To celebrate Morrowind's 20th anniversary, here's the first ever playable merger of TES3MP and OpenMW VR[gitlab.com], unlocking another piece of the two projects' potential.

Non-VR players can, of course, play together with VR players. Please note, however, that the hand movements of VR players cannot be seen by other players at this time and they show up as using regular animations. That being said, the origins and trajectories of spell and ranged weapon projectiles from VR players should still be synchronized correctly.

VR players can download the TES3MP 0.8.1 VR client release for Windows from here:

https://github.com/TES3MP/TES3MP/releases/download/tes3mp-0.8.1-vr/tes3mp.Win64.release.0.8.1.VR.client.zip

Players who want to host a server or play on the non-VR client need to get the regular TES3MP 0.8.1 client + server release for Windows from here:

https://github.com/TES3MP/TES3MP/releases/download/tes3mp-0.8.1/tes3mp.Win64.release.0.8.1.zip

If you have no interest in playing in VR, you should still get 0.8.1 because it includes all the optional hotfixes ever provided to version 0.8.0, ensuring that anyone who joins your server has them as well.

Happy birthday, Morrowind!

P.S.

I've also been interviewed by Danae for her "20 Years of Morrowind" event. You can read the interview here:

https://danaeplays.thenet.sk/modders-interview-david-c/

TES3MP fully supports Ukraine in its struggle. If you are one of the project's many Russian players, please write to your representatives in the State Duma and ask them to end the war.

For everyone else, please try to make a modest donation to the Ukrainian Red Cross: https://twitter.com/RedCrossUkraine/status/1496927821616320512

I gradually 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.

For now, here's a version that fixes a large part of the remaining gameplay problems and also adds some major features. Download it from here:

https://github.com/TES3MP/TES3MP/releases/tag/tes3mp-0.8.0

Here's the changelog for it:

* 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
* Fix freezes related to having too many players in a single interior cell
* Fix packet spam from some situations where actors start fights with players during dialogue
* Fix ObjectActivate packets not being sent when picking up items from inventory screen
* Fix ObjectDelete packets not being sent when non-container items are purchased from merchants who own them
* Fix PlayerItemUse packets not being sent when using quick keys
* Fix ConsoleCommand packets being ignored when sent by the server without a cell being associated with them
* Fix desyncs caused by late-arriving ActorAuthority packets by sending the packets to everyone on the server instead of only the players who have the associated cell loaded
* Fix indexes used when synchronizing the unassigning of quick keys
* Fix stealing being ignored when using Take All on owned containers
* Fix guards ignoring fights between players and other guards
* Prevent players from attacking while in persuasion dialogues with NPCs
* Prevent players from sending DoorState packets when not logged in
* Prevent NPCs from saying their dying words if they have been loaded up as dead from the server
* Prevent players and actors from playing their equipping sounds when they are first encountered
* Alleviate actor-related desyncs by not ignoring an entire packet when one of the actors referenced in it cannot be found
* Track kills caused through spell effects that do damage over time
* Track uses of the console by players
* Add serverside script functions for saving the identities of summoners
* Implement hashing for player passwords

Additionally, version 0.47 of OpenMW is used as the foundation now, meaning that everything from it is included.

A lot of thanks to everyone who stayed supportive during difficult times.

We've always been in awe of Tamriel Rebuilt, so it's quite an honor to have an article like this one written by them about TES3MP:

Changing Times[www.tamriel-rebuilt.org]

The Elder Scrolls I: Arena was released on the 25th of March 1994. To celebrate the passing of a quarter of a century since then, Bethesda Softworks have made The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind free to download and keep forever for anyone who gets it from the official Elder Scrolls website[elderscrolls.bethesda.net] today.

Obviously, you already own it, but surely you have some friends you've been wanting to play TES3MP with who don't own it. So... ask them to get it.

There are a few technical issues with the website at the moment due to the high volume of requests, but – based on Bethesda's timezone – your friends still have at least 6 hours to get it.

Edit: The duration of the giveaway has now been extended significantly.