(Note: This project has been started and programmed, and is still being maintained, by Hrnchamd. I'm just starting a new thread because the previous one has reached its post limit.)

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 corruption, missing objects and CTDs. It also makes the game properly respond to changes in your load list, making inserting and removing mods from your save a lot safer.

Version 1.2 is out now.
Files: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19510

Version 1.2 is a minor update to addresses issues with the restore attributes fix.

Here is a summary of the current features:

- Month fix (missing Morning Star)
- Enchanted item display bug
- Mercantile bug
- Transparent clothes in the inventory
- Unarmored bug
- Spellmaking limits
- Enchanted item value increase
- Merchant equipping
- Restore attributes issue
- Stealing from knocked out NPCs
- Reflect fix
- NPC health bar change
- StreamMusic fix
- Calm spells fix
- Vampire stats fix
- ESP load order fix
- Damage fatigue change
- Map expansion
- Local ref bugfix

See the description on tesnexus for more details.

See the previous threads to see how this came about:
Repairing those Cogs #7
Repairing those Cogs #6
Repairing those Cogs #5
Repairing those Cogs #4
Repairing those Cogs #3
Repairing those Cogs #2
Repairing those Cogs #1

Note, if this crashes your Morrowind, please fill in this crash report and PM it to Hrnchamd:

Patch version (check the readme):
Detail what happens just before it crashes:
Detail any Morrowind error messages:

And most important, in the Windows crash dialog ("blabla has encountered an error and has stopped working"), click the more details link ("to see what data this error report contains", different wording for different Windows versions), then click "to view technical information", and copy and paste the first 20 lines.

MCP is also available to download from Fliggerty's.

Something I've noticed, but not sure if it's a bug or not, but NPCs don't make use of their racial abilities. For example never in any fight with Dunmer do they summon their ancestor ghost guardians.

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but since many abilities give passive improvements as well as summonable improvements, NPCs could be missing out.

Is this something Cogs can deal with, it might be that they are flagged in a way which the engine doesn't know about, and so NPCs don't gain their benefits.

so when modding do we need this patch installed to use its "patches" and would we have to state that in order to use the mod you need this patch?

They don't have Ancestor Ghost guardians.

That's Oblivion. In Morrowind it just provides a sanctuary effect. (I think)

I think they have both. UESP:

No. It shouldn't affect mods at all unless you're not using one of the many work arounds to fix the bugs that this patch fixes. I've been using this patch while developing my mods and nobody's said that they don't work yet.

I'm not sure whether I understand the question - the MCP doesn't add or change dependencies, if that's what you meant. The patch doesn't change anything in the construction set, it also doesn't change any internal version numbers. And it doesn't touch Bethesda's esms at all, so it doesn't cause the "mod has been created with a different version" warnings that the official patches produced.


Only in the very specific (and rare) cases when a mod makes use of a specific feature of the MCP. For example, if your mod has a script that changes the in-game date, and uses the "Morning Star" month which was missing in original Morrowind, then it's better to state that in the readme. But for 99% of cases this won'rt be necessary.

"Ancestor Guardian" is the name of the ability, not the spell effect. The effect, as the UESP states, is Sanctuary.

Oops, sorry. I've played as a Dunmer, but it was two years ago...

Before all the furore over spell reflecting and othersuchlike, I think there was talk about adding in a variable level of 'zoom' to the map expansion? Was that ever considered, and found impossible, or is it still out there if Hrnchamd has the time?

Much obliged.

Sounds like a complicated, but interesting feature, you crab you.
So, bump for great justice!
Hrnch, you still working on this, right?
How is it coming along, and what do you expect to do for the next version? Fix the summoning monsters and removing their corpse CTD bug?
The too many message box equals crash bug?

Hrnchamd was working on a map zoom feature, but wasn't sure if it could be done. Hrnchamd may have time to work on the MCP around Christmas. If he has, I *think* the map zoom has a good chance of being implemented since Hrnchamd has already worked on it. It still might turn out to be impossible (or unrealistic in the given timeframe) though.


Not sure whether this has been discussed already.


This has been considered, but is on halt since nobody was able to provide a procedure which would cause this crash. We tested one script with dozens of messageboxes, dozens of scripts with one box each, and several complex messagebox commands (variables, formatting, etc.). We haven't been able to cause a crash that way. So it's not (or at least not only) the number of messageboxes which causes the crash, there must be at least one other factor involved or it's simething different altogether. If someone can provide a script that reliably crashes Morrowind due to use of too many messageboxes, please post it. Without such a method to reliably produce the crash, it's very dificult to track the cause down, let alone fix it.

Turn on subtitles and attack everyone in the Vivec Guild of mages. If that doesn't crash it, then nothing else could begin to crash it. Including running Crysis at the same time :shock:

It's been my experience with subtitles and epic fights, that Morrowind will bomb out really fast. Another way to show it is to get over 100% chamelon, and then get "Critical Damage!" constantly. After about 9 times in a row, even several seconds apart, the game might crash. Also, it may be related to the 9+ dremoras attacking with spells at once can cause crashes. So, you know, fix the last one, and yeah, it might fix the other. Heh.

This happens because NPCs never cast 0-magicka spells. I've modded my game so that every racial Power costs 1 magicka point, and now I'm used to see Dunmer casting Ancestor Guardian, Bretons casting Dragon Skin, and so on. It's also quite the difficulty enhancer.

It's coming out with the next version, when I get some time off work. December or so.


quorn has fixed this in UUMPP.

I'm aiming to fix CTDs you can get with GCD and NOM. Not sure exactly how many bugs there are but there is hope.

Huh? He fixed it? I thought that would require code editing at the very least? That's weird.
Oh, yeah, Knef, what are you talking about? I've seen plenty of powers activated. For reference, Big Mod 2 adds a power to all Dumner to give them a skeleton minion. hmm, never mind, it costs 39, apparently, it needs to be auto-calced in order for them to use it.

I swore I've seen other ones activated.

Ah, I see. You should release that as a mod especially for people who want a more difficult game.

...and who don't mind their companions using magicka in combat even when they're specifically told not to.

From what I've understood he simply made it impossible to dispose of the bodies of summoned creatures.

Exactly. Opening up the console, clicking on them and typing setmagicka to 0 doesn't always work.

would adding silence to them work?

I'm going to have to try that!

