OpenMW: my thoughts on the way forward
Posted: 05 Mar 2019, 19:14
As we all can tell, the OpenMW engine is near reaching the stated goals for version 1.0
So before going into what’s on my mind, I want to thank everyone involved in this great undertaking.
One of the biggest discussions for what OpenMW actually is supposed to be, has been:
Should OpenMW be an engine for Morrowind, or be a RPG FOSS engine?
I’ve read what both sides has to say on the matter, and I think there’s merit to most of the arguments presented.
I haven’t actually been very concerned what way it goes, because Morrowind will benefit anyway.
That is until recently: Because now I'm convinced it should be neither.
OpenMW needs a new name and vision
Huh? Didn’t you just say OpenMW is almost done and will be great?
Yeah, and while that’s true, I’ve come to the realization that there’s an even bigger task ahead.
The reason OpenMW even got to be a thing, is that Skyrim and Oblivion got serious upgrades to their engine
which made Morrowind look lacking in comparison. While Morrowind fans agree that it beats the other
titles in storytelling and world-building, one still wouldn’t mind better AI, scripting and graphics.
I also think that’s why we’re seeing Skywind and Skyblivion gaining so much support,
because we want the games we love to evolve with the technology as it arises.
My idea for a new vision is not an engine for either Morrowind or indie RPGs, but an engine for all elder scrolls games.
Anyone who’s taken a closer look at the creation engine knows how Bethesda actually incrementally upgrades their engine,
often with bugs remaining generation ahead. Some changes come just to force in paid mods and resell an old game as new,
I’m looking at you Skyrim SE. All that while support for the creation kit and external tools gets decimated.
That is exactly why OpenMW needs become OpenES, because then we would be free from Bethesda’s whims,
and we could guarantee that free and open modding continues. That does not mean work on OpenMW must be halted,
but rather that support for newer games gets implemented in parallel.
As Bethesda releases new games, the community could quickly implement the necessary framework to make them run on the engine, while rejecting the bugs and anti-consumes changes that might come with. Graphical updates would no longer need to come from hack-like tools such as ENB and reshade, instead they could be implemented natively with much less performance loss. Ports of older games into the newer iteration of the creation engine would be negated by OpenES, as you could simply plug the advanced features into the new game with much less work than porting a whole game into a new engine. As a matter of fact, OpenMW has already limited support for ESMs and assets from later games.
To sum it all up
OpenMW has been a massive success and now that it’s near 1.0, we need to bring the same advantages to the rest of the series.
Transforming OpenMW into OpenES will make sure to community has an engine it can trust for great graphics, convenience and proper mod support.
So before going into what’s on my mind, I want to thank everyone involved in this great undertaking.
One of the biggest discussions for what OpenMW actually is supposed to be, has been:
Should OpenMW be an engine for Morrowind, or be a RPG FOSS engine?
I’ve read what both sides has to say on the matter, and I think there’s merit to most of the arguments presented.
I haven’t actually been very concerned what way it goes, because Morrowind will benefit anyway.
That is until recently: Because now I'm convinced it should be neither.
OpenMW needs a new name and vision
Huh? Didn’t you just say OpenMW is almost done and will be great?
Yeah, and while that’s true, I’ve come to the realization that there’s an even bigger task ahead.
The reason OpenMW even got to be a thing, is that Skyrim and Oblivion got serious upgrades to their engine
which made Morrowind look lacking in comparison. While Morrowind fans agree that it beats the other
titles in storytelling and world-building, one still wouldn’t mind better AI, scripting and graphics.
I also think that’s why we’re seeing Skywind and Skyblivion gaining so much support,
because we want the games we love to evolve with the technology as it arises.
My idea for a new vision is not an engine for either Morrowind or indie RPGs, but an engine for all elder scrolls games.
Anyone who’s taken a closer look at the creation engine knows how Bethesda actually incrementally upgrades their engine,
often with bugs remaining generation ahead. Some changes come just to force in paid mods and resell an old game as new,
I’m looking at you Skyrim SE. All that while support for the creation kit and external tools gets decimated.
That is exactly why OpenMW needs become OpenES, because then we would be free from Bethesda’s whims,
and we could guarantee that free and open modding continues. That does not mean work on OpenMW must be halted,
but rather that support for newer games gets implemented in parallel.
As Bethesda releases new games, the community could quickly implement the necessary framework to make them run on the engine, while rejecting the bugs and anti-consumes changes that might come with. Graphical updates would no longer need to come from hack-like tools such as ENB and reshade, instead they could be implemented natively with much less performance loss. Ports of older games into the newer iteration of the creation engine would be negated by OpenES, as you could simply plug the advanced features into the new game with much less work than porting a whole game into a new engine. As a matter of fact, OpenMW has already limited support for ESMs and assets from later games.
To sum it all up
OpenMW has been a massive success and now that it’s near 1.0, we need to bring the same advantages to the rest of the series.
Transforming OpenMW into OpenES will make sure to community has an engine it can trust for great graphics, convenience and proper mod support.