New release, new thread.

This is a project to fix bugs in Morrowind that just aren't possible to do with scripting alone. It comes in the form of a patch to the Morrowind program.

The primary fix included is a large change to the savegame code to reduce the majority of crashes, corruption, and missing objects. It also makes the game properly respond to changes in your load list, making inserting and removing mods from your savegames a lot safer. There are many more smaller fixes that cover all areas of the game.

All fixes and gameplay changes included are optional, you can independently select which ones you want to use in the installer.

Morrowind Code Patch is fully compatible with UMP, MGE, MWSE and MWE. It should work with the Steam edition of Morrowind now. Also, improved Russian version compatibility.

Version 1.4 is out now.
Files: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19510
The files are also available on http://www.fliggerty.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1008.

New features in 1.4:
- Steam support (hope it works)
- MCP Version appears on the title screen.
- Calendar fix changes in 1.3 were reverted due to even more compatibility issues.
- Rare inventory bugs. Fixes issues with inventory updates when:
Using potions via quickslot; when you used the last potion in a stack the icon would remain, clicking on it could crash the game.
Soul trap; when another NPC used soultrap and captured a soul, your inventory display would be overwritten by the NPCs.
- Spellmaking changes
Allows you to use a spell effect more than once when making spells.
Area effect spells cost modifier is now cost * (1 + area^2/400).
- NPC item use AI
NPC potion drinking is limited to once every 5-6 seconds game time.
NPCs now drink magicka potions if their magicka goes below 50%.
- Dispel no longer (invisibly) stacks with itself if you keep casting it.
- Creatures can cause armour damage where they didn't before.
- Blind effect no longer gives the PC an attack bonus instead of a penalty.
- Variable spell magnitude fix now applies to the rest of the restore spells.
- Hand to hand damage now varies with strength. It is equivalent to original Morrowind damage at 40 str and increases up to 2.5x at 100 str.
- Mercantile fix. Disposition effect is back to normal, instead the deviation from base price from all skills and effects is reduced by 50%.
- Arrow enchanting. Allows ammunition and throwing weapons to be enchanted.
- Gloss map fix. Allows gloss maps to work. Stops Morrowind from removing the gloss map entry when loading NIFs.
- Menu button width. Allows double width main menu buttons.


See the previous threads to see how this came about:
Repairing those Cogs http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1009430 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=978076 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=942375 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=925813 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=911149 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=894276 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=889153 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=885299 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=883753 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=881267 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=879297 http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=874465

---------------------------------------

Bug tracker
based on the Morrowind/MCP bug list, compiled from the "Repairing the Cogs ..." threads, thanks to Mordicus for the initial compliation.

New reported bugs (not fixed by MCP)

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1013291&view=findpost&p=14761848 by Arsuru
Spell absorption incorrectly rolls once per spell effect instead of once per spell, and can refund excessive mana.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1013291&view=findpost&p=14762992 by FuzedBox
When fired at an angle off the horizontal plane, arrows diverge from the aiming point upwards/downwards.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1013291&view=findpost&p=14755077 by Hrnchamd
Training price is calculated from fortified/drained skill level, it should bebase skill level.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14687709 by vtastek
ToggleWater/TWA doesn't appear to do anything.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1014195&st=4 by Illuminiel
Here's another http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1014195&st=4&# for MCP - before first save of a new game the gender of first person hands remains male.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14660060 by Gozzolia
(confirmed)
Casting water walking after jumping from a large height and landing in water causes fall damage as you cast the spell.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14658109 by Tizzo
I'll add that I noticed a bug when I was making my http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7566 mod awhile back:

Spells which affect attributes cannot be defined as starting spells, and will be ignored. This applies to damage/drain/restore/fortify effects.

EX: In the base Morrowind ESM, there is a defined "starting spell" (Feet of Notorgo) which is a Fortify speed 10 pts for 90 sec on self spell. The player will never receive this spell regardless of starting restoration skill score.

Easily tested by changing the base restoration skill starting bonus of, say, a Breton to a suitably high number. This glitch does not apply to spells defined as powers. Probably not for abilities, either, but such things are treated differently in code I would suspect.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13636497 by Alexxx
(not reproducible, confirmed)

Example 1: I have 5 snow wolf pelts and order a piece of armour requiring 2 pelts. I check my inventory and find that I still have 5. I drop them on the ground. When I reload I have 3 pelts in my inventory... No wonder that my encumbrance is 20-30 units below what it should be.

