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Note: There's also a new Wiki FAQ page with more questions and answers.

What is OpenMW?

OpenMW is an attempt to reimplement the popular role playing game Morrowind. It aims to be a fully playable, open source implementation of the game. You must own Morrowind to use OpenMW.

To give you a better idea of what this project is about, here are some of the aims for the future of OpenMW:

  • be a full featured reimplementation of Morrowind
  • run natively on Windows, Linux and MacOS X
  • support all existing content, including Tribunal, Bloodmoon and all user created mods
  • allow much greater modability: change game rules, create new spell effects, etc through scripting.
  • fix system design bugs, like the "dirty" GMST entries in mods, and the savegame "doubling" problem
  • improve the interface and journal system
  • (possibly) improve game mechanics, physics, combat and AI
  • (possibly) support multiplayer at some point
  • (possibly) improve graphics to use more modern hardware

It's a pretty ambitious list, and there's a lot left to do before these goals can become reality. You should check below for information about the current development status.

OpenMW is released under the GNU General Public License version 3, all source code has been written completely from scratch. It also builds on various other open source tools, most notably OGRE for graphics.

Do I need Morrowind?

YES. You must legally own and install Morrowind before you can use OpenMW.

OpenMW is a reimplementation of the technical aspects of the game only. It does not come with ANY art, game data or other copyrighted material that you need to play the game. You have to provide these yourself, by installing Morrowind and then configuring OpenMW to use the existing installation.

Seriously, if you don't have Morrowind, go buy it. It's worth every penny even if it's no longer a "new" game. And besides, you can get it for peanuts these days.

What is the current development status?

Status

OpenMW is currently undergoing a port from D to C++, which means we have temporarily taken a step backwards in development, but this will phase will be over as soon as the rest of the old D code is translated. In any case, OpenMW is currently at a pre-alpha stage. Most of the work is going into lower-level engine features like graphics and sound, with very little work so far on the gameplay elements of the engine.

Supported platforms

The new code base is pure C++ and should work on most platforms supported by OGRE and our other dependencies. That includes Windows XP/Vista and newer, Linux, MacOS X, FreeBSD and more. However, the current development version has only been fully tested on Ubuntu Linux.

If you want to help test or port OpenMW on other platforms (like MacOS X), we'd love to hear from you on the newsgroup.

Features

This feature list applies to the OLD code base (written in D), but they should all be easy to port over to C++.

  • loads any interior cell (geometry, items, lights, and evironmental sounds) from the command line
  • renders maps, with somewhat natural lighting
  • basic character walk-and-fall physics, collision with walls and objects
  • GUI and HUD system
  • backend script system (using Monster script)
  • partially displays creature meshes, using leveled creature lists
  • basic sound and music support
  • backend can load Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon ESMs and any combination of mods
  • ignores dirty GMST entries in mods
  • loads data directly from .esm and .bsa files, as well as from the file system
  • loads meshes directly from .nif files

Still on the TODO list

  • any kind of animation or creature movement
  • interactivity and game mechanics
  • exterior cells with landscape
  • moving between cells
  • rendering NPCs (including the player)
  • everything else

What technologies do you use?

OpenMW is built with various open source tools and libraries:

The ESM/ESP and BSA loading code was written from scratch, but with much help from available community-generated documentation.

Likewise, the NIF (proprietary 3D mesh) loading code was written with the help of available online information. Special thanks to the NIFLA / NifTools gang!

I want to help!

If you have suggestions, ideas, comments, or if you want to contribute code, you are very welcome to join the official OpenMW forum / mailing list over at Google groups. To get new posts per email, just put your address in the box below:



Google Groups
Subscribe to openmw
Email:

You are also welcome to mail me your ideas or bug reports if you so prefer..

About the author

OpenMW was concieved and is currently maintained by Nicolay Korslund, although others have contributed and are contributing code along the way. You can reach me at korslund@gmail.com.

License and legal stuff

This page and its author are not in any way associated with or supported by Bethesda Softworks or ZeniMax Media Inc. OpenMW is a completely unofficial hobbyist project.

This page does NOT distribute any game data or other copyrighted content not owned by the author. You MUST own a legal copy of Morrowind before you can use OpenMW. We absolutely do NOT support or condone pirated versions of the game. All source code is written from scratch and is released under the GNU General Public License version 3.

Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, The Elder Scrolls, Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax and their respective logos are registered trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

All texures, models, designs, sounds and music reproduced in screenshots and videos are the property of ZeniMax Media Inc. unless otherwise specified.