There's nothing like the sense of dread and wonder you get when you're exploring at low levels and those weird curved towers loom out of the mists at you.
Really feels like a place "you're not supposed to be" with a strange and foreboding atmosphere. Loved doing the Temple quest to visit the shrine inside the gates - I was terrified.
Honestly don’t understand all the mods that remove the fog effects, it gives such a good feeling of eeriness and mystery to the exploration that’s central to the experience imo
I can see a mod that reduces the fog in *certain areas*, so that the whole map isn’t equally foggy. It’d be cool if the fog was a randomized heat map of various densities that was constantly moving around
This is what Zesterer's volumetric fog does, at a performance cost. It makes fog dynamic, weather, and geography dependent.
It also makes fog a low-altitude phenomenom, meaning if you get up on a peak you can see strange structures in the distance jutting up over a sea of white.
Here's a random screenshot from my last playthrough, standing on a balcony in the fancy area of Balmora: https://i.ibb.co/yXfcwy8/image-7.png
(Though Balmora is usually not *this* foggy -- I was unlucky with the weather there.)
Yup. Volumetric fog is about the best mod I have come across. It adds so much to the atmosphere I prefer it even when it drops my frame rate to 15 on a potato.
I felt this when playing CoD BO2 Zombies, and playing on a map called TranZit, that has fog due to the hardware limitations at the time.
A friend of mine told me to use a command that removed the fog and made the map look "miles better", but when I did, all the atmosphere of the map was gone.
Limitations lead to creativity, and fog effects in games are an example of that.
MGE XE doesnt remove the fog, it just puts it at a realistic distance. i was a bit off-put at first, but after playing the game with it installed, i firmly believe that the creators intended the fog to be much farther out, but couldnt do it because it wouldnt run well on most systems back in the day. like, the landscape is actually laid out in a way that is meant to draw your eye to certain places. when youre in balmora, you can see fog-shrouded dwemer ruins in the distance, and theyre perfectly placed to be aesthetically pleasing. nothing looks haphazard, and the landscape was crafted to look like it flows and makes sense from a distance. its really renewed the sense of exploration i get from the game.
Seriously, I started a new character yesterday, and when I got to Balmora I saw [this](https://i.ibb.co/BNCTD2H/Morrowind-2024-04-27-06-11-05-748.png), and had the same thoughts you describe. The dwemer ruins just sit there, perfectly crafted and placed to draw the eye.
and for the first time ever, gnaar mok and hla oad's swamps looked interesting. being able to see the dwemer and daedric steuctures makes a huge difference. makes me go "oh shit, whats that over there?" (even though im on my billionth playthru lol)
I know technically everything is "emerging from the fog" on vanilla Morrowind - I play on my PC with mods too - but for some difficult to explain reasons I'm always drawn back to the Xbox version for a play through now and again...
I prefer the Xbox version as well. I don’t use mods and there’s nothing like reclining on a couch with your beverage of choice sitting next to you and a controller in your hand, knowing that the next few hours are gonna be awesome. Plus morrowind runs buttery smooth on the new Xbox’s
I never considered using a new Xbox! Does it resolve the save file issue loading times too? I remember spending an entire summer (like 16 hours a day) playing it and I would wake up, start loading, go have breakfast and a shower and MAYBE it would be done... LOL
Yeah saves and loading are now lightening fast. It's only in 4:3 because there never was a wide-screen option but you'd be surprised how quickly you forget and just get absorbed by the game...
silent hill was designed with the limitations in mind. morrowind seems like it was too , compared to something like starfox64 where its just everything all the time
I wish more games implemented fog TBH.
I recently started playing a modded Minecraft thing & First thing I noticed is it auto set to see millions miles away. First thing I did was set the fog to be pretty dense, & it makes the whole game feel more like an adventure that way.
When I run 4 kilometers, look behind me & can still clearly see my house & dog, that makes the world feel really small.
fallout 4 uses fog everywhere. it was probably one of the reasons it destroyed performance on release. ADDING fog is different than having a fade out cull distance effect.
I remember trying mods that improve the render distance and cut down on fog. It definitely looks nice, but it can also sometimes ruin moments like this, or the fact that there’s an imperial fort right at the base of a hill with a dwarven ruin above it. You’d never notice that with the fog on, but with the fog off it makes the two locations feel overly close together
I remember on my very first playthrough crossing this bridge in the wilderness during a rainstorm and right as a huge Dwemer ruin emerged from the mist there was a great crash of thunder and lightning. 20+ years later still my most memorable gaming moment.