No. Some companions (not only Comes-By-Road, either - Julan is another one) use magicka for other things than combat (healing spells, for example), and anything that stops them being able to do that - like Silence or SetMagicka 0 - isn't going to be very useful there. Best solution off the top of my head would be to make custom races for companions, which would make them dependent on BB (or whatever bodies the modder uses) - I'd rather not have to do that, but it's better than any other method I can think of. I hope it's not going to be needed.

Now that is just downright clever. You should definitely release that mod - I, for one, would appreciate it very much. :^) If you don't release it, then I'll just make it for myself tonight, but it'd be nice if it were publicly available.

powers would need to be toned down to compensate the NPCs overusing them. otherwise, the only hard fights will be dunmer (can't hit them), redguards(crazy adrenaline), and nords (shield and thunder), possibly bretons (extra shield). the other races have nothing substancial for combat.



would it be easier to control what spells the companion knows? you can then script remove spells the companion was told not to cast. it might be burdensome though, but if the companion only knows/learns a select few custom spells, it may be more managible.

Hmm, dumners may not be able to be hit easily with 50 sanctuary, but if your level is 70 and theirs is 5 or so, you won't notice a difference at all.
Also, frost or Shock works well.

Thanks though, for those who helped me figure out that NPCs are really dumb.

That's the usual method (and the one used by CBR and Julan, among others) - but to make it work reliably with racial powers a new race (without that power) is the best way I know of. If it's not race-based the power can be removed and re-added with no problems, it's just if it's race-based that there's a problem with it.

DavidB1111: Yes, NPCs are really, REALLY dumb.

i suppose racial powers are a whole nother barrel of monkeys, especially with mods that change them, or add more.

i think only the nord ones in the stock game are an issue, as it's an attack. the rest are self fortifications...well the orc and redguard ones could possibly kill themselves with their powers.

Yup. The game doesn't expect those to ever change.


Self-fortifications are still an issue - first time I hit the NPC using racial spells problem was with a Drow companion: he kept casting his sanctuary spell and that made him useless in a quick fight and slow to help in a longer one.

To an extent it gets me that NPCs don't get Birthsign bonuses. That doesn't seem particularly fair or interesting. I wonder how many real name NPCs there are in the game, and if it would be possible to give them add either the attribute gains, spells/powers or whatever to replicate birthsign bonuses.

I don't see why not. Non-unique NPCs could even get a sort of birthsign thing going using enchanted items and a levelled list, maybe. It'd be a lot of tedious work if you wanted to keep it in character for the unique NPCs though.

Edit: BTW, there's a relatively easy way to do this sort of thing without affecting companions or modifying NPCs. Trouble is, it involves modifying vanilla dialogue. I think anything you do with this sort of thing is going to have conflicts.

My first inclination is that you could have a global script perhaps (I don't pretend to understand Morrowind scripting and never looked at it) that affected NPCs and assigned them a birthsign benefit based on class. If their class was Thief, they'd get one of the thief-type birthsigns.

That would work for unique NPCs that are part of the vanilla game (not mod added and not generic) - but that would be where the tedious work comes in, since you'd have to add spells to each NPC in turn, individually. Not really that big a deal if you export stuff and automate the script-creation as much as possible, though. It could certainly be done. (In fact you could include generic NPCs if you didn't mind them all having the same birthsign)

Was this Sanctuary effect a spell or a power? With powers there is no continuous casting, since they can only be used once a day.

By the way, I think I will release that little tweak later this day . But just because I have a catchy name for it.

It's a power, but I don't know if NPCs stick to the cast once per day rule.

Is it intentional that you can't "pickpocket" a creature when knocked out? I tried with a nix-hound and it didn't work but it works perfectly when I try with a npc.. It is realistic so far but will it still be like that when I'm facing dremoras? I must say that it gives me a problem here..

you can't pickpocket a creature, otherwise you'd have oddities like picking off hound meat, netch leather, bonemeal and the like from living creatures. and while it seems implausible that you can't pickpocket dremoras, goldensaints, and lord vivec, in all honesty there wouldn't be anything as their equipment would be equipped, except it would've been epic to pickpocket the wraithguard from vivec.

You can always do the disintegrate weapon trick to get them unequipped. But I do understand the thought of not stealing a daedras heart while it still lives. Well.. I guess I can't have everything. I will have to look for one of the mods that let me do it then.

you could suggest it to the code patch, as far as i know it's an engine deal.

Well. True. Here is my suggestion then.

Pwetty pwetty pwease mr. Hrn*cough*. Can I have stealable (is that a word?) hound meat for christmas? If I would make a guess it shouldn't be much of a problem since you have basically already done it.. I doubt that there are much demand for it but it should be really easy to make I guess.

Hmmm, not capable of killing a few Nix Hounds, eh?

sieboldii

Haha. It's only one. But he is quite funny to have hanging around with a strength and speed of 0.

Sorry if this has been asked before, but is it possible to fix the issue with aiming arrows? What I mean is, the issue whereby if you select a race/gender combination that does not have height 1.00 and weight 1.00, your arrows always fly off-centre, and it's virtually impossible to shoot straight with certain race/gender combinations (e.g. Nord males).

Eloise

Hmm, that may explain why my arrows seem to home in on my targets as a Nord Female. Really, that's what it looks like. It's noticable with a few different bows more so than with arrows.

And the weird aiming when shooting upwards or downwards. That has to be a bug..

Yes, Nord females aren't too bad, at least for 'straight ahead' aiming, as they have weight 1.00.


That also affects 'on target' spells, and it's more noticeable the further up or down you aim. To take the Nord female above, like I said it's not too bad when aiming at somebody at the same vertical level, but aiming at something above or below you is more difficult.

Eloise

Can't you guys just make a patch that adds this to Morrowind?

In RL it is called gravity.

sieboldii

Ohh.. Then you are better in physics than I am. Becasue I didn't think the trajectory of arrows bent upwards half the time.

Map expansion? Now, we can see places added very far from vvanderfell???

Yep, so no need to use that buggy FPS Optimizer 2.0 anymore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_bullet_theory

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, I can visit Annastia, or Zamura Isle by Ultimate Galleon!!

Um, not to be dumb or anything, but what does the assassination of John F. Kennedy have to do with Morrowind and some issues with being able to aim properly?

Single-bullet theory is also called Magic-bullet theory because it is based on the concept that a bullet can rise up after it has fallen, and also that it can turn around in mid air and change directions.

That explains the physics of arrows in Morrowind.

Another bug here, that I have no idea if it's within the remit of the Code Patch or not, 'cos I don't know what causes it.