Example 2 (by Tyraa Rane): say I have 20 pieces of crab meat to give to one of the NPCs from Cutthroat's Minor Quest mod. I talk to him; he takes the crab meat. I click "goodbye" and open my inventory--the crab meat's still there. Go and talk to him again, pick up the quest again (you can do the quests ad infinitum if you want), and re-open my inventory...no more crab meat. It's almost as if the inventory isn't "refreshing" properly.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14025184 by DavidB1111.
(not reproducible, not confirmed yet)

Create a monster that has summon Bonelord spells, or bonewalker, anything, and get it to cast the spell near a cell transition door. Now kill it, and before it finishes the death animation, which kills the summons, walk through the door. Bam, instant Crash to Desktop. With an error message. This is easy to do with BigMod 2 with the Uber Bonelords that summon bonelords.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14049845 by abg
(reproducible, confirmed, found by Emma too)

bug 1: NPCs quickly loose the benefit of magical items with constant effects. If they keep a magic item on them (a ring, etc.), the equipped item has no more magic effect on them. It is very easy to check. For example, add an magic item to your NPC:
AddItem, "Montain spirit", 1
(this artefact is an armor with a constant magical shield effect, so easy to notice either it is active or not)
Then, go for a walk with your NPC companion, sooner or later, his armor will loose the shield effect. It is not only a visual flaw, and the same bug occurs with different magical items. It is hard to determine how and when exactly the bug occurs, but it is not connected with the 72 hours "bug" (not really a bug). For more info, see http://forums.elricm.com/emma/viewtopic.php?t=515.

bug 2: NPCs do not use magical items which are not fully charged (at 100%). To check this, add an item:
AddItem, "cruel sparkbolt ring", 1
Then, start a fight. Your companion will use the ring only once, although it has many others charges. So he won't use it any more, excepted if the item is fully recharged.

bug 3: Magical items carried by NPCs do never regenerate. Even after 24h, a magical ring used a few times will keep its status bar unfilled.

bug 4: NPCs have suicidal tendencies: they will use on them any magical item with negative effects! To provoke this bug:
AddItem, "amulet of 6th house", 1
And then start a fight. The Amulet of 6th House drains the fatigue of the wearer.

bug 5: Many magical effects (like spells) are totally ignored by the AI. A list of those unused magical effects could be established, it's not easy, but some have been identified: spells like restore health, conjuration, etc. The same bug occurs with Bloodmoon conjuration spells, they are never used by NPCs (while NPCs use Morrowind conjuration spells).

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14008999 by Silverglade, Kirel.
(reproducible, confirmed)

In Morrowind weather changes don't register with the game until the transition from one type of weather to another is complete - if you enter an interior during this transition then the interior effects for the previous weather type will play. Also, weather changes don't register with the game in interior cells, so you may find you enter an interior while it's raining, hear the rain effect but leave to find it's now clear. As far as I know these are limitations of the game that would be ineffcient if not impossible to work around. Another consequence of this is that if you teleport from one interior to another the game won't register the exterior weather for the new cell, and you'll still hear the effects for the previous cell. Again, limitations of the game.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13657725 by Mordicus
(with or without MCP, reproducible, not confirmed)

If you are attacked by an hostile NPC (ie: dark brotherhood), knock him down and steal his stuff while a guard is near (since "Allow Stealing from KOed NPC" fix from MCP allow you to do this), the guard will consider you are robbing someone and will catch you.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13684043 by Narfblat
(with or without MCP, not easily reproducible but confirmed)

If a summon spell ends after the player has left the cell, any abilities or diseases on the summoned creature remain in the game's memory, while the creature does not. When the player loads a save where this has occurrred, it gives errors like failed to load spell "brown rot", continue running executable? The player can click through the errors, and the message is not given on saves made afterward. The issue doesn't appear to cause further problems, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

References: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=831127

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14011544 by Dragon32, Gez.
(confirmed)

The createmaps function is quite dumb. It loads all interior cells, even though it doesn't make maps for them... adding an interior cell check and skipping any interiors might be a nice idea.

Refs: on http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21341 forum.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13446765 by Lord Udedenkz
(confirmed by tetchy)

Jump While Someone is Talking, Their Voices Squeak While You Are In the Air. Not sure if present in software accelerated mode, but something triggers this during the jump. That also happens near creatures - basically any sound generator will increase in pitch and speed when you jump. I think it has to do with being positioned above the sound source.

