Hyrule Mount and Blade

[XVM Dragon]

Cool beans

[Overmind5000]

Speaking of which, I haven't really asked to use Overmind's work in Warband yet, but I'm hoping to.

Well all you had to do was ask. I'm willing to share my handiwork for other projects.

[SXFighter]

Thank you very much Very fine additions indeed.

[SXFighter]

Upon reviewing the latest developments for OpenMW I'm quite impressed with the pace work is progressing. It seems that OpenMW has broken loose from a lot of limitations of the Morrowind engine and continues to do so.

Warband has been hitting me with obstacle after obstacle, so, running the risk of seeming fickle, I'm seriously considering changing my focus from a Mount & Blade port to a Morrowind one.

Here are some factors:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

-Morrowind is a bit more modder friendly than Warband and with OpenMW's implementation it has matching stability

-Features such as magic are deeply in-bedded in the Morrowind experience while magical effects in Warband are a shaky addition at best

-M&B quests are entirely shallow compared to what can be achieved with Morrowind. In MW you can tell a story and live it too.

-M&B's use of wildlife is lame at best, there is no native support and the best implementation is a hunting feature. Animals can't be added to scenes in a nice way. In Morrowind, there are birds in the sky, fish in the sea, bugs and beasts on the earth. Friendliness or hostility isn't a limiting factor for MW.

-M&B is just another war game, too comparable to the experience provided by HTW to justify its existence over something more unique. A Morrowind port would offer something new to the Zelda franchise, an entirely open game where you can actually live in Hyrule as you choose.

-Morrowind has a race and creature system built in, so I wouldn't have to use silly work-arounds to include all of HTW's diverse life.

-Gameplay would be much closer to a traditional Zelda experience while retaining the freedom of a sandbox game. There would be a sense of adventure and individual character personality, don't forget exploration and dungeons.

-Less risk and more playability. Anyone could use things I port as I port them. No more waiting for years for a beta, just add stuff in to your Morrowind game as I trickle out releases leading up to a full overhaul. Warband requires all or nothing, additions would only add work in the long run so overhauling from the start is required.

-Immersion: M&B tells you, Morrowind shows you.

-Text editing: My god, M&B is nearly as bad as MedII in this and editing lifeless text files for nearly every function of the game is brain-meltingly tedious. Morrowind is nearly entirely GUI based in its editing.

-Native feature support; I've covered some of these already but it's worth driving home the point that nearly everything I want to achieve with Warband requires an annoying work-around. Morrowind (with the addition of OpenMW) provides the framework for everything I've planned short of full-scale war and that's not a huge priority for me.

There are plenty more reasons why I think this is the right move, but at the end of the day I just think this will be a more worthwhile endeavor, and will result in a game closer to what I want to play.

I've tried to think of anything M&B Warband has over Morrowind, there are two things;

Combat:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is the whole focus for M&B, so it's not surprising that it's better. IMO It beats Morrowind in this respect hands down regardless of any combat mods, with directional attacking/blocking and great, smooth mounted and ranged combat.

Large Scale Warfare:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For now, it's near impossible to have factions wage war against each other in Morrowind in any meaningful way. The good news is that OpenMW brings all sorts of new possibilities into the fray, so this may change. In the meantime, scripted battles could give a sense of war to the land, and you can always personally mount attacks with companions.

This isn't a final decision, although as you can see I'm all but convinced. If you have a strong argument for why I shouldn't switch over, hit me with it. I'd love to do both, but only if I were to get a dedicated team for both mods, which is highly unlikely. I'm sorry if this news saddens or angers anyone, I hope most will agree that the pros outweigh the cons.

What does everyone think?

[Athreon]

Well, frankly, one of the huge things everyone loves about Hyrule Total War is the military scale. Having tiers of soldiers fighting the enemies tiers of soldiers, getting better, massive battles and all that. Mount & Blade is based around the same idea from a battlefield commander's point of view. It's another side of the same coin. Morrowind is.... different in almost every conceivable way. It's about the individual. A single person doing his own thing fighting and adventuring.