Basically, if you sleep (not wait) in a cell added by TR (though maybe not just TR - we can't tell what exactly is causing it, but we've tried numerous things, including deleting all TR-specific from a couple of cells (and erasing the rest of the landmass), and still got the error) you'll frequently get a freezing crash at 17 hours of sleep.

Is it possible this is caused by some protestation of the game against being so far from vanilla land (as with the old map-marker caused crash that was solved in one of the first threads), or is it truly some TR-specific bug (in which case, we're pretty stumped as to what causes it)?

Any help that is possible would be greatly appreciated.

This is the stuff the code patch is for. A bug, that needs fixing.

About the other stuff... 1. I'm not sure I can fit the whole Force Unleashed game in Morrowind.exe, and 2. nix hounds will have to keep their organs until they no longer need them.

Although you might be able to make a disarm mod that works on creatures.

Interesting. Last time I was active here, you'd worked out where GMSTs were being put into memory so that you could modify them with MWSE. Now, you've managed to fix a whole heap of bugs (presumably by disassembling?) in the game engine - or at least, that's what it looks like (how do we know you've not secretly inserted trojans and virii?); so what happens if you disappear - will this stop or can it be continued by someone else? Would your efforts be better spent working on OpenMW instead?

A little bit of paranoia can be a good thing; I'd like to know exactly what's going before I jump on the bandwagon here I mean, this might all be perfectly above board, but I don't know you from a hole in the ground. Sorry

You have to run two tests.

The first is to check whether or not it really fixes the bugs. The good thing is that Psyringe made a mod that showcases various situations provoking many of the bugs that are fixed, so you can test that mod with your normal Morrowind first and with the MCPed Morrowind next to see for yourself whether it's fixed or not. If the bugs are no more, then it's working as advertised! Yay!

The second test is simply to scan the patched Morrowind as well as the patcher with all antivirus and antispyware you have. If it comes out clean, then it's not a sinister plot! Yay!

I just noticed this thread. Would it be possible for the MCP to fix this?

I can't say how hard fixing this would be, but in any case it looks like a low priority item to me since (if I understand it correctly) it's an exploit that only affects people who want to be affected by it.

does this patch make the mod "The Underground 2" more stable?

Just started playing with this running
How much better it feels for my unarmoured character not to have to equip one piece of armour
Thankyou:)
Worth big thanks and lots of thanks for this alone

Ok, good to know. Next question: how does it actually work? Can the techniques be shared so that more people can help? There are probably quite a few decent programmers around who could contribute to this if given the chance.

Almost certainly. I wouldn't count on completely stable and it won't deal with issues like ingredients from an antagonists lair being owned by Alchemists you are likely to trade with. (Oops).

A little Paranoia is a good thing. Yours though, is not a little paranoia, Alphax.

As for the other bugs, I didn't really know the multiple soul trap was a bug. Whoops. I feel bad now.
As for the Underground 2, apparently Hrnch fixed the 72 hour bug, so it's pretty much stable now.
That's all from em at the moment.

He didn't fix the 72 hour bug (i.e. the fact that information gets flushed out of the system after 72 game hours), *but* he fixed crashes which would occur if references were flushed out that had targeted scripts running on them (the script tries to access properties of an object that isn't present any more -> crash).

There have been reports of crashes caused by this in TU2, and the MCP (more precisely, the savegame corruption component) does indeed fix this issue. Note however that the scripts in question are fixed on loading a savegame, so you have to save and load your game every time you want to repair these scripts.

TU2 also had some issues with vanishing doors due to local ref conflicts, the savegame corruption fix fixes those too.

In general, the MCP removes two frequently reported problems that TU2 players have. TU2 still has other problems, but the MCP should make playing it a bit smoother.

I *think* that this helped fix my FPS problem a bit.. I seem to be getting less choppiness.. It still chugs a bit in high density areas. It shouldn't be my graphics card though because I can run Spore without problem on this computer, so I'm assuming it was something else.

Yeah, it's turning into curiosity...

Actually, it turns out that I was wildly enthusiastic when the GMST stuff was discovered... and there was some talk of bug fixing... maybe it was just a case of information overload

Ok, I'm going to download and (at some point) try this...

So apparently, this code patch breaks the FPS optimizer. Is there any way I can get the FPS optimizer to work again? Balmora is a slideshow, and I nearly died because of a couple MCA footpads attacking me while I was lagged.

I had the same problem, well, without the lag, but while using the FPS Opt's map fix and the patches map expansion, it broke my map. Next time I install the patch I won't use the map expansion I guess.

Oh, and just for safety, what files does this patch? Just the exe? Or other stuff too? Cause I'm gonna back them up on my second try of this.

That sounds strange, I'm using FPS Optimizer and the MCP right now, and don't see any lag. The MCP readme says: "This patch is tested and compatible with MWSE, MWE, MGE and FPS Optimizer."

Does your good FPS rate come back when you uninstall MCP? If so, you could try different parts of the patch to see if a particular part is the culprit.

I think that's a different problem. In this case FPS optimizer and MCP are both trying to fix the same thing. The answer is simply to use one or the other to fix the map size.


It just patches Morrowind.exe.

Hmm, maybe it's not the code patch, then. I assumed it was, since FPS Optimizer was telling me that I wasn't using a correct version of the Morrowind .exe. I wonder what's wrong?

I'm using the FPS Optimizer 1.96 together with the MCP without any problems. Which version are you using?

As already suggested, you may run into problems if you're using the MCP map expansion and the map expansion of the FPS Optimizer 2.0 at the same time. I haven't tested it myself, but I'd be surprised if it worked together since both work on the same area of code. But I don't really see a good reason to use both features together either.

The MCP only affects the exe, and it automatically makes a backup of your original one (should be explained in the readme actually).

2.0, and I'm not using the FPS Optimizer map expansion.

I haven't tried FPS opt 2.0 yet myself. Maybe there is a conflict with that version?

Well, I switched to 1.96 and it works now. So yeah, the conflict seems to be with 2.0.

Before MCP came along, I tried running FPS Optimizer 2.0 - while it seemed to startup and run ok, it always would error out when closing. Never felt confident that it was causing or could cause other issues because of that, so dumped it and now use v1.96a along with MCP without any problems.

I'm running under winXPsp3.

Plangkye: I'm glad it works for you know.

There's a possibility that there is an as of yet unknown incompatibility between the MCP and FPSO 2.0. I don't have much time right now but i may be able to test this a bit more thoroughly later. Can you describe in a bit more detail what the problem was, so that I know what to look for? You mentioned very low framerates in Balmora (and elsewhere if I understood you correctly), but with a more specific description it might be easier to reproduce the problem and pin it down.