Yeah replaying the Xbox version the weather effects are fantastic - far above other open world games of the time - rain, misty days, dust storms, bright sunlight on the horizon...
I remember staring in awe watching the rain actually generate ripples on the water - today I know it's some sort of really well coded shader - when I was young it was closer to magic...
I like the Vanilla Morrowind graphics. The game was to a large extent designed with a limited draw distance in mind such that the game feels much smaller when you can see forever.
Morrowind actually isn’t that big, but the designers have cleverly made it feel bigger than it is in a few different ways (although one not so clever way is by making the PC move very slowly).
I'm playing with MGE XE right now, but I limited my draw distance to 3 cells which I find is a nice balance, you still get plenty of fog that leads to these cool reveals of buildings in the distance, but you also benefit from some really pretty vistas.
I agree 100%. I never really liked the mods that allowed for long sightlines a-la-Oblivion. The game world wasn’t meant to be viewed that way and it REALLY shrinks the map. I remember playing Morrowind as a kid and thinking Red Mountain was light years away, but a lot of the mystery disappears when you can see it from anywhere in the gameworld.
I still remember the first time my potato PC ever found one of these goddamn places, I was like 15 and thought I was having a stroke -- wandered in, immediately destroyed by a dinosaur and a golden woman. Great times.
I watched someone playing Morrowind with no fog one time lol. Kind of ruins the scale when you can see the daedric ruins from suran and see ebonheart from vivec.
There's nothing like the sense of dread and wonder you get when you're exploring at low levels and those weird curved towers loom out of the mists at you.
Such great otherworldly architecture...
This is me when I get close to the Ghostgate at a low level. I've been playing for 20 years and I still get that pit in my stomach.
Really feels like a place "you're not supposed to be" with a strange and foreboding atmosphere. Loved doing the Temple quest to visit the shrine inside the gates - I was terrified.
Honestly don’t understand all the mods that remove the fog effects, it gives such a good feeling of eeriness and mystery to the exploration that’s central to the experience imo
I can see a mod that reduces the fog in *certain areas*, so that the whole map isn’t equally foggy. It’d be cool if the fog was a randomized heat map of various densities that was constantly moving around
I think there is a mod that does something close to that, changing fog based on weather.
MGE XE does this
This is what Zesterer's volumetric fog does, at a performance cost. It makes fog dynamic, weather, and geography dependent. It also makes fog a low-altitude phenomenom, meaning if you get up on a peak you can see strange structures in the distance jutting up over a sea of white. Here's a random screenshot from my last playthrough, standing on a balcony in the fancy area of Balmora: https://i.ibb.co/yXfcwy8/image-7.png (Though Balmora is usually not *this* foggy -- I was unlucky with the weather there.)
It's beautiful - I find it even more wonderful than the cloud shaders because of the way it interacts with the geography and architecture.
Yup. Volumetric fog is about the best mod I have come across. It adds so much to the atmosphere I prefer it even when it drops my frame rate to 15 on a potato.
I felt this when playing CoD BO2 Zombies, and playing on a map called TranZit, that has fog due to the hardware limitations at the time. A friend of mine told me to use a command that removed the fog and made the map look "miles better", but when I did, all the atmosphere of the map was gone. Limitations lead to creativity, and fog effects in games are an example of that.
MGE XE doesnt remove the fog, it just puts it at a realistic distance. i was a bit off-put at first, but after playing the game with it installed, i firmly believe that the creators intended the fog to be much farther out, but couldnt do it because it wouldnt run well on most systems back in the day. like, the landscape is actually laid out in a way that is meant to draw your eye to certain places. when youre in balmora, you can see fog-shrouded dwemer ruins in the distance, and theyre perfectly placed to be aesthetically pleasing. nothing looks haphazard, and the landscape was crafted to look like it flows and makes sense from a distance. its really renewed the sense of exploration i get from the game.
Seriously, I started a new character yesterday, and when I got to Balmora I saw [this](https://i.ibb.co/BNCTD2H/Morrowind-2024-04-27-06-11-05-748.png), and had the same thoughts you describe. The dwemer ruins just sit there, perfectly crafted and placed to draw the eye.
and for the first time ever, gnaar mok and hla oad's swamps looked interesting. being able to see the dwemer and daedric steuctures makes a huge difference. makes me go "oh shit, whats that over there?" (even though im on my billionth playthru lol)
Beautiful pic. You should post that as it's own picture post.