Refs: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13447118

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13480273 by BTB
(confirmed by Psyringe, not related to MGE)

Can this patch fix the fog of war issue? I'm talking about how the fog of war just randomly stops revealing itself as you walk along. You end up in these big black boxes of nothing, and then eventually a large chunk of map you've never been anywhere near shows up.

Psyringe: The problem you describe (local map turning black / fog of war not being lifted any more) is well known (and rather annoying). I don't know of any efforts to fix it. I can't tell whether it's fixable.

Refs: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13481629 (and following posts), http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13488871.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13491552 by Surgo
(not confirmed)

The "Take All" button on containers has a bug where if you use it, the container's GetItemCount function will return the number of that item that existed in the container before the player used Take All. It will continue to return this value for all future function calls.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13744090 by Arsuru
(not confirmed)

It seems that curses that damage an attribute can be cured with a restore attribute effect. This breaks curses added by mods. Maybe this is why curses and the remove curse effect are not in the game? Can it be made so that a curse can only be removed with the remove curse effect?

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13834068 By Laugan
(reproducible, confirmed by Arsuru)

I'm working on a bug&balance fixing project and found one bug very annoying. I fixed work of the traps, trap spells and use of the probes. After my fixes, traps are working as expected. Thief classes can use probes to disarm traps, warriors can try to survive, mages can set off traps from distance using telekinesis. Many traps use area effects to deal damage if you have only weak telekinesis, so you must have strong spell to avoid damage. That how it must work, but it's not working that way. Area effect of traps is broken completely. It does not deal damage even if you are in half-meter before trap and the worst mage can avoid all traps in the game by using 10 point telekinesis. It is a very annoying bug. Is there a way to fix it?

Arsuru: Traps must be set on touch to hurt anything. I get errors about invalid traps if I set them to target or self. Odd note: you can set area to 0 and still be affected. Also, only the PC can be touched I think, as any NPC I put in the way was unharmed, unless the area was large enough to hit the PC as well. In that case it can be seen as a crime if the trap kills the NPC. I think the problem with the area effect not working when triggered from a distance must be because the touch spell finds no target. It is the same as if the PC casts a touch spell with an area effect but misses their target.

Refs: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13900332

----------------------------

MCP related bugs or not completely fixed by MCP

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=14681409 by sandric
There is a bug with main menu buttons after patching. If you will try to enter options, or click on Load, and cancel after that, then the menu will be just in halph of its size.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13700017 by fragonard
(confirmed by Psyringe and others)

I've had a problem with Madd Leveler and the code patch: Fortify intelligence doesn't wear off normally; sometimes it starts to drop and then stays at a high level and sometimes it goes negative. This has happened in two separate games. I have used Madd leveler for years so I assume it's a conflict with the code patch, perhaps the restore attribute changes.

Temporary solution: disable the "Restore Attributes" fix in the MCP setup

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=978076&view=findpost&p=14260252 by Shanjaq
(not confirmed, but may be linked to others bugs reported with inventory)

Mercantile Bug in Patched EXE: High Disposition cause purchase of 15 items return only 5 items to player inventory. Purchase of 25 returns 10. Example: bought 15 Spore Pods from the breton alchemist in Caldera Mage's Guild, only 5 actually in inventory after completing transaction.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13447685 by Mordicus
(not confirmed)

I noticed something that may be a bug... When fighting H2H with a guard, knocking him down and then stealing him (knocked out NPCs bug fixed), a journal often appears in the inventory and can be stolen many times (as if the journal was "regenerating"). Thus I could steal 8 Journals on a guard in Mournhold, and also to another imperial guard in Seyda Nyhin. I am using MWE and the mod "Enhanced Stealth" but it does not appear to be linked. Could someone try to reproduce this bug and check if it's coming from my mod configuration? Is it a bug or just something related to way the engine is handling the guard class?

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13452035 by Arsuru
(known issue)

I've found another issue with the transparent clothes fix. In addition to breaking the enchanted item glow when removed and leaving the enchanted item glow fix enabled, the enchanted item glow fix seems to work when disabled as long as the transparent clothes fix is enabled.

