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Table of Contents

• 1What is OpenMW?
• 2Do I need Morrowind?
• 3What is the current development status?
• 4What technologies do you use?
• 5Download OpenMW
• 6Changelog
• 7About the author
• 8Legal stuff

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. It is written in the D programming language, and 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?

Supported platforms

At the moment OpenMW runs on Windows XP and Linux. It has also been tested on FreeBSD (thanks to Dmitry Marakasov), but this is only partially supported at the moment.

If you are willing to try to build and test OpenMW on another platform (like MacOS X), it would be greatly appreciated.

Status

OpenMW is at a very early (pre-alpha) stage of development. A lot of underlying engine features (basic graphics, file reading, etc) are in place, but the program doesn't yet look or work like a real game.

Features

• loads any interior cell (geometry, items, lights, and evironmental sounds) from the command line
• renders maps, with somewhat natural lighting
• you can move around in "ghost-mode" using WASD or arrow keys and mouse
• partially displays creature meshes, using leveled creature lists
• very 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

Still on the TODO list

• any kind of animation or movement
• interactivity and anything resembling game mechanics
• exterior cells with landscape
• moving between cells
• collision detection and physics
• rendering NPCs (including the player)
• GUI and HUD system
• everything else

What technologies do you use?

OpenMW is built with various open source tools and libraries:

• Programming language: D
• Graphics: OGRE
• Sound: Audiere
• Input: OIS
• Scripting: Monster

OpenMW is written mainly in the D programming language. Since OGRE, Audiere and OIS are all C++ libraries though, there is an interface layer between these and the main D code, written in C++. Most game mechanics elements will eventually be written in the Monster scripting language, but this hasn't been implemented yet.

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!

Download OpenMW

OpenMW is available for Windows and Linux. All downloads listed here can also be found at the OpenMW SourceForge page.

See the included README.txt for instructions.

Windows

• openmw-0.3-win32_with_ogre.zip (29Mb) - includes an exe and all DLLs
• openmw-0.3-win32_no_ogre.zip (802Kb) - includes an exe, without the Ogre DLLs
• openmw-0.3_src.zip (236Kb) - source code

Linux

• openmw-0.3_src.tar.bz2 (126Kb) - source code

Older versions are available at the SourceForge page.

Subversion repository

For the latest sources (not necessarily stable), check out the Subversion trunk:

svn co https://openmw.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/openmw/trunk openmw

This will put the source code in a directory called 'openmw'. To update to the newest version at a later point, just enter this directory and type:

svn up

You can also check out specific releases, like this:

svn co https://openmw.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/openmw/tags/openmw-0.2 openmw-0.2

Changelog

0.3 - 2008-jul-10

• built and tested on Windows XP
• partial support for FreeBSD (exceptions do not work)
• you no longer have to download Monster separately
• made an alternative for building without DSSS (but DSSS still works)
• renamed main program from 'morro' to 'openmw'
• made the config system more robust
• added -oc switch for showing Ogre config window on startup
• removed some config files, these are auto-generated when missing. Separated plugins.cfg into linux and windows versions.
• updated Makefile and sources for increased portability (thanks to Dmitry Marakasov)
• confirmed to work against OIS 1.0.0 (Ubuntu repository package)

0.2 - 2008-jun-17

• compiles with gdc
• switched to DSSS for building D code
• includes the program esmtool

0.1 - 2008-jun-03

• first release

About the author

OpenMW is written and currently maintained by Nicolay Korslund. You can reach me at korslund@gmail.com.

Legal stuff

This page and its author are not in any way associated with Bethesda Softworks or with ZeniMax Media Inc. OpenMW is completely unofficial and is a hobby 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. 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 and designs depicted in screenshots are the property of ZeniMax Media Inc. unless otherwise specified.

Last updated: 2008-july-11