OpenMW is a modern free and open source game engine for Morrowind, and it's really getting close to a release of version 0.48 now with another Release Candidate ready for more testing. The whole point of OpenMW is to get Morrowind working nicely on modern platforms, with a whole bunch of improvements to how it looks and feels.
The last release for OpenMW was back in November 2021, so it's been a long time coming and as you can imagine a lot of work has gone into this upcoming new release. Going through Release Candidates means it's closing in on release, and needs some testing for any final touches needed and to find any major bugs. The first RC went up back in September 2022, with a fresh one going up just recently.
They haven't yet put up an official list of what's changed but the public GitLab does have an ongoing list, and it seems plenty is already readying up for the release after this too. Some of the new features coming in this release include which I've cherry-picked from their GitLab include:
- Zoom levels of the world map.
- A tab in the launcher for handling different data folders.
- Post processing.
- Support for FBO Rendering.
- Support for FFMPEG 5.
- Windowed fullscreen support.
- Exponential fog.
- Sky blending.
- Add support for controller gyroscope.
- Shader-based object texture blending.
- More realistic raindrop ripples.
- Allow users to easily change font size and ttf resolution.
- Unique object identifier.
- And lots lots more!
OpenMW download links are here for the latest RC build. Remember though you do still need to own a copy of Morrowind for that data files that you can grab from GOG or Steam.
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15 comments
Very exciting! I love the openmw project. This might actually convince me to get another playthrough started. I'd love to experience the Tamriel content.
1 Likes, Who?
I have to say that I'm disappointed – I thought there was something new to me. The RC phase started last September. The current RC still has at least two serious issues, so who knows when it's finally ready.
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Yeah, the current RC phase unfortunately became a long one, we ran into a bunch of issues that ended up becoming blockers for a small subset of players - we've hopefully gotten those fixed with this latest RC11.
Spoiler, click me
Don't tell anyone, but we were originally hoping to have had the full release done during the weekend.
8 Likes, Who?
Ah, the fond memories! I think Morrowind was the last big open world game I played before internet access and therefore spoilers became ubiquitous. Experiencing everything first-hand, and without much hand-holding, is really an experience I miss in modern games. Though I guess nowadays I'd lack the time and maybe patience for games of that kind.
The downside, of course, was that I totally missed the release of the two expansions, though I did get some of the initial free DLCs. Imagine that! Free! DLC! For free!
So great to see OpenMW progress, to preserve such a memorable part of gaming history! Peak Elder Scrolls, so to speak :-).
The downside, of course, was that I totally missed the release of the two expansions, though I did get some of the initial free DLCs. Imagine that! Free! DLC! For free!
So great to see OpenMW progress, to preserve such a memorable part of gaming history! Peak Elder Scrolls, so to speak :-).
1 Likes, Who?
ssj17vegeta Jul 4, 2023
Best open source remake ever for the best game ever.
Linux native, fast, compatible with mods... these guys know what they're doing!
Linux native, fast, compatible with mods... these guys know what they're doing!
4 Likes, Who?
I would imagine Morrowind is even more of a hard core RPG than Oblivion, which I found a bit too confusing (I didn't get far). When I reach a point in an RPG where I haven't a clue what I'm supposed to be doing, or where I'm supposed to be going, I tend to have resistance getting back to it.
All the same, I think I'm going to buy it on GoG to have another open source game (well, the programming parts... not the license for the content)
I still have my beloved Doom 3 because of RBDOOM-3-BFG (instead of having to use workarounds for the Windows version in Steam)
P.S. In this case it's more practical to buy it on Steam
1) I just want the data and I intend to copy it out of there then uninstall the game. Steam will just download it inline, whereas with the GoG download I'll have to set up a prefix and, run the installer and then copy the data.
2) Morrowind GOTY is $7.99 on Steam and $19.99 on GoG :-)
Last edited by Grogan on 4 July 2023 at 7:13 pm UTC
All the same, I think I'm going to buy it on GoG to have another open source game (well, the programming parts... not the license for the content)
I still have my beloved Doom 3 because of RBDOOM-3-BFG (instead of having to use workarounds for the Windows version in Steam)
P.S. In this case it's more practical to buy it on Steam
1) I just want the data and I intend to copy it out of there then uninstall the game. Steam will just download it inline, whereas with the GoG download I'll have to set up a prefix and, run the installer and then copy the data.
2) Morrowind GOTY is $7.99 on Steam and $19.99 on GoG :-)
Last edited by Grogan on 4 July 2023 at 7:13 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
TimeFreeze Jul 4, 2023
I would imagine Morrowind is even more of a hard core RPG than Oblivion, which I found a bit too confusing (I didn't get far). When I reach a point in an RPG where I haven't a clue what I'm supposed to be doing, or where I'm supposed to be going, I tend to have resistance getting back to it.
All the same, I think I'm going to buy it on GoG to have another open source game (well, the programming parts... not the license for the content)
I still have my beloved Doom 3 because of RBDOOM-3-BFG (instead of having to use workarounds for the Windows version in Steam)
P.S. In this case it's more practical to buy it on Steam
1) I just want the data and I intend to copy it out of there then uninstall the game. Steam will just download it inline, whereas with the GoG download I'll have to set up a prefix and, run the installer and then copy the data.