----------------------

Bugs that won't be fixed for various reasons

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13636633 by bjam, cyran0, etc.
(reproducible, confirmed)

Such as cellupdate (broken), CellChange (not always working, particularly fails with teleportation).

References: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:CellUpdate
Resolution: Too time-consuming to work on.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13975143 by john.moonsugar, Openmindsuffer, etc.
(visible, confirmed)

NPCs heads and bodies flickering, doors disappearing and reappearing. When close to a body of water, sometimes the dry land nearby keeps showing water. And many similar effects.

Refs: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=916934, http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=964470, http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=967104, http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=903481.

Resolution: The problem appears to be a "z-buffer" clipping issue. Sometimes called Z-buffer fighting. You may be able to solve the problem if your driver configuration allows you to set the "Depth Buffer Bit Depth" from 16 to 24 or even 32.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=942375&view=findpost&p=13657725 by Mordicus
(easy to check in the TESCS and in game)

- taking OUT/AWAY an axe uses the same sound ID then taking OUT/AWAY a bow (it's very easy to hear in game) - both weapons should have different ID.
- there is no sound ID for taking OUT/AWAY axes: MW plays the sound for blunt weapons (and the sound for Blunt weapons are nammed "AxeOUT" and "AxeAWAY" - there should be 2 different ID for each weapon (out/away) and 2 different sounds for each weapon too (axeOUT/AWAY and bluntOUT/AWAY).
- taking OUT/AWAY throwing weapons (darts, daggers, etc.) uses the blunt sound ID and wav that for blund weapons (should have a specific ID and sound, the job was probably not finished...)
If new ID are added, that would be easy to create and add new sounds.

Resolution:Features that require extra data need updates all the way down the toolchain. Too difficult.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13597069 by Arkngt
(confirmed by UESP Wiki)

The way it's set up is both suicidal and seems illogical:
Fortify Health M points for D seconds
Temporarily raises the target's Health by M points for D seconds. After the spell expires, their Health will be restored to its former value, minus any damage received while the spell was active.

This effect has an unfortunate bug which can make it very dangerous to use in large doses. When the spell is active, your natural health is lowered first when you are damaged. As soon as it expires, the amount of health you added is then subtracted from whatever you have at that time, regardless of how much damage you have taken. Thus you should be very careful not to cast any spell or use any item which more than doubles your natural Health maximum. If you do so, and then take more than your natural Health value in damage before the spell runs out, you will drop dead as soon as it expires.

Refs: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Fortify_Health on UESP Wiki, http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13597655
Resolution:Works like all other fortify effects, not classified as a bug. Maybe it should be turned into a Fortify Maximum Health spell.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13634768 by lostminstrel
(hardly reproducible, not confirmed yet)

[/i]explanation elided[/i]
Resolution:Cannot fix due to systemic issues with spell effects.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=911149&view=findpost&p=13360633 by Arsuru
(confirmed, reproducible, unfixable)

Merchants will take all of an item from your inventory with the same ID as the item stolen from them. Fliggerty had an idea that seems like it could work. There is also the issue with placing a non-stolen item into a container with ownership, and then it counts as stolen when you take it out again.

Refs: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=942375&st=160&p=14116788&#entry14116788.
Resolution:Very hard to fix while remaining compatible with game saves.

----------------------

Features that could (only) be added by MCP & Suggestions

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13535753 by Mr. Swiveller

The Morrowind engine uses the _land_default texture for both land tiles and the world map. It is possible to increase the resolution of this texture from the default 256 x 256 to 512 x 512 or higher. The texture will then be displayed correctly in-game, yet the world map will cease to function properly - the location pointer gets 'stuck', making it impossible to use the map for navigation (the 'local' map continues to work properly). My West Gash texture pack is among the mods guilty of introducing a high-res replacer for _land_default (I was not aware of this bug, if that is indeed what it is, until a few months ago).

Would it be possible to modify the executable in such a way that high-res versions of _land_default are fully supported?

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13625469 by Psyringe

It's well known that dialogue topics can conflict with each other if they are a subphrase or superphrase of another topic. The symptom of the conflict is usually that a topic doesn't get highlighted and is not available in conversation although it should, because it is "shadowed" by another topic. This often breaks quests, but it may well be that the broken quests are just the tip of the iceberg, because shadowed non-crucial topics might simply go unnoticed. However, as a forum search for "AddTopic" shows, the problem of broken quests due to such overlapping topics is rather prevalent...

