From my own understanding of the problem, I cannot imagine why there is controversy in the first place, if you know anything about modding and you read the quote from the first post in this thread, that should be enough. If someone doesn't know about modding and / or cannot understand the quote, then their opinion on the bug itself is largely meaningless.
Yes, that is the reason that I can't understand
your assertion that "all mods" are broken. For example, a huge amount of mods are texture replacers, which are perfectly compatible. Many mods that add weapons or armor add them to the leveled lists, or vendor containers, adding them to new containers placed in an interior. Not seeing a potential for trouble there (since items placed in interiors are "safe", as I understand it), so that's a whole host of mods off the list as "incompatible" as well. Since most standalone companion mods have their companions marked as persistent so that scripts can run on them, they're also off the list (with a couple of exceptions, which have patches/workarounds posted), except that they're still likely subject to the white skin bug. However, the white skin bug is generally considered minor in the grand scheme of things, so companion mods thus probably work fine. Several major "global" mods, such as Fellout, Enhanced Rain, and overhauls such as MMM, are already confirmed to work. Several addon radio stations are specifically confirmed to work, and radio stations in general should work, as there's no reason for the patch to break them if the reported major issues are the only issues at hand. Several specific perk mods are confirmed to work, and again, there's no reason for the patch to break any perk mods, so it can be assumed that those not specifically confirmed will probably work.
I admit that there are certain categories of mods that are very likely to have problems: house mods, quest mods, and leveling mods. And even so, even though the
majority of these kinds of mods may have problems, a significant minority is likely to be safe; for example, house mods that change nothing in the exterior world except to place a door (which is by default persistent), as a lot of Vault, bunker, and underground homes do, or indeed don't place anything in the exterior world at all (such as Princess_Stomper's Tenpenny and Megaton House Extension mods), and quest mods that don't place their items or NPCs in the exterior, and make those that are persistent-- which is a possibility, since the quest scripts may need to act on any given NPC, in which case the NPC ref would need to be persistent. Leveling mods, naturally may become obsolete if they're intended to get around the level cap, or allow post-level 20 leveling with Evil/Very Evil karma (which is a specific fix of the 1.5 patch).
So from my perspective, it's quite possible to run a load list of out-of-the-box compatible mods, and I'm sure that many people do. And it's far from true that "all mods" are broken by the patch-- most of certain types of mods are most likely broken, but not even all of those are broken. And as for mods with "thousands of manhours" in them being rendered obsolete/broken.... I'm sorry to say, but "them's the breaks". If the modder is no longer available to put in another few (wo)man hours to resolve any compatibility issues with their mod (patch related or otherwise), then "them's the breaks" for users unwilling to put in those hours themselves. This is just "the cost of doing business" once you start using mods, and could have been triggered by anything, not just the patch. If the modder is available, I've seen several of them already putting in those hours. Perhaps any others who are still available simply haven't been informed that their specific mod has an issue needing resolution....?
That's why a list of specifics would be useful, rather than this mass generalization that of the 7000 or so mods on the Nexus, some 6999 are "of course" broken. I don't think that's true at all, especially since you can write 755 off the incompatible list right off the bat due to that 755 being "models and textures", you can write the 126 "sounds and music" mods off the incompatible list, you can write the 79 "user interface" mods off the incompatible list. Without checking. That's already over 1000 mods off the "incompatible" list, without checking a danged thing-- 1/7th of all mods listed are "OK" (assuming they work in the first place, but that's not the point).
On top of all this, when you have an item, door, trigger, NPC disappear, how do I know if its meant to disappear or the bug has made it disappear? How do I know if it is even there in the first place, without opening up every single mod and checking every single reference, because that task in itself sums up the magnitude of the problem 1.5 has caused modding.
You mean "mod users", not "modding". Modders (creators of mods, and even experienced/advanced users of mods) routinely open up mods and check for these sort of things, and subsequently modify said mods "for personal use". For example, I'm about to start a new game, and reconstruct my mod list for 1.5, so I have my list of mods organized into three folders-- mods that I know I probably need to ESMify or want to check to see if I need to ESMify them, mods that need other fixes (like I want to use Better Living through Chems with XFO's drug rarity, so I need to make a little patch to conform BLTC's chems leveled list with the rarity list from XFO; in fact I've done this already, it took less than 5 minutes in FO3Edit), and mods that "should be fine" based on the fact that they are either confirmed fine, or they don't conform to the specs for problem causing mods (radio stations, for example).
My list of "Bare Minimum" mods consists of 143 archives-- some of them are in multiple parts, so in actual fact it's 107 mods. Of these about 39 need to be checked for ESMification, 4 need internal-to-my-list compatibility fixes, and 64 are either confirmed fine, or I expect to be fine without any adjustment from me.
Yes, I severely trimmed my house mod list, because I didn't feel like checking all of them, but I did make an effort to search out "likely good" and "known good" house mods to replace them, so I'm OK with that. Yes, I removed a fair number of quest mods that "might have been nice" from consideration, and the ones that "I have to have" need to be checked for possible ESMification, but that's just par for the course, to me, at least.
I do understand that for the vast majority of mod users, this is far too much work, and that many such users have no intention of crossing that line from "average mod user" to "modder" or "advanced mod user". And that's their good right. However, it's also important to note that the perspective of "the average mod user" is not necessarily the only one, the "real" one, or even necessarily the perspective of "a reasonable person".
There are lots of mod users who just run a few mods from the "automatically good" category (texture replacers, weather replacers, sound mods, maybe a radio station or two). Maybe they add a basemant to the Megaton/Tenpenny house, and maybe they even hire Kelsey/Jessi, or run Phalanx. That's enough for them, and they're most likely happily running these mods in combination with 1.5 just fine, wondering why so many people are screaming about the sky falling.
Those of us who commonly check/clean/adjust the mods we use in the GECK have are probably doing so or have done so already, and are too busy playing their "fixed" modded game to care why anybody's screaming about anything here on the forums. Those of this group who are modders have already quietly updated some or all of their mods where necessary (yes Princess_Stomper, I'm looking at you
, and Tarrant, too
-- thanks!) or are in the process of doing so, if the mod is more complex (Quarn, for example).
Yes, sure, there is likely a substantial portion of the mod-using community who think that their mod list is so fundamental that if it breaks, then of course "all mods" are broken, and furthermore, because they refuse to move from their firm "users" stance, feel that there is no resolution to this conflict if Bethesda doesn't provide it, but just because that portion of the community believes it, doesn't make it true.
NB And also an important point, if a mod runs with 1.5 with content missing, does that make it 1.5 compatible or not?
No, it would not be compatible in that case (obviously). I mean, come on. Of course if content intended to appear in a mod does not appear, then the mod isn't working correctly. If the reason that the content does not appear is because of changes made to the engine/ESM by the 1.5 patch, then the 1.5 patch is the cause of the mod not working correctly. But that's a problem with the mod, not a problem with the patch, isn't it?
Mods are optional content, after all....
» Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:56 pm 