2) Morrowind GOTY is $7.99 on Steam and $19.99 on GoG :-)
You could just use innoextract to get the files. No need to install it via wine first.
6 Likes, Who?
Innoextract
Thanks, I haven't purchased yet. I'm getting everything compiled first, then we'll see about getting the game data. I didn't know what packer they use for the GoG archives.
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robertosf92 Jul 5, 2023
Innoextract
Thanks, I haven't purchased yet. I'm getting everything compiled first, then we'll see about getting the game data. I didn't know what packer they use for the GoG archives.
Innoextract should do, they probably have a tutorial on how to do it. I have a set of scripts for compiling and extracting into a directory a set of games with foss engines, sadly i haven't added support for Morrowind yet...
1 Likes, Who?
hardpenguin Jul 5, 2023
In case anyone asks again - yes, you can complete 100% of the game and the DLCs with OpenMW ☺️✌️
3 Likes, Who?
2) Morrowind GOTY is $7.99 on Steam and $19.99 on GoG :-)
It was $5.99 on GOG during the summer sale....
Yeap, except for sales, the game is at the same price on GOG and Steam for me (14,99€).
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Finally done... this wasn't a nice thing to do on my poor (somewhat minimalist) custom from-scratch system.
This project uses a lot of third party components... Bullet3 physics engine, opengraphscene (specific fork and configuration), and MyGUI
Additional build deps... luajit scripting, yaml-cpp.
Now for me, it didn't like my QT5 version. I had to build a new one in an alternate location and set variables to use it for the build. (I don't want to upgrade mine for various reasons). This also means I have to run openmw with a wrapper to set QT5DIR and LD_LIBRARY_PATH and friends before launching the game. It requires Boost and not just the headers (first barfage if boost iostream library isn't there). That's something I don't want anywhere near my system (don't want that dependency getting pulled into builds!), so built it in an alternate location too. OK, that shit is just me.
Finally, don't try to use MyGUI from git master unless you want to hunt and poke for hours and fix all the declarations and stuff, use MyGUI 3.4.2 :-)
So I've got OpenMW version 0.49.0 (git master) and it runs far enough to fail on the missing assets, so I should be good to go after I purchase the game files.
Hurrah! It'll be retro RPG'ing for me tonight.
P.S. Well, there was just one more snag. To get out of installing unshield, I had turned off building the openmw-wizard with the cmake option. I was passing the data location on the command line when launching openmw, but it turns out it wasn't so optional so I added yet one more little thing to my system and rebuilt openmw without disabling that, and now it's all working. Graphics settings all configured and I'm playing. Nice clean terminal output too (no errors or missing file noise etc.) and it quits "peacefully" (their word, and fair enough lol)
Last edited by Grogan on 6 July 2023 at 1:11 am UTC
This project uses a lot of third party components... Bullet3 physics engine, opengraphscene (specific fork and configuration), and MyGUI
Additional build deps... luajit scripting, yaml-cpp.
Now for me, it didn't like my QT5 version. I had to build a new one in an alternate location and set variables to use it for the build. (I don't want to upgrade mine for various reasons). This also means I have to run openmw with a wrapper to set QT5DIR and LD_LIBRARY_PATH and friends before launching the game. It requires Boost and not just the headers (first barfage if boost iostream library isn't there). That's something I don't want anywhere near my system (don't want that dependency getting pulled into builds!), so built it in an alternate location too. OK, that shit is just me.
Finally, don't try to use MyGUI from git master unless you want to hunt and poke for hours and fix all the declarations and stuff, use MyGUI 3.4.2 :-)
So I've got OpenMW version 0.49.0 (git master) and it runs far enough to fail on the missing assets, so I should be good to go after I purchase the game files.
Hurrah! It'll be retro RPG'ing for me tonight.
P.S. Well, there was just one more snag. To get out of installing unshield, I had turned off building the openmw-wizard with the cmake option. I was passing the data location on the command line when launching openmw, but it turns out it wasn't so optional so I added yet one more little thing to my system and rebuilt openmw without disabling that, and now it's all working. Graphics settings all configured and I'm playing. Nice clean terminal output too (no errors or missing file noise etc.) and it quits "peacefully" (their word, and fair enough lol)
Last edited by Grogan on 6 July 2023 at 1:11 am UTC
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...
... Or you could had just wait to install the official Arch Linux package to avoid all of this...
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...
... Or you could had just wait to install the official Arch Linux package to avoid all of this...
First of all, it's old, I wanted the latest code and I want it now. Secondly, I'm not doing this on Arch, it's my own custom (tailored exactly to me), 64 bit only, from-scratch system. Even on Arch though, I don't wait for them, if I want something, or want something done differently, I take over.
I have more games than I can wrap my head around on my Arch gaming setup, I need more games here. So open source games, and even Linux binaries from GoG that don't need any game/store client, though rare, are what I set up here. I still have my old, original UT2004 directory with libraries dropped in so it still runs. (the 64 bit binaries that came in a patch from Icculus)
Anyway, I'm happy with the end result. It's an old game, with rudimentary navigation aids etc. but I played for quite a while last night. Got swords to chop with, fought some enemies on a bridge. I'm seeing some familiar nuances from my time playing Skyrim, too.
Last edited by Grogan on 6 July 2023 at 5:28 pm UTC
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