The usual remedy is to either (for users) to "AddTopic" the missing topic so that the conversation can continue as planned, or (for modders) to add the respective "AddTopic" command to the dialogue that should trigger this topic, to make sure it gets added to the player even if it gets shadowed by another topic. Neither method is optimal. The first method requires knowledge of the exact topic to add, something that is hard to find out for the inexperienced user (and often still tedious for the experienced ones). The second method relies on the discipline of the modders to always employ it, and it also has the disadvantage that the topic still doesn't get highlighted in the conversation, so the user has to look at his (perhaps rather long) list of available topics to find it.

[...]

Now, what could be done about that?

Read the whole post http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=925813&view=findpost&p=13625469.

I noticed one thing while testing steam version, absorb fatigue won't cause to collapse. How hard would that be to add?

I seem to remember absorb not working with negative fatigue, and it didn't quite work like it should. I'll look at it again though.

Not a big deal to me atleast, don't think i've ever used it except now.

Interface change: "main menu button size" feature does not work very well on my system (winXP SP3 French version). The button size does not change, and the menu is no more aligned.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/716/mgescreenshot03.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8022/mgescreenshot05.jpg

I'll add that I noticed a bug when I was making my http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7566 mod awhile back:

Spells which affect attributes cannot be defined as starting spells, and will be ignored. This applies to damage/drain/restore/fortify effects.

EX: In the base Morrowind ESM, there is a defined "starting spell" (Feet of Notorgo) which is a Fortify speed 10 pts for 90 sec on self spell. The player will never receive this spell regardless of starting restoration skill score.

Easily tested by changing the base restoration skill starting bonus of, say, a Breton to a suitably high number.

This glitch does not apply to spells defined as powers. Probably not for abilities, either, but such things are treated differently in code I would suspect.



I suppose I should have mentioned it earlier, but it's hardly a game breaker. Maybe for MCP 1.5? =)


Congratulations on the release, instant download!


Tizzo

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=User.EntriesListing&id=319848

Hmm, what do you mean by this one?

Potion drinking is limited to once every 5-6 seconds game time.

Do you mean NPCs are limited? Or the PC? If the former, that's fine with me. If the latter, lol, wut?

Thanks for the update, I'm going to like the hand to hand changes. :goodjob:

Hello again, wow, the last thread went by fast.

I see you've added a feature that changes the menu buttons size, may I request a possible option to change the buttons to a horizontal layout like Oblivion's? I prefer that layout to Morrowind's, just my wish.

Also, what are the changes to gloss maps you've implemented? I saw the screenshot there at Nexus and was curious.

I have examined this phenomenon for some time. I call it over-branding, but it does not matter what we decide to call it. I am not certain why I did not post a reply when Psyringe first wrote it up. Perhaps I didn't notice or maybe I did not feel there was any more to say on the subject. However after re-reading his anolysis I wonder if I am misinterpreting what Psyringe wrote or if there is more to it then was discussed then. Here are my tests and results:

I used the official topic 'all my fault' introduced in a greeting by Listien Bierles without using AddTopic (Bethesda rarely does). The actual phrase that Listien Bierles utters, "This is all my fault." is important because it determines what new topics will constitute an over-brand.

In a number of test mods I added either singly or together the new topics:

'my fault'
'not all my fault'
'is all my fault'

Each is introduced through a new greeting given to Fargoth (in multiple topic tests other NPCs were involved), sometimes with AddTopic and other times without.

First the topic 'my fault' - I did not expect this to break the official topic.

w/o AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic my fault not hyperlinked and not listed - broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.

w/AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic my fault not hyperlinked but listed only after refresh - partially broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.

It is important to recognize that the order in which the two NPCs were greeted has no effect on the outcome. This is always true in every test.

Next I tested 'not all my fault" - I expected both the new topic and the official topic to work.

w/o AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic not all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.

w/AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic not all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.

Then I tested both 'my fault' and 'not all my fault" - only the former should be broken.

w/o AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic my fault not hyperlinked and not listed - broken.
Eldafire's topic not all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.

w/AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic my fault not hyperlinked but listed only after refresh - partially broken.
Eldafire's topic not all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.

