Online multiplayer for OpenMW (Morrowind) TES3MP is alive again

OpenMW is a fantastic open source game engine reimplementation for Morrowind, plus there’s the online fork of TES3MP which has sprung back to life with a new release. A project that should eventually merge with OpenMW officially, for now it’s a separate fork until OpenMW hits the big 1.0.

TES3MP 0.8.0 is now out and based on the latest OpenMW 0.47.0 release, and the developer said it “fixes a large part of the remaining gameplay problems and also adds some major features”. It took a little while, as the developer explained how they “lost my motivation for TES3MP during the pandemic, but I’ve been regaining it recently because I want to look back on this project as one that I ended up finishing instead of one that I just got very far on”.

Just some of the new additions include:

• Synchronization of custom records for interior cells, allowing for on-the-fly creation of entirely new interiors or ones based on existing interiors
• Synchronization of custom records for clientside scripts, allowing for on-the-fly creation or overriding of MWScripts
• Synchronization of custom records for containers, doors, activators, statics, ingredients, apparatuses, lockpicks, probes, repair tools, lights, body parts, sounds and record-based game settings
• Synchronization of clientside local variables based on which clientside scripts are set to be synchronized by the server
• Synchronization of clientside global variables based on rules defined for each one in the server scripts, with the possibility of also creating new clientside globals on-the-fly
• Synchronization of active spell effects for players and actors that no longer relies on players witnessing the spellcasting associated with the effects
• Synchronization of death animations for players and actors
• Synchronization of merchant inventories and gold pools
• Synchronization of environmental sounds made by players, e.g. when picking up or dropping items, when opening or closing chests and doors
• Synchronization of plant harvesting from herbalism mods
• Reworked attack synchronization with more precision, fixing skipped attacks for creatures with fast attack animations and making melee attack animations not depend on the direction a player or actor is moving in on the current client
• Reworked spellcasting synchronization, fixing improper failed spellcasting for actors with fast casting animations and reducing desyncs by not tying spellcasting for non-local actors and players to their animations on the current client
• Reworked equipment synchronization for players with less spammy packets
• Packet for resetting interior and exterior cells on-the-fly
• Packet for setting players as allies so they don’t break each other’s stealth and so their companions don’t fight back when attacked by mistake
• Packet for overriding cell destinations, useful for moving players to instances of interiors instead of regular interiors
• Packet for tracking hits received by objects
• Packet for tracking dialogue choices selected by players
• Packet for tracking the cooldowns of powers used by players
• Allow GameSettings packet to override clientside game settings
• Allow custom records to override AI services for NPCs, alarm and flee values for NPCs and creatures, as well as scales, blood types, soul values and attack damage for creatures

See more in the GitHub page.

As you do need the Morrowind data files to play it, you do need to own a copy. You can pick up a copy of Morrowind easily from GOG.com or Steam.

If you missed the OpenMW 0.47 release check out their overview video below: