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Bad PLUGINS, Zainab, the Main Quest, AND YOU!!!!!! READ!
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RPGDot Forums > Morrowind - General

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Guest







Bad PLUGINS, Zainab, the Main Quest, AND YOU!!!!!! READ!
   

There are a few threads floating around that are screaming what I have just found to be true with my game: Due to a bad mod(s), there is no way to get the correct dialouge options from a key character in the Main quest; the Ashkar in Zainab.
Some have posted stating that a 'Haunted Mansion' mod caused their grief. I have never loaded this mod, but I have loaded 'Bandit Cave' and 'Vampires'. I have since removed all plugins, reverted back to defaults, loaded, resaved, and loaded again, with the same horrible results.

Why should *you* be concerned? Because I don't think anyone knows exactly which MOD created this issue. Also, this bug appeared in my game towards the END OF THE MAIN QUEST. You can only imagine my sickening dissapointment at what is appearing to be a permanent flaw with my main character, who is now level 27, and has 50+ hours under her belt. Ugh.

So, be warned, check your mods, and cross your fingers. If there is anyone else out there who knows how to fix this issue, and has witnessed a purposed fix *work*, please post to the boards. If I dont' see a resolution sometime soon, I may have to throw in the towel. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

NoMeansNO
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:07 am
 
Guest Dare
Guest






   

I don't mean to be rude but people are blaming plugins for everything from virus' to making the game unwinable.
The fact is this could be caused by a plugin OR simply by something you said or done somewhere else in the game...
It can even be because you didn't say or do something. With a game this complex you really shouldn't jump the gun without testing. Try backtracking in the story and see if you can trigger something to happen. If you still have no luck then I would recommend putting the storyline on hold while you do some exploration and character building. This will give the modder's time to find and fix any bugs that may be present.

If it was caused by a plugin, it's not something that can't be fixed. If it can be broken by a plugin, then it can be fixed by another plugin most likely. Just hang tight and keep your eyes peeled for a fix.
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:19 am
 
Danicek
The Old One
The Old One




Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic
   

Moved to plugin forum.

If you find something wrong in plugin, please post in into plugin forum and add to certain thread in plugin depot forum as your comment to warn other users and also contact developer of that plugin - if you want to be constructive ofcourse.
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:28 am
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Merkin
Head Merchant
Head Merchant




Joined: 01 Dec 2001
Posts: 65
   

I've got to echo what "guest" said. I'm not as far inthe game as he is, "I'm a chronic re-starter", but i recently had a MAJOR corruption of all saved games, that I feel could only be due to plug-ins. It was not a bug, as I had played that section of the game a number of times without difficulty. It was not making a bad choice, as I had tried the different options, and knew what they led to.

It had to be the plug-ins I was using, either singly, or in combination with each other.

I don't blame the plug-in authors at all, I really don't believe that anyone is intentionally releasing "bad" plug-ins.

But the TES editor needs to be considered a Beta version, at best. With crappy documentation, 0 tech support, and some very strange anomalies and glitches, no one, not even the plug-in "guru's" have a full and complete understanding of what it does to the game at this point.

I will continue to test the occasional plug-in for friends, but I've made a decision to play my game plug-in free for now, untill the editor gets de-bugged or thuroughly sussed out.
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Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 1:46 pm
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Farseer
City Guard
City Guard




Joined: 30 Apr 2002
Posts: 131
   

Well I am not sure what caused my problem,but I beleive it had to be the waterwalking boots plugin. My lvl 25 char has perm waterwalking and nothing I do fixes it. Any ideas?
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 2:44 pm
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bigcat
Guest






Glad this is being mentioned
   

I played with a corrupt saved file from the haunted mansion a while back and frankly was a bit horrified. It almost seemed like a virus corrupting every saved file it touched. Let me hasten to say I know that this was not done on purpose and really was the fault of the editor and not the mod writer.
Still it leads me to believe that mod authors have a duty to test their mods as fully as they can and recruit input from others. I always try to investigate any error messages people send me, but often they don't respond to questions about what might have happened and I can't seem to recreate what happened.
So please try to help authors locate problems if you can, I think most of us are trying to improve the game and hate the thought that we might have hurt the Morrowind experiance for anyone.

P.S. Bethesda thanks for giving use these great tools, but please look into these problems and issue a less buggy editor.
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 3:10 pm
 
MoonDragon
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada
   

Farseer, try this:

- open console by pressing "~" key
- type "player->RemoveEffects, sEffectWaterWalking", or perhaps it is "player->RemoveEffect sEffectWaterWalking" (help files are somewhat confusing about the actual nomenclature)
- close console by pressing "~" key again

Try walking on water. Also, I'd suggest reloading to the game prior to loading of the mod if possible.

NoMeansNO, or whatever your name is, "Guest", judging by the list of your mods, namely the "Vampires" one and by the fact that the ashkhan you're talking about asks you to kill a vampire, you may have some issues there. As far as I see it, its your own fault that you're messing with the fundamental game mechanics before you finished the game. Its not really the modder's fault or the CS's fault, but your fault for loading things with no idea of what the end result will be. You mess with the fundamental mechanics of the game, then blame it on the game that it broke. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but if you load third party modifications, you're asking for trouble unless you know how to fix it. But all that aside, just fire up the console and force the game to resolve that quest for you. Or just make yourself the Nerevarine of the Zainab and move on.
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Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 3:15 pm
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Nael
Village Leader
Village Leader




Joined: 05 May 2002
Posts: 86
   

quote:
NoMeansNO, or whatever your name is, "Guest", judging by the list of your mods, namely the "Vampires" one and by the fact that the ashkhan you're talking about asks you to kill a vampire, you may have some issues there. As far as I see it, its your own fault that you're messing with the fundamental game mechanics before you finished the game. Its not really the modder's fault or the CS's fault, but your fault for loading things with no idea of what the end result will be. You mess with the fundamental mechanics of the game, then blame it on the game that it broke.


Very true... I play with tons of mods but they are all mods that only add content and do not change the "set mechanics" of the game. The way you could probably determine if a mod is going to problems is "Is it something that effects factions (vampires certainly do that)" or "Does it add alot of new dialogue in coexistance with pre-existing dialogue" this one seems to cause the most problems. Added characters that have their own dialogue seem fine, i.e. PackGuar, but most of the added chars I've found from mods that have pre-existing dialogue topics interspersed with modded topics, havoc insues... especially if you have multiple mods running at the same time. Keep these things in mind and I think you'll be ok. I'd recommend reinstalling your game too and completely deleting all the mods you d/l'ed and start over. Good luck
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Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 3:54 pm
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Guest







   

I have found both the cause AND the solution to this issue.
First off, I'm hoping this DOESN'T get moved to the PLUGIN's section, as it has to not only have to do with plugins, but the GAME ITSELF. Hopefully the moderator(s) will see the value of getting the word out about the issues some public plugins will cause in Morrowind Saved Games.
Second, to Dare Guest, I'm fully aware that my issues, like those of other's who've been bit by the plugin bug, were caused by folks incorrectly deleting scripting and dialogue threads in the creation of their plugins. I had always been under the impression that if a plugin screws your gameup, you just need to unplug it to get it to work again. That is NOT the case, and I wanted to make sure word got out that you could cause harm to your saved games.
Anyways, found the answer(s) in different threads. My editor also died when I tried to exit after making the 'deleted' changes, but it still *saved* the changes, and my saved game is fixed. If you find yourself in the same boat, you can do the following. It saved my SG for me.

Here are the steps I followed:
1. Copy your save file <mysave>.ess from ./Saves to ./Data Files