Finally I added the topic 'is all my fault' with the other two - make your own predictions (it's fun to play at home)

w/o AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic my fault not hyperlinked and not listed - broken.
Eldafire's topic not all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Vodunius Nuccius' topic is all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault not hyperlinked and not listed - broken.

w/AddTopic:
Fargoth's topic my fault not hyperlinked but listed only after refresh - partially broken.
Eldafire's topic not all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Vodunius Nuccius' topic is all my fault hyperlinked and listed - not broken.
Listien Bierles' topic all my fault not hyperlinked but listed only after refresh - partially broken.

These tests reveal a number of things. First it is not the introduction of the topic (when the player 'learns' the topic) that is important. Merely the existence of the topic in the dialog database will create the conflict. For that reason, not only is the order in which the NPCs are encountered irrelevant, but also the load order of the mods (recall that the official topic 'is my fault' breaks the new topic 'my fault' even thought the latter loads? well, last. To break a topic it is not enough that the topic includes one or more of the words in the original topic it must contain the exact phrase including the non-topic words that are on either side of the original topic. This is why I call it over-branding - the new topic must perfectly overlay the original topic.
That is why 'is all my fault' breaks 'all my fault' and 'not all my fault' does not. If you will recall, Listien Bierles entire phrase was "This is all my fault" - it be over-branded.

Psyringe was hoping for some insight as to how the engine parses dialog to create hyperlinks. I am not a programmer so my thoughts are the result of little more than common sense. I suspect the engine takes the first word of each line e.g. "This is all my fault" and looks for a string beginning with 'this'. If there is no match it begins the process anew with the next word it encounters. If 'this' is found it check the next word 'is'. If 'this is' is not found than it hyperlinks 'this' as the only match, and continues to parse for other hyperlinks. If 'this is' is found then it continues to check each successive word. As long as the complete phrase is found it extends the hyperlink across all of it. As soon as there is not match, the hyperlink is limited to what it did find.

Not that it changes my meaning much, but when I wrote of the engine checking words it is really checking individual characters. That is why we see hyperlinks such as "Nords should not be allowed to join House Redoran."

My test results support this hypothesis. Consider the offending new topic 'is all my fault'. When Listien Bierles' greeting was checked, the engine found the entirety of the new topic and obscured the official topic 'is my fault' with the over-brand. The reason 'not all my fault' does not break the official topic is that Listien Bierles' greeting does not include exactly that phrase. When parsing that line the engine does not get a 'hit' until it reaches the word 'all' and then it finds the entire official topic from there. This also explains why the official topic 'all my fault' broke the new topic 'my fault'. Fargoth's compete phrase was, "Hello, %PCName. This is my fault." When I change the line to "Hello, %PCName. This is not my fault" the new topic is hyperlinked as it should be (and for that matter Listien Bierles' topic is not broken either).

I tested my hypothesis further by creating the topic 'all my'. When introduced in Fargoth's greeting in the phrase "This is all my gold", the new topic and Listien Bierles' topic are hyperlinked as they should be. But if I bury the topic in the phrase "This is all my fault" the official topic over-brands the new topic. 'all my' is not hyperlinked, but if AddTopic is used it will only appear in the list of topics after the dialog window has refreshed.

With all due respect for his skills, even with this insight I do not think that Hrnchamd can reinvent how the engine will parse dialog that will resolve the problems that we have identified.


True, but if modders are not going to be careful or conscientious in their work users of those mods are going to encounter more than just the occasional (albeit frustrating) dialog conflict. Do not misunderstand me - I know that we all make mistakes (at least I know I make many, many mistakes). But they need not be mistakes of understanding. Careless errors can be corrected when discovered, but there is not much that can be done for sloppy modding.

I respectfully submit the following guidelines for creating new topics - most of them are not new. First, choose unique phrases for new topics. Two words minimum and three or more is much safer. Always use AddTopic with new topics to be assured that your topic will at least be listed in the unlikely even that another mod (or Morrowind itself) over-brands your very unique topic. But before you do that check to see if the phrase you want to use as a new topic matches existing dialog - it is much easier that you would imagine. In the construction set, drop down the menu 'Edit' and select 'Find Text'. Type in the phrase you want to use as a new topic. If the search returns no dialog entries that include that phrase then it is relatively safe to use. If there is a match it is not a problem unless a string of the words in that phrase match an official topic (that of course is checked in the dialog window). Do this and it will be impossible for your mod to break official dialog and vise versa.