I think a Hyrule based Morrowind mod would be pretty awesome, but for Hyrule Total War, Mount & Blade simply fits the bill much better.

[SXFighter]

The thing is, the point you've argued is exactly my reason for switching. I'm tired of war, and it's already executed perfectly by HTW, a Mount & Blade port would be the same thing except with a first person perspective and a poorer execution. It wouldn't support siege weaponry and every single non-humanoid race that I try to implement will be a huge hassle. Not to mention the fact that even if Wizrobes get the magic they need, it'll be unbalanced and unstable.

A morrowind port would allow much more of a personal interaction with the art Neph has created, and I'm much more of a roleplayer than a strategist. I actually always turn battle unit sizes down to small so individual characters feel more important, so I'm not really in to the massive battle aspect.

I could honestly sink years into a warband port just to run into a functionality wall that makes the whole thing worthless. Looking deeper into the M&B engine has shown me its harsh limitations, OpenMW promises an unlimited experience.

I'm not saying that a good Warband port wouldn't be awesome, it's just that it's not really feasible. I do agree that M&B is more fitting to the war aspect, it's just too limited when it comes to everything else special about HTW.

I wish OpenMW was already at 1.0 and Bannerlord was released, that would make the choice easier.


At the end of the day, a Warband version required trail-blazing on a vast scale in terms of features. Much of what I had planned has only barely seen any sort of functionality in other mods. Coding is a huge requirement for M&B mod making on this scale and I just don't have a talent/interest for that. On the other hand I know I can achieve my goals with OpenMW.

[XVM Dragon]

Both possibilities seem interesting. A MW port would definitely be more unique. However I might end up being more work overall though, with the whole building of Hyrule from a first person perspective (dungeons and stuff included). Ultimately it's your choice

I wish OpenMW was already at 1.0 and Bannerlord was released, that would make the choice easier.

You could just wait for them to both be released, while working on general assets in the background, and then make a decision

[warl0rd13]

That does sound fun, if it's what you really want then go for it.

[SXFighter]

Both possibilities seem interesting. A MW port would definitely be more unique. However I might end up being more work overall though, with the whole building of Hyrule from a first person perspective (dungeons and stuff included). Ultimately it's your choice

You could just wait for them to both be released, while working on general assets in the background, and then make a decision

When you factor in the tediousness of the ridiculous amount of text editing that M&B requires, it's about the same amount of work. The work for MW would be much less mind-numbing, so I could probably get it done faster. I may do as you suggest and just work on assets until bannerlord comes out before I start anything too intensive, although I'll probably mess with MW a bit to see exactly how it will handle while I wait. OpenMW is actually really close to a 1.0 release.

That does sound fun, if it's what you really want then go for it.

Thanks for the support

[Eldren]

Why not make a test scenario for both Mount & Blade and Morrowind?
Then you can let people play test that and give their feed back on which one they would prefer. Of course you still get to make the final decision on which one you will fully complete.

Or both.

You were going to make a Combat test for Mount & Blade any ways. So why not.
All it would be is a presentation Demo. It wouldn't even be an Alpha Demo.

Edit:
I assume you can change starting Gear and stats by those Starting questions that are a part of Character Creation.
Just have an opening scene/talk fallowed by a training in the basic movements/ etc.
Have the map small for both test scenario's. With 1 town, a practice site for combat, and some thing to fight. out of the training grounds and out of town.

Edit2:
Or, of course, you can have as little or as much as you want for this presentation/test play.

[SXFighter]

Why not, it'd be a shame for everything I've already ported not to see the light of day. I think the easiest way would just be to release a custom battle scene with Hylians vs Maj Worshipers, as I don't have much left to do to make that happen.

I'd love to do both, but I'd need a team for the M&B version. No one has come forward yet.