2. Rename it to <mysave>.esp

3, Load the editor

4. Open File->Data Files

5. Select your renamed save file

6. Hit "Details..."

7. Scroll through and look for deleted dialog items (or anything else for
that matter). Hit DEL, and confirm

8. Save your changes

9. Rename <mysave>.esp -> <mysave>.ess and put it back in the ./Saves
directory

10. Reload.

11. Breathe enormous sigh of relief at not having to restart your game
from
scratch.

12. That's it.

Thanks,
NMN
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 4:20 pm
 
Guest







   

quote:
Originally posted by MoonDragon
Farseer, try this:
NoMeansNO, or whatever your name is, "Guest", judging by the list of your mods, namely the "Vampires" one and by the fact that the ashkhan you're talking about asks you to kill a vampire, you may have some issues there. As far as I see it, its your own fault that you're messing with the fundamental game mechanics before you finished the game. Its not really the modder's fault or the CS's fault, but your fault for loading things with no idea of what the end result will be. You mess with the fundamental mechanics of the game, then blame it on the game that it broke. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but if you load third party modifications, you're asking for trouble unless you know how to fix it. But all that aside, just fire up the console and force the game to resolve that quest for you. Or just make yourself the Nerevarine of the Zainab and move on.


It doesn't sound harsh, MoonDragon, it just sounds like you missed where my frustration was coming from. I was under the impression that a very cool facet of Morrowind was the ability to 'PLUG IN' additions and changes, which in turn could be 'UNPLUGGED', not causing any harm to your game. This was how I understood it to work; this is how folks in the modding forum over at Bethesda thought it to work; and I was both horrified and dismayed to find that that was not the case.
While I was never ticked off at the mod makers who created the errors (or anyone else for that matter), I was dismayed at the fact that my saved game could be toast. And I was also hoping to warn others prior to using plugins. Because, unlike yourself it would seem, there are thousands of folks downloading and using plugins with their Morrowind game, unaware that they could cause problems. Luckily, there IS a way to fix the situation using the editor, or Tesame. But, bottom line, it WAS a shocker that plugins that were later *unplugged* were screwing the game's quest's up ~~ at least to me and the masses that are now starting to flood the 'Bugs and Cheat's' forum at morrowind.com.
Thanks for your input,
NMN
Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 4:29 pm
 
MoonDragon
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada
   

Understood NMN. I can see where you got mislead, but I also, at least partially, blame you for your troubles. If you think about the pluggability of the mods for a second... The mods can radically modify almost every aspect of the game. Once you run it, your save games will be saved to represent the radically changed world. Once you unplug your mod, how can you expect to still run your save games that encoded the radically changed world? In fact, the game itself complains when you attempt to load a save game that was saved with a mod that is now missing/different. It will warn you, saying that you can expect unpredictable results and if you are sure you want to load this save game. If you answer yes, at least in my eyes, its your fault when things go wrong.

Look, I'm not saying you're dumb or that it's all your fault or anything. Your post is clearly helpful and should serve to help many people. All I'm trying to say is that if you play with fire, no matter how "safe," it's not somebody else's fault when you get burnt due to lack of "safeness."

BTW, that's a very neat way of fixing the game. Didn't know you could load up your save games in the editor...
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Post Thu Jun 06, 2002 6:18 pm
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Guest







   

For those who are wondering which mod caused my previous grief, it was a mod called 'The Bandit Cave'. It was, I think, the first mod released to the masses made by a user that added game content; I loaded it up a week after I got the game, which was the day the game came out. I had noticed that it had screwed up dialogue options with slaves right away, so I removed it. Fast forward a month later and 50+ hours of gaming time, and I find that it still screwed my saved game. All is well now, and lesson learned.

Qoute from MoonDragon:
"Understood NMN. I can see where you got mislead, but I also, at least partially, blame you for your troubles. "

And Moon, I am still puzzled as to why you require blame to be laid on anyone.....Why does it matter? Those folks, like myself, who already screwed their saved game with a bum plugin ALREADY KNOW that *CERTAIN* mods can render in-game quests broken. My post was meant to both warn others of what had occurred to my saved game, and to try and find a fix for my issue; I was not saying that the Mod's author needed to die and Bethesda needed to refund my money. I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who's encountered this issue, and I'm just as sure I won't be the last. Hopefully the fix I added to this thread will help the poor souls out there who didn't take the full second required to fully understand the risks of using plugins prior to plugging one in and saving their game.

As a side note, I am *still* using mods ~~ I've just learned how to use TESAME editor to 'clean' & check them prior to use. It has worked out very well. A few mods I can recommond include Cult of the Clouds, and Cliff Racer Remover.

NMN
Post Fri Jun 07, 2002 5:37 pm
 



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