probably be that ther is no problem. It may even lead to a relative smattering of MW sales.

 

[Drax]

Hell, once it's finished, they can make a deal to distribute the game with OpenMW, like GoG does with emulators and such.

 

[Gord]

An interesting discussion on the OpenMW forums:
Should OpenMW be delayed until it offers full support for MWSE (Morrowind Script Extender), should it support MWSE at all?
Currently all seems to point towards MW not supporting MWSE, thus being incompatible to many of the more complex mods.

 

[Archibald]

Any alternatives for it possible?

 

[Gord]

I just did a superficial reading of the thread, but I think there are discussions about including a different scripting language with OpenMW.

 

[Archibald]

So without reading the thread I'd guess that this new scripting language would be "cleaner" and more efficient, but on the flip side some of the mods would have to be remade. It seams preferable as a long term solution.

 

[laclongquan]

They should prioritize their own release schedule~ It's too long as it is.

Later on, if there's demand, modder will reorient their own works toward OpenMW themselves, making it THEIR problem, not openmw's creators' problem.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Last thing they want to do is inherit the support of MW mods.

 

[Perkel]

I understand that assets are not distributed, but can't Bethesda claim that this is replicating their "game design" or something like that? Or can you do that as long as you are not using their assets directly?

You still need original game to run this.

What it does is basically throwing out whole engine and using assets from original game to run with their new engine.

As long as they won't incorporate any copyrighted material they are fine.

Last thing they want to do is inherit the support of MW mods.

?? Most of mods already work with this fine. They don't make only game they also recreate whole toolkit for it like original game had (on secondary disc).

Any mod that will work with Morrowind will work with this. Right now most of them work but few who rely on engine bugs needs to wait.

Whole point of OMW is to remake engine down to every bug and then modders will have completely open way to change anything in game.

Don't like character models and animations ? Just change animation system to that of newer games. You want better shaders and better lighting engine ? No prob you can now do as you want.