For Morrowind I'll just release equipment to the Nexus as I port it, I wouldn't actually start an overhaul/new world space until everything was in-game. So testing could be done a little at a time.

The ultimate goal would be for the mod to be completely free of Bethesda's Morrowind stock assets and on the OpenMW 1.0+ engine, so that it would be a free standalone game that doesn't require the ownership of Morrowind.


If anyone has been frustrated with Morrowind in the past, please try the current version of OpenMW. It supports multiple mod installation paths so you can keep your default install safe when using a lot of mods. I know I've ruined installs quite a few times with conflicting mods, so this is a huge deal for me. It's also way more stable and smooth than vanilla MW and runs much faster while looking better! Really there are too many features for me to list here. Now if only they'd fix Oblivion

[Overmind5000]

An open morrowind engine? As in the source code is unbarred?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The bottom text of said image isn't necessary. I looked it up.

Regardless, my interest is spiked.

[SXFighter]

Yes, anyone is free to contribute or make their own version of the code. It's pretty exciting. Part of the reason I'm not bothered by the lack of true warfare in Morrowind is because I fully expect it to be developed in some way for OpenMW. Heck, they could even find a way to add directional attacking.

Scrawl is the star over at OpenMW and he's quite amazing. It seems that updates come regularly and often. Many are already planning to make their own games based on the engine, I guess I am too now. Let's just hope (as always) that archaic copyright laws don't get in the way. Despite having to learn a new porting technique I'm pretty excited for the switch to MW.

Hopefully I'll have some previews or even a download up real soon.

If only there was an open source total war engine, then HTW would be able to shine in its full glory.

[XVM Dragon]

So how's things coming along?

[Eldren]

So how's things coming along?

@SXFighter
And, to add to that. How have you yourself been?
This weather really is sapping my work strength.

[SXFighter]

Thanks for asking Eldren, sorry the weather has you down! I've actually felt really energized and great lately, despite the heat. Which is not a state I'm very familiar with.



I feel that I have an amazing surprise in store. I just want to have a full presentation's worth of material before I unveil, so that it has impact and gains support.

I will say that I'm really excited about it and I think it will satisfy most everyone on either side of the Morrowind/Mount&Blade debate.

[XVM Dragon]

Sounds great!

[Don Juan_de_Austria]

Strange, the last time I saw this thread was when SXFighter was bringing up the OpenMorrowind thing, than I for a long time didn´t saw this thread again and was wondering what had happened to him, and now I find this thread again!

I feel that I have an amazing surprise in store. I just want to have a full presentation's worth of material before I unveil, so that it has impact and gains support.

I will say that I'm really excited about it and I think it will satisfy most everyone on either side of the Morrowind/Mount&Blade debate.

I hope you are in good state and are making progress with your projects!
May I ask how far you are with your preperations to drop our jaw? I hope there haven´t occoured unexpected drawbacks or other obstacles?

[SXFighter]

Don Juan_de_Austria

I hope you are in good state and are making progress with your projects!
May I ask how far you are with your preperations to drop our jaw? I hope there haven´t occoured unexpected drawbacks or other obstacles?

To be honest, I regret saying that as I did.

I was letting my excitement get the better of me, and I probably should have waited to mention it.

To be clear; there aren't any real setbacks per-se, but I did underestimate how much I would want to put into the presentation.

Things are coming along nicely, though. It shouldn't be that much longer before I have something suitable to submit to Neph for approval before, hopefully, unveiling my plans.

[Don Juan_de_Austria]

To be honest, I regret saying that as I did.

I was letting my excitement get the better of me, and I probably should have waited to mention it.

To be clear; there aren't any real setbacks per-se, but I did underestimate how much I would want to put into the presentation.

Things are coming along nicely, though. It shouldn't be that much longer before I have something suitable to submit to Neph for approval before, hopefully, unveiling my plans.

Well, it´s always better to wait longer because ther are more things to be implemented than to wait longer because of problems. Therefore I´m happy that no real problems occoured.^^ So take the time you need to amaze us!