In short, I do not think this is an issue we can expect the Morrowind Patch Project to solve for us, but one we modders will have to guard against through careful topic creation.

Postscript: I have some thoughts about the fog of war anomaly, but it is past my bedtime. Good night.


Edit: couple typos

It's really meant for mods/translation projects, you need to add new button textures as well.

There are GMSTs that you can change to fix that, check fAutoPCSpellChance/iAutoSpell*/iAutoPCSpellMax.

It's related to the line above it.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1009286. No other changes to the main menu, though, UI code is annoying to edit.

My thoughts on the fog of war glitch are little more than that. I do not have data since in my experience the bug occurs randomly. This is based on anecdotal evidence from when I used to play Morrowind regularly. Perhaps others can confirm or refute my observations.

I supposed the problem arose when the engine did not immediately register a cell change between exterior cells - that momentary pause in play that occurs (or should) when the player character crosses the boundary. It seemed to me that when it occurred the engine was drawing the map not in my current cell, but in an adjacent one (perhaps the one I just left) in the same relative position as the PC is in the new cell. By that I mean that if the PC enters the new cell by the southwest corner, the engine reveals the terrain of the southwest corner of the cell I just left (or perhaps a different adjacent cell). Again, I cannot say with certainty, but it seemed that I would experienced a delayed cell-change pause and the map drawing would again be at the PC's location. When this occurred my solution was to retrace my steps back to where the contiguous drawing stopped and try to register the cell change that sometimes seemed to work, but perhaps it was coincidental.

Since this is untested I could be mistaken that this is the result of the cell change not registering and as to where the map is revealed. Both could be the result of random behavior although I feel somewhat confident that it is associated with a cell change. Since Hrnchamd does not believe the function CellChanged can be fixed to reliably recognize a change of cell perhaps there is nothing that can be done in this case either.

I noticed a bug in morrowind today, don't know if it was already reported, but I'll explaint it:
today I jumped froma really high height into a lake, when I was in the water I cated a waterwalk spell and I died just like if I was previously fell on the ground...

Perhaps the same code was used in both cases, or the script function used in the mapping function (a few things have hard-coded scripts). That could explain the similar(ish) issues, and solving one may help with the other?




That sounds more like a feature than a bug. Waterwalk keeps you above the water (making it solid, in essence, and probably engine-wise also). So you should die if you fall onto water that you're magically kept above. One more thing to think about when casting spells every which way.
I would guess, though, that the spell just sets water to be a solid object (have collision).

enchanting stacks of arrows is sweet! creatures causing armor damage makes a huge impact too.

hum, I think that I explained it bad: when I casted the water walking spell I was already swimming

Obvious Physics weirdness is Obvious.

Seriously, that's a weird bug there.

THanks Hrnchamd for explaining my question.

I'll update to this before I start playing Morrowind again. Been busy playing Titan Quest.

I can confirm this bug, Gozzolia. Died several times this way. Very annoying.

This is a great release, thanks!

NM.

If anybody knows this, it'd be you folks:

Do you know the formula that calculates the gold cost for enchanting items? For one of my mods, I'm trying to calculate the gold cost of an enchantment to tack onto the base cost of vanilla items (armor, weapons, apparel). I've sort of jury-rigged my own system, but I'd like to know what the "official" formula is.

Have I (or anyone else) ever brought up the RemoveItem bug? If you call RemoveItem for an object that is not in inventory, the encumbrance of that object will still be removed. So eventually you can end up with a negative encumbrance even with a lot of things in inventory. It's possible to repair when it happens, but it's tricky and annoying. A fix for this will really help streamline an awful lot of scripts, and make some previously non-playable mods useful. :goodjob:

I need to find where it remembers the last place you jumped from and reset it when you are swimming.


Before barter skills it's fEnchantmentValueMult * cast cost, when you have multiple spell effects you should calculate each effect separately and add them together instead of looking at the UI.


This is pretty easy to fix, but when there are multiple bugs in the same function it's usually more efficient to fix them together because of the possibility of interactions, testing time and stuff. That's why I wanted to get a good test case before the last release, didn't turn out that way

You would not want to fix this unless you fixed the encumbrance problem resulting from having something in your inventory that is lost due to mod removal (or some other nefarious act). It is the only way to correct the PC's resultant weight problem.

sieboldii

That's a bug I am not familiar with. What would be the best way to test the fix?