Conversion of unofficial quest mods?

It is possible. Several official mods were already converted, and there is no technical difference between official and user created mods.

It's indeed possible but converting the actual quests is almost as much of an effort as creating them from scratch because the converter skips a lot of dialogue, doesn't convert most scripts, creatures, and some other objects, messes up dialogue conditions and generally only provides a useful framework to build the quests on. The biggest problem though is getting permission from the mod creators which most of the time won't happen. Once all the Bloodmoon and Tribunal quests are debugged maybe some work could be done with mods.

So yeah, if you like a mod you can ask the original author for permission and post a request it here. If it's an interesting mod I'm sure there's always someone willing to do something with it.

I have looked at this in the past, and for most simple mods, it's definitely easier just to recreate the mod by hand. 

For quest mods, you may or may not find it easier to create by hand, just by loading the Morrowind CS and Oblivion CS side by side and then using the Morrowind CS as a template for the new stuff in the Oblivion CS.

For converting other people's mods, here's a possible solution that we use for converting Fallout 3 mods for Fallout New Vegas:

• Contact the author as best you can, via whatever site the original Morrowind mod is hosted on, etc.
• Tell the author that you really like their work, but since it is so old you are not planning on getting a reply.  So, you are going to proceed with conversion one week from now, unless you hear back from them in the next week.
• If you don't hear back from them in one week, you've got their implicit consent, and off you go.

 

But you might actually hear back from them in that week :)

Morrowind's modding community is more active than you'd expect for such an old game.

I agree that's probably the best way of approaching the subject. I just hope that those who do reply back understand that we don't want to take away their work but just present it to another audience. What about those who specifically stated they won't allow any kind of alterations, reuploading etc. whatsoever? We can't just assume they'd consent, can we?

Make sure to check the small permissions tab and the tags if it is one the nexus. I have found that most mods actually have authors consent to use as a resource, but people usually don't check the small permission tabs so they never find out.

Stuff like LGNPC and Emma's mods (except maybe White Wolf) are easier to make from scratch than stuff like Tamriel Rebuilt. All the stuff which needs to be done is to recreate the quests/dialogue, NPCs and a few interiors. The only hard thing is Emma's unique hairs for her companions.

Stuff like LGNPC

LGNPC team doesn't allow their mods to be ported.

I meant for personal use. All mods I convert for Morroblivion and later on for Skyblivion won't ever be released unless the authors say it is OK to do so.

TR is OK with porting over their mod as it's said on their website. Emma doesn't like Morroblivion so won't give permission to port over her mods.

Personally - and this is just me talking - I don't care at all about mod authors and their permissions, so if you guys want to upload stuff to the website that you've converted without permission, or even explicitly against the original author's wishes, I say go for it - AS LONG AS you credit the original author and don't claim their work as your own.

For what it's worth, here are my bullet points for why no one should care about "permission" to use other people's mods:

1. Life is too short and there's too much drama as it is.  We certainly don't need to encourage drama queen mod creators running little imaginary internet fiefdoms (nexus admins for example).
2. Bethesda owns your mods (.esp and .esm files) anyway, under the terms of the Construction Set and the various games' license sgreements.
3. Most mod authors use other people's work in their mods, so they don't technically have permission to tell you not to use it - technically you need to go all the way up the chain to the original for every single piece of content, and even the software tools used to create it. This becomes a serious recursion problem in many cases.
4. For the content that Bethsoft doesn't own (let's say you made all-new meshes and textures by hand, pixel by pixel, without using ANY other people's work), "fair use" still applies - and very clearly, because, under the terms of Bethsoft's EULA's, you can't charge money for your mods. Without any financial impact to the original creator, "fair use" is very easy to defend, especially if the original creator retains credit / acknowledgement for their work, regardless of how it is used.

 

I'm slowly but steadily remaking LGNPC Pax Redoran for my personal use. Maybe I can release it here if it's done.

God, I'm about to sound like such a noob. But what is LGNPC?

Don't judge me, please! I've been playing Morrowind since 2003 and have been modding for just as long.

thermador

1. Life is too short and there's too much drama as it is.  We certainly don't need to encourage drama queen mod creators running little imaginary internet fiefdoms (nexus admins for example).

Using people's shit against their wishes is exactly what causes drama. 

Lady Nerevar

 

thermador

 

Life is too short and there's too much drama as it is.  We certainly don't need to encourage drama queen mod creators running little imaginary internet fiefdoms (nexus admins for example).

 

Using people's shit against their wishes is exactly what causes drama. 

 

This is what I was thinking.

 

On the one hand, it'd be great to have all of these old great mods in Morroblivion, but doing it without the author's consent just sounds really shady and douchey.