I consulted with Psyringe and neither of us knew what was up with this.

Upon running the patched morrowind.exe, I got a security alert from Trend Micro Antivirus saying that the morrowind.exe was attempting an "unauthorized program directory injection." It only happens with patched morrowind. The backup that MCP created runs with no issues. I checked Trend Micro's security report of the incedint and found that the suspicious file was in fact morrowind.exe. Here's the full report:

Type: API Event
Detected resource or process ID: NtUserSetWindowsHookEx
Infected file: C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Morrowind.exe
Policy Violate: Program Library Injection
Action Taken: Deny

I really want to know what happened here, especially seeing as virus and spyware scans turned up nothing.

It's just a false positive. Quite a few programs I use have them as well (some Warcraft III editor, for example). I'm using AVG Free 8.0, and nothing comes up either on run, or on a directory scan.

Your AV should have a "whitelist" or "ignore list", that you can add your morrowind file to.

Well, the low framerates might not have anything to do with the incompatibility; I only mentioned them because that's why I wished FPSO worked. The problem was that FPSO wasn't doing anything (presumably not interfacing with Morrowind) and instead of a message in the "Status" window saying "Morrowind process was found and validated as v1.6.1820 (Bloodmoon). Morrowind FPS Optimizer should be working now," I got a message saying "Morrowind process was found but NOT validated. So Morrowind FPS Optimizer is disabled for now. This can happen because of: 1) Morrowind process was just launched. So please wait at least until game main menu. 2) Your Morrowind FPS Optimizer maybe out-of-date. Please, visit www.morrowind.nm.ru for the latest update. 3) Something wrong (your local Morrowind version maybe not yet supported) . Please, see help for more details. 4) You can use "write log" button below to create validation log. Please, press it only then you've ALREADY load your saved game." It was 3) that I figured was the probelm.

Plangkye: Thanks for clearing up my confusion, seems I misunderstood your original report, but I got it now. It's still a bit odd since I wouldn't expect FPSO 2.0 to handle the validation of the Morrowind.exe any different than FPSO 1.96 (where it works), but now I know exactly what to look for.


I think so too, although I'd expect protection software that's sensitive enough to give a false alarm with the MCP to give a false alarm on many other programs too, and apparently this hasn't happened for thedolphindude.

Anyway, although I'd eat my hat *and* the rest of my wardrobe if it's not just a false alarm, I completely understand why thedolphindude would like to have this cleared up a bit more. After all, protection software is there for a reason, and the more eager someonme is to accept an alarm as false without knowing in detail what's going on, the more he's invalidating the purpose of the protection software. There also is an (albeit minute) chance that his copy of the patch got infected by something that we others don't have. So, if someone with more understanding about protection software and "library injections" than I have could explain thedolphindude in a bit more detail what's going on (and why this is to be expected from the operations that the MCP performs), I think this would be very welcome.

Good old Trend Micro, using a term and then not defining it on their website.

Anyway it seems that there're other people with this message. Here's a workround, bottom of the page, that doesn't turn the detection off permanently.

Hey folks,

Just recently installed MCP for the first time (haven't played Morrowind in several months due to extenuating circumstances) and I just wanted to extend my thanks to the author, Hrnchamd. This is truly a wondrous breakthrough for Morrowind.

I do have a quick question though: seeing as you've been able to patch Morrowind's exe the way you have, is it possible then that you might, at some point, make it so that you could extend Morrowind's default view? FPS Optmizer let's me pull it back to up to 21,000 , but there are times (like when exiting Wolverine Hall in Sadrith Mora) where there is no horizon, but a "wall" of foggy nothingness - it isn't until i walk forward a number of meters where the view "pops" in as the adjacent cell loads.

Now, I know the natural response would be to say: install MGE. I have, but I find the performance hit along with a few other issues sufficient to keep me from using it for any extended amount of time (Please don't get me wrong, I admire the great work that Timeslip et al. have put into MGE, but I'm a picky bastard when it comes to performance).

While obviously not a bug, one wonders if it's worth the shot. A happy medium between MGE's performance and Morrowind's own engine.

Thanks,

MMM

Darn. Looks like I came back at the wrong time. Flig took down the download section because of the recent attacks. And TesNexus wont let me register for some reason.

Guess I'll have to wait for the security issues to be solved.

Excellent, excellent stuff. Which software did you use to create the patch?

You say the mercantile fix needs further balancing. True, since the unlimited gold loop is even worse.
What are the formulae the game uses to calculate buy/sell prices and bartering success chances?

The link's broken. Could you please put the info in a post? Right now I have morrowind on the trusted list and I don't really like having to do that.
EDIT: Never mind, my internet connection's just messed up right now. It lets me on some sites, but not others. Apparently I can still get on this site, so a post with the info would still be appreciated.

OR you know, get AVG or even Nod32, so you don't have to worry at all about it again. That's even more simpler, and Trend probably isn't as hard as Norton to uninstall. Since Norton can be almost as difficult as Securom.

Oh, yeah, to Pwin, I think if Psyringe shows up here, he can send you a copy of the Morrowind Code Patch to you, via E-mail.

Have you tried registering using gmail/hotmail/anything else? I don't quite understand why TesNexus is that buggy, but you're not the only one. Although, I never had problems with it at all.

Oh, I missed this...
If you've got Python and wxPython (which you will have if you have Mash) PM me your email address and I'll send you that version (210KB), the other one's a bit big at 5400KB. If you can download it from TESNexus or Fligg's place then it's all rosy

I am running Trend Micro and I do not have any problems with Morrowind.

siebpldii

He should be able to download the smaller version (w/o Python) from TESNExus anyway, as it doesn't need registering for small files.

Well, the workaround appears to be doing what it's supposed to. Thanks for the help!
security programs can be so annoying sometimes...

Sorry about that. Working on getting those back up and running right now.

The email I use to register with is yahoo. I haven't tried hotmail(man i havn't heard that in a long time) or gmail.



Dunno if Fligg's place is back up yet. I don't have Python on my desktop yet (for some reason it wouldn't download on either of my computers...weird). I didn't know there were now two version of the code patch. Is there any difference between the two?

One you don't need the Python runtimes for (5.5 MB) the other you do. No difference to functionality etc.

I see. I'm going to try downloading Wrye onto my desktop now then. It seems TESNexus does not like me using firefox2.0 either.

As Dragon32 said, no difference between the two versions except that the larger one has the Python stuff integrated (so it doesn't matter whether you have Python installed on your PC), and the smaller one hasn't (so you need to install Python on your machine to get it to work).

If you can't get it working and Fliggerty needs more time to get the download page up, then drop me a PM with your mail address and I can send you the file. Make sure that your mailbox can deal a 5.5 MB attachment, and notify me if it can't (in that case I'll split the archive and we'll have to send it piecemeal).

Seriously, download Firefox 3.

I had a thought on how to modify the mercantile issue to make it less exploitable. It seems to me that any answer must not only take into account the disposition of the merchant and the mercantile of the player, but of the mercantile of the merchant as well. I came up with a chart to explain how I envision it working:

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v708/Toccatta/merchant_chart.gif[/img]

The X axis represents the comparative mercantile power of the player and ranges between -105 and 105. It takes into account both the player and merchant's marketing skills as well as the disposition of the merchant (which has a lesser effect on buy and sell price).
The Y axis represents the percentage of actual value the player pays or receives in any given transaction.
The red curve is the value you pay when you buy something from a merchant, the green curve is the price you receive if you sell it to a merchant, and the blue line is the item's default value. Note that if the player's mercantile exceeds that of the merchant by 85 points (which would be a very rare situation) the player actually buys and sells items at cost. If the player's mercantile exceeds the merchant's by more than 85 points - or by as little as 75 points if the mercantile really likes the player - the player will actually be able to "bamboozle" the merchant into selling the item for less than it's worth or buying it for more than it's true value.

Again, this situation would be rare, but could still be accomplished if the player had a very high mercantile while the merchant had a very low AND was very trusting... exactly the kind of situation where such a con-game might actually work.

By changing the mercantile skill to reflect a percentage of the value, it helps restore the economy by making it significantly harder for a player to go to the average merchant, buy an item, and then sell it right back for more than he or she paid... a situation which stretches the bounds of reason even within a fantasy game.

Unfortunately, I can't supply the formula for the red and green arcs. However, they are simple elipses, so someone good in math (and who has taken geometry more recently than I) might be able to devise a formula to calculate buy and sell percentages based upon the chart.

It appears that image tags have been disabled (no doubt to prevent spammers from inundating the forum with pornography), but my lovely graph doesn't show up. Anyone that's interested can copy and paste the URL.

I was browsing through the 140+ pages of the Construction Set forum this morning, and I found something that might be helpful. Someone posted a formula that determines what a merchants initial offering will be when you try to sell him something. Regrettably, I forgot his name and can't give him proper credit. Here it is:
-----------
Pardon the necromancy, but I detest making new threads. wink.gif
Since questions along these lines pop up from time to time (see any 'mercantile bug' thread), I thought I would go ahead and share the fruits of my boredom. After extensive testing (read: MW on the laptop and a really slow night at work), I have determined that bartering can be broken down as follows:

CODE
float pMerc
float nMerc
short Disp
short value
float multiplier
short temp
short BasePrice ; base price of the item (eg. 10 septims for Scamp Skin, 100 septims for a Pearl, etc)
short Offer ; the price returned by this function

pMerc = ( Player->GetMercantile ) + ( Player->GetLuck * 0.1 )
nMerc = ( NPC->GetMercantile ) + ( NPC->GetLuck * 0.1 )
Disp = Disposition - 50

value = nMerc - pMerc - Disp
multiplier = 160 / BasePrice

if ( selling == true ) ; pseudocode, when selling an item to the merchant
; the following statement is the cause of the 'mercantile bug', see below for more details
if ( value < -40 )
temp = 40 + value
value = 40 + temp
endif

Offer = BasePrice * ( 0.5 - ( value / multiplier ) )

else ; when buying an item from the merchant
Offer = BasePrice * ( 1 + ( value / multiplier ) )

endif

end


Although this may not be the exact function used in the game engine it has tested valid for multiple combinations of item value, player mercantile, player luck, npc mercantile, npc luck, and disposition.

As for the 'mercantile bug', testing showed that sell values start decreasing when (pMerc + Disp) is exactly 40 points higher than nMerc, regardless of the specific values used or the BasePrice of the item. Since this corresponds to the last point before the buy offer would otherwise become lower than the sell offer, it can be assumed that Bethesda added the additional check to keep people with a high mercantile skill from abusing the economy (even more than is already possible).

Anyway, hope someone finds this useful enough to ignore the 2 month delayed response. tongue.gif
--------------------------------
I just starting looking at this, so I can't say for certain that it's foolproof. I does look like the poster went through some trouble to figure this out. I hope it sheds some light on the bartering system. I've decided not to use the mercantile bug fix, because I feel it is at least as buggy to be able to exploit a infinite money loop. I would rather play with a slight disadvantage, than to leave such a potentially game-breaking exploit open. This is, however, merely my personal preference. Others will say it's just a matter of choosing not to exploit the system.

Would it be possible to fix the issue with stolen items? Currently, a merchant will take all of the stolen items, even those stolen from someone else, with the same ID as the item stolen from that merchant if you speak to him.

I'd also like to repropose expanding the spell radius to match the spell magnitude.

I doubt it. That would require changing the save game format.
If this become a serious issue, you can open your save game in enchanted editor and remove the items you don't think should count stolen from the players simple list of stolen items.

Or an even better work around, don't steal anything.

Seriously though, yes, that would be extremely difficult.
Pwin, upgrade to Firefox 3, please. Although I don't know why your e-mail doesn't work. Maybe it blocks hotmail and yahoo?
Also, it is good to know that trend works for Sieboldi.
Anything else, anyone? I don't claim to know much, but I know some things.

I was able to register.

Do you think you will ever put any of the previous versions back up for download?

Why should he?

Apologies if this has been asked before, but should this run with the No-CD patch?

I realise from the readme it states that all other programs after the patch has been applied but I tried that, but to no avail ...

I'm probably just doing something wrong but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks.

Please do not discuss methods to break Bethesda's copy protection on Bethesda's own forums; it should be obvious that this isn't wise. (It's also against the forum rules.)

For the same reason, I cannot help you with your question. Care has been taken to make the MCP compatible with Morrowind versions of different languages. Whether or not the MCP is compatible with any piece of software that removes Bethesda's legitimate copy protection simply hasn't been a concern, and it would certainly be detrimental to the project if we made it one.

I am running both latest MCP and Full Patch Beta, so I am unsure what is causing my little problem, but 'YestoAll=1' no longer seems to be functioning.

sieboldii

Seems to work okay here. Are you sure it's spelled correctly?

AllowYesToAll=1

And it probably has to be in the [General] section of the .ini.

It has been working up to now.

I just added MA's Ayleid Addon and it has a missing texture (he is looking into it) and instead of the normal popup within the game asking if I want to continue I drop into the desktop (Morrowind is minimized) and get successive queries as to whether I wish to continue.

Of course, after clicking continue twice I can restore Morrowind to full screen and continue play.

sieboldii

MA has fixed the Ayleid Addon problem and a non-related error during loading was correctly handled by AllowYestoAll=1. It was an error detected during actual game play that caused the previous problem and since AllowYestoAll functioned during loading I have not seen an error during game play.

Am I understanding correctly that you don't see Morrowind's internal error popup? When you said that YesToAll isn't working, I assumed that you would see this popup, but without the option of clicking "Yes to All".

But it seems that this isn't the case and that you're not getting any internal Morrowind error message, which means that the problem is probably not related to "YesToAll".

Nevertheless a missing texture *should* cause an internal error message instead of causing Windows system popups, so I should investigate this.

Can you give me a link from where I can download the version of the mod that you had, so that I can try to reproduce the problem here?

MA has already uploaded the fix to PES and I have implemented it.



That is correct, I did not get the internal popup for continue. I did get desktop inquiries as to whether I wished to continue and then had to 'restore' Morrowind to full screen to continue to play.

sieboldii

I understood that the problem is already fixed. However since we don't have an explanation why and how it happened (a missing texture should not cause Windows system messages), we can't exlude the possibility that the MCP did contribute to the result. It's unlikely from what I read, but nevertheless possible. Therefore I'd like to have a look at the problem myself, for this I need to reproduce it, which means that having the old version of the plugin might help. Hence the question.

MA might have the old version or can tell you what the error was (I think either the texture or mesh was misnamed).

sieboldii

Does anybody remember Winamp 3? Firefox 3 sucks that badly. New UI design + millions of bugs.

Back on topic: is the source to this available? Might help finding and fixing bugs

FF3 only sucks if you like a slow, non-customizable internet. Otherwise it's pretty much flawless. That and Chrome are the only browsers worth having.

But, to your question... I do not think the source of this is available. That said, I do remember seeing a Python file link up there. You may be able to view some code from that.

@Bycote (below): Really? My install of FF3 runs a tad bit slower than Opera, which runs slower than Chrome by a good bit. All research I've seen as to browser speeds goes against what you've said. Pretty much when it comes to speed, it's Chrome > Opera > FF > Safari > IE. You can find the surveys on cNet, Gizmodo, and Lifehacker. From personal experience, I hated FF2, as it crashed constantly, and generally was slow for me. The only thing I can complain about FF3 nowadays is its speed - but only when compared to Chrome.

@Bycote (again): Well, don't know what to say. I have the exact opposite results as you, and all studies I've read tend to agree with me. One thing to note, though, is that I'm on Vista 32-bit. I have noticed that FF3 on OSX is a bit of a pain (and I remember an article on this being because Apple programmed their OS so that only Safari could run at top speeds, while other browsers are slower.). Still, on Vista SP1, XP SP2, OS 10.5.2, and Ubuntu 8.10, I have only had FF3 crash once or twice since it came out. Think that's about all to say in this thread. Even if I'm replying without posting again, this isn't really the best place for such a discussion, so I'll stop replying after this.

@Lordrea - FF2 loads web pages an average of 80 times faster than FF3 on my 56k dial-up connection. There are many reasons besides those you mentioned that FF3 sucks, and most of them are far more valid reasons. ;^)

Added in response to Lordrea - Yes, I really am telling the truth. I use FF2 with the "Fasterfox" and "Ad-Block" plug-ins on my 56k connection and it browses the internet quite fast indeed, loading most pages in just a couple seconds. FF3 runs almost exactly as fast as IE7 on this connection, often taking 2-3 minutes to load simple web pages, it's absolutely unbearable. Also, I've not once experienced a crash with FF2 but in the one day I used FF3 I crashed two times: I crashed when trying to read a PDF file, then I randomly crashed in the middle of a chess game on a site called "Chess Cube."

On my DSL internet connection, I've not noticed a problem with FF3's browsing speed. The browser has, however, continued to crash randomly (at least once more in the middle of a chess game) and I'm not at all happy about that, so I'm reinstalling FF2 on this system as I type this.

Get back on topic you bunch! This thread is for discussing MCP, not personal browser preferences.


@Psyringe,
I am able to reproduce sieboldii's error by removing a BSA containing a file expected by one of the active plugins. Here's what I see:

-OS is winXPsp3 32bit.
-Removed all BSAs except for morrowind.bsa, tribunal.bsa, bloodmoon.bsa.
-Load list contained plugins with refs to missing BSAs.
-The error occurred when I tried to start a new game (probably would also occur with a save, but didn't test that).
-I start MW fullscreen, but the error dialog gets displayed in front of MW after it is placed in a full resolution window. This might be because I run both my desktop and MW at the same resolution of 1280x960 @ 85 hertz to keep the monitor from changing refresh rate modes when launching the game. Monitor is a CRT.
-The external error dialog that Windows displays is for a missing mesh.
-I have AllowYesToAll=1 set in morrowind.ini and the error dialog gives me 'Continue running executable? Cancel is "Yes To All".' There are Yes, No, Cancel (buttons).
-Selecting Cancel returns to MW fullscreen (no window borders) and I can continue.

* This behavior is the same whether I use the original unpatched exe or one that has MCP applied.

You might be able to get the error behavior by just removing a needed mesh - one that would need to get loaded for what ever cell you're loading into. The initial warning I got was for 'Meshes\bb\bb_skinm_de.nif' (for a new game that 's Jiub's body).

I know the in-game error box comes up for script errors - I can definitely verify that for an exe with MCP applied as I was getting them recently while working on a mod. Not sure about behavior for missing textures - will have to try that next.

I haven't really tested that, and my memory may be playing tricks, but I believe that it's not only a question of which error comes up, but also *when* it comes up. I'm fairly sure that I had the exact same error pop up one time as Windows warning and another time as MW error box. I guess that some errors come up as a Windows message when they are the first error to be reported, but as a MW error, when another MW error had already come before them. I think I once even deliberately provoked that "master file has changed" error, which appears fairly early as a MW error, to avoid MW switching over to Windows; or it was for a chance to get "Yes to all" pressed, which got rid of the Windows error as well.

Yep. It may be because I'm getting it on first loading a game (new game in this case). The scripting error came after I had already successfully loaded a saved game for testing my mod, and it was displayed in-game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Follow-up to external error test...

Ok, similar behavior when a texture goes missing. Same setup and steps as in my previous post, except for the following:

-Removed one texture required by plugin.
-MW is minimized as the error dialog is displayed. This time it's a TES3Stream Warning with 'Continue running executable?' (no mention of Yes To All). There are Yes, No, Cancel (buttons).
-Selecting Yes displays a second warning dialog: Texture Load Error! <name of texture> 'Continue running executable? (again, no mention of Yes To All). There are Yes, No, Cancel (buttons).
-Selecting Yes closes error dialog, but does not restore MW to fullscreen - it remains minimized. Attempting to switch back to MW fails as it tries to switch back to fullscreen and then ends process without any crash message.

-If I select Cancel in the either of the two previous steps above, the result is as expected when AllowYesToAll=1 and skips all other warnings. However, MW remains minimized and attempting to switch back to app ends process as above.

Again, this behavior is the same whether I run from vanilla MW exe or patched with MCP.


Given these results, I'd have to deduce that this is NOT caused by MCP since the behavior occurs without patching as well. And getting an external error dialog appears to indeed depend on when the error occurs, as Varana points out.

This describes my experience, except I am able to restore MW and continue play.

Glad to hear it is not MCP as running MCP and the latest UUMPP really have improved game play. Warnings list is minimal and Mash has yet to find anything with the occasional repair all.

I did report an episode in the TR2 thread with a popup about some cursed gold I found not have a TES container identified. I accepted the popup and the game continued on as if nothing had happened.

sieboldii

Two questions...

One is that I have a custom-built character. For some reason, she goes bald whenever she goes invisible. Can the code patch fix this?

Secondly, when I tried the showcase out, using the altar to cure my vampirism made my head disappear and my controller stop responding. WTF? >.>

I know certain playable heads can disappear when switching back and forth from being a vampire. This can usually be remedied by removing/equipping a piece of clothing. If that fails, you can open up the console and type "enableracemenu" to reselect your head. This is not a problem added by the MCP, it has always existed. I don't have any info on the controller issue, by the way.

I suspect that it has to do with the z-buffer culling away the texture of your face. This is the scenario when you go bald underwater when using alpha-enabled hair meshes. I assume this is related to your issue of losing your hair when invisible. Now, just because I was able to repeat this technical jargon, doesn't mean I understand it.

I believe fixing these issues would be difficult, as they involve the 3-d rendering engine that Morrowind uses. Hrnchamd, the creator of this code patch, does not have the source code available to assist him. He has been working entirely in assembly code. That he has been able to accomplish so much with such meager resources, is a wonder. I haven't heard from Hrnchamd in quite a while. There was some talk of him working on this project during the Holidays, and I hope he will still be willing and able to do so.

The important thing is that none of your problems are caused by the Code Patch, if I am not mistaken. They are hard-coded issues with the 3-d rendering system..

Just downloaded the patch! Thanks so much for your hard work. I was wanting to knock NPCs out and take their stuff!

I saw in the notes that Reflect was changed so that absorbed spells, once reflected, drain from the caster and give to the reflecter. Nice change! Question about reflect. Does it now take priority over absorb magicka? An item like the Ring of Equity, which grants absorb magicka 100% and reflect 70% always seems to absorb magicka only. What's the point of the reflect 70%, if all it does is consume more charge? If I use the ring, and absorb health is cast on me (with the patch), I would still only absorb the spell entirely right? Not reflect it back at the caster and steal their health?

Nice job again, and thanks for your hard work!

Uncertain. Hrnchamd has spent a lot of time tweaking the drawing priorities but it seems that whenever a change fixes something about them, there's something else that stops working correctly because of the fix. The situation is further complicated by the fact that some bugs are hardware dependent; fixing the drawing priorities for one type of graphics card might break them for another. Since the majority of these problems is related to alpha channels, the only safe method to stop the hair from vanishing is probably to not use alpha-channeled hair (which I assume you're using now).


Can't help you there unfortunately as my experience with vampirism is very limited. I used the same scripts for removing vampirism that the game uses - I just copy/pasted them with one line changed to allow the player to be re-infected after having been cured. So I suspect that you would have gotten the same bug without the MCP (because identical code would've been executed).

There may be incompatibilities with vampirism mods though. If a mod changes the scripts that are involved in curing vampirism, then the vampirism altar may not work correctly.

No, the priority of absorb vs. reflect hasn't been changed. It's hard to tell whether the reversed priority would be better than the current behavior - which one is preferable probably depends on the situation. If you're an Atronach, then replenishing your magicka reserves might be more important to you than damaging the enemy. On the other hand, if you have a steady supply of restore magicka potions and you don't need absorption to replenish your magicka, then you'd probably prefer reversed priorities to deal more damage to foes with magickal attacks.

Will this awesome mod in the future fix the crashing problem in Morrowind?

There are tons of reasons why Morrowind could crash, so it's not possible to fix 'the' crashing problem. But the Local ref bugfix can prevent certain crashes.

Hey there fellow modders! I tried Steam a couple weeks ago with Morrowind and all I received was a ton of glitchyness. I got a black screen when I loaded my game but I could still see my character and the HUD. I could still hear the game playing (music and sfx) but I couldn't play (black screen). Could the MCP potentially fix this issue?

Sounds like a lighting screw up in your ini file.

sieboldii

It wasn't, my character wasn't darker or anything. And the game seemed to be extremely glitchy, I seem to remember falling through the ground (at least I think that's what happened, the screen was black).

I don't think Steam is open to third party patches, doesn't the system check whether the exe has been tampered with, and refuse to work if it has? I may be wrong though, I don't have any personal experience with it.

Even if it's possible it would amount to a lot of work since Steam uses its own Morrowind.exe, so all the code pieces that the MCP affects have to be identified in this exe first.

Edit: I just checked the Steam website and didn't see Morrowing available there. It's possible that I misunderstood what your "tried Steam with Morrowind" actually means. Can you explain what you did exactly, so that people who never used Steam can understand it? The main question is whether you are using a digitally distributed Steam version of Morrowind (which I assumed so far) or whether you're just trying to start the usual Morrowind.exe through a Steam frontend.

I admit my knowledge of games Steam sells is limited, but I don't think there's a Steam Frontend for games either? Also, why would it be buggier anyway? Seems like something's wrong with his computer. I don't know.

Oh, I checked Steam too, there's no downloadable version of any game made by Bethesda besides Fallout 3.