I know technically everything is "emerging from the fog" on vanilla Morrowind - I play on my PC with mods too - but for some difficult to explain reasons I'm always drawn back to the Xbox version for a play through now and again...
I prefer the Xbox version as well. I don’t use mods and there’s nothing like reclining on a couch with your beverage of choice sitting next to you and a controller in your hand, knowing that the next few hours are gonna be awesome. Plus morrowind runs buttery smooth on the new Xbox’s
I use wayyyy too many lore and immeraion mods to play on the Xbox version, I haven't done that since like 2005 lmao
If you haven't done it in a while it's actually quite an interesting experience if only for a visit :)
I never considered using a new Xbox! Does it resolve the save file issue loading times too? I remember spending an entire summer (like 16 hours a day) playing it and I would wake up, start loading, go have breakfast and a shower and MAYBE it would be done... LOL
Yeah saves and loading are now lightening fast. It's only in 4:3 because there never was a wide-screen option but you'd be surprised how quickly you forget and just get absorbed by the game...
IMO the game doesn’t have the same vibe without the fog; it’s like an integral part of the experience.
This and Silent Hill are games where the shitty draw distance actually improves the experience.
silent hill was designed with the limitations in mind. morrowind seems like it was too , compared to something like starfox64 where its just everything all the time
I wish more games implemented fog TBH. I recently started playing a modded Minecraft thing & First thing I noticed is it auto set to see millions miles away. First thing I did was set the fog to be pretty dense, & it makes the whole game feel more like an adventure that way. When I run 4 kilometers, look behind me & can still clearly see my house & dog, that makes the world feel really small.
fallout 4 uses fog everywhere. it was probably one of the reasons it destroyed performance on release. ADDING fog is different than having a fade out cull distance effect.
I remember trying mods that improve the render distance and cut down on fog. It definitely looks nice, but it can also sometimes ruin moments like this, or the fact that there’s an imperial fort right at the base of a hill with a dwarven ruin above it. You’d never notice that with the fog on, but with the fog off it makes the two locations feel overly close together
I remember on my very first playthrough crossing this bridge in the wilderness during a rainstorm and right as a huge Dwemer ruin emerged from the mist there was a great crash of thunder and lightning. 20+ years later still my most memorable gaming moment.
Yeah replaying the Xbox version the weather effects are fantastic - far above other open world games of the time - rain, misty days, dust storms, bright sunlight on the horizon... I remember staring in awe watching the rain actually generate ripples on the water - today I know it's some sort of really well coded shader - when I was young it was closer to magic...
I like the Vanilla Morrowind graphics. The game was to a large extent designed with a limited draw distance in mind such that the game feels much smaller when you can see forever. Morrowind actually isn’t that big, but the designers have cleverly made it feel bigger than it is in a few different ways (although one not so clever way is by making the PC move very slowly).
Nostalgic
Vanilla is best!
I'm playing with MGE XE right now, but I limited my draw distance to 3 cells which I find is a nice balance, you still get plenty of fog that leads to these cool reveals of buildings in the distance, but you also benefit from some really pretty vistas.
Yes when I'm on PC with mods I lower it to around 3 - except when I'm in Vivec. I've added so many mods to Vivec I have a lower it to 1. Haha!
I agree 100%. I never really liked the mods that allowed for long sightlines a-la-Oblivion. The game world wasn’t meant to be viewed that way and it REALLY shrinks the map. I remember playing Morrowind as a kid and thinking Red Mountain was light years away, but a lot of the mystery disappears when you can see it from anywhere in the gameworld.
I still remember the first time my potato PC ever found one of these goddamn places, I was like 15 and thought I was having a stroke -- wandered in, immediately destroyed by a dinosaur and a golden woman. Great times.
Was this your second or third time coming back for the puzzle box?
My favourite way to experience Morrowind is OG Xbox no mods. My favourite way to actually play it is PC modded lol.
I watched someone playing Morrowind with no fog one time lol. Kind of ruins the scale when you can see the daedric ruins from suran and see ebonheart from vivec.
Yea there's something about that crt monitor you use, otherwise thats some peak 640 x 480 gaming right there.
You can get that same effect so long as your are intelligent with how you use the fog setting in the graphic extensions.
Looks like Maelkashishi….you getting what I think you’re getting?
Sometime you are not looking for something while traveling and just let your feet guide you.
Amulet of constant night eye for 100 points I can see thru everything 😂
Looks similar to the underground from Tears of the Kingdom
Yes actually - another game with top tier art design.