I mean, the falling through floors bug is very hard to reproduce now for me. Mostly very randomly.
Although, it's not fun though, especially when I die from falling damage at times. That's why slowfall 1 point is nice.
If the MCP can fix that I'd be happy. I"d give you money, Hrach, guy who name I can't pronounce.

Nothing magical about that bullet. The forensic data is consistant with a shot from 45 degree angle with a target who was contorted and waiving.

To morrowind issues, I've noticed that cliff racers can't be attacked from above with melee weapons.

Also, can't remeber if this happens in vanilla morrowind but sometimes when I attack someone in the middle of a fight I'll score hits (ie seeing blood graphic) bit don't their yellow bar doesn't come up. I've had opponents that had one hit remaining before going down that took me 20 or 30 hits before the last hit registered. On a possibly related note sometimes in the middle of a fight my assailant just goes peaceful on me. This even happens with bandits etc in caves.

I do not think they can be hit from the side or from behind, either. Only headon and headon from below.

sieboldii

I've just noticed that I can not unequip a helmet from the character portrait while running the patch. I had it happen while wearing the Native Gah-Julan Bonemold Helm. The problem disappeared when I uninstalled the patch. I am off to test some more, but just thought I'd post this now to see if anyone else has experienced it.

Edit:

So far it seems to only be an issue with closed helms.

Does the helmet actually stay equipped (with a white square around it in the inventory), or does it get unequipped and the paperdoll just isn't updating its graphics? Or do you mean that you can't click on the helmet on the paperdoll's head to unequip it? (In case of the latter, you could still unequip the helmet by selecting it in the inventory, but nevertheless it's something that needs further investigation).

The patch comes with a showcase mod which (among other things) has a glass helmet. Can you check whether the bug persists if you activate no other mods apart from this showcase mod?

I don't recall having problems unequipping things, but I usually click on the inventory icons, not the paperdoll, to unequip items, so it's possible that there's a bug that I never noticed. The MCP does change some drawing priorities for the paperdoll (to fix a bug with transparent clothing), so it's possible that there are unintended side effects. If the bug does persist with no other mods activated, then it would be interested to see if it goes away when you deactivate the paperdoll inventory fix, but leave all other MCP components activated.

Hm, this doesn't seem to happen in my game. Are you using any mods that could cause this? (Also, I'm actually unsure whether the blood graphic is a safe indicator that the opponent should be losing health; I don't know whether or not it appears when your damage is so small that it has little to no effect.)


I think this can happen when you have high personality and reputation.

I'm betting that the issue of having hits not register was from a combination of mods. I just dropped a some mods and haven't noticed that behavior with my test save.

The issue of combat stopping has cost me some money, since it would happen fairly often in town with MCA enemies. I'm also noticing that by dropping a couple of mods that my load speed is much quicker, which may also point toward mod inconisitancies.

It's never happened to me and I click on stuff on the paper doll all the time to remove it. I'm guessing it's probably a mod conflict. Surprisingly (at least to me), I have yet to have a single issue since I did a reinstall of Morrowind and this patch - this includes updating a mod I'm testing while in game and using the "regular" Wyre Mash update minus the repair all function (that seems to remove the NPCs added by my mod). So far, everything's running smoothly with only a very rare crash.

It stays equipped. I can unequip the helmet by clicking on it in the inventory, but I can't when clicking on the paper doll. I tested with no mods activated already, and the glass helmet in the showcase mod is irrelevant since it's an open helm, and I'm not getting the problem with open helms, only closed. Though I tried it anyway, and it unequipped like normal. And according to the book in the showcase mod, we can't really test that fix anyway, as no stock items have transparency. Deactivating the fix does seem to solve the issue.

Thanks for the detailed report. Seems that the MCP indeed does breal paperdoll-based unequipping of closed helmets. Jac, you probably didn't try closed helmets and therefore didn't see that bug? I'll try to reproduce it when I have a bit more time on my hands.

I'm not sure whether this can be fixed (Hrnchamd would be the one to answer that), but fortunately the problem can be circumvented by unequipping these helmets via the inventory icons, so it's not a gamebreaking problem (I hope).

Does this mod conflict with the way Wrye Mash handles save files?

Well I haven't had issues with Wrye Mash so I'd say no.

There is one very specific instance, which is clearly and at length explained in the Readme, where Mash and the MCP need special treatment.
In every other case, they work fine together.

I stand corrected. Closed helms don't register on the paper doll screen when you hover the cursor over there. They're still there and provide their AR protection, but you can only select them via the invetory icon. It's more of an inconvience I think than a game breaking bug.

@elonin: it's been my experience that MCP and WM work fine together as long as you don't use WM's repair all function if you're also using the saved game cleaner aspect of MCP. You can still update saved games with new/changed mods as usual, though.

No problem. I don't see how it could possibly be game breaking, just a minor inconvenience as Jac stated.

Any thoughts about the occasional bad memory markers that the game throws out?

For me, they only seem to happen on placed items, i.e., an ingredient placed on the rim of a tomb ash pit, an item placed on a shelf or crate. Never on an item in a container.

They do not happen often and when they do a restore save is created prior to CTD. Reloading the game and the restore save allows continued play, but it does interrupt the flow of the game somewhat.

sieboldii

Hm, this bug never happened to me. It could help if you described a method to reliably reproduce it, but from your description I guess that it appears somewhat randomly, so reproducing it might be difficult?

Fliggerty's combat thread reminded me of another issue: When you jump over NPCs in combat in a certain way they will always go into flee mode. Something for the MCP perhaps?

The memory pointer one I've gotten only twice. Once was with some item, years and years ago, in the Mournhold sewers. Another was recently, trying to pick up a dwemer tube in Aleft.

Not sure what else to say about it, other then it does exist.

I've had that issue as at times: sometimes it's when I pick up the puzzle box, other times it's when I'm picking up loot from a stack I make in an area so I can recall out afterwards. It usually happens when I rapidly pick stuff up (say only a second or so between picking up items). I haven't had it happen recently, though, so I suspect it has to do with MW's poor memory management.

I have never been able to reproduce it.

It probably has something to do with MW's memory management, which I brought it up.

sieboldii

I've had that Bad Memory Pointer happen to me both before and after installing MCP
Like Jac said it seems to happen when picking up a lot of stuff quickly
It happened a lot after I first installed MCP but seems to have stopped occuring as often now. May have just been bad luck/coincidence. I have no idea

It's not related to anything that MCP does. I was just wondering if there was anything MCP could do to address it.

sieboldii

Ah, I see. Sorry, misunderstood your post.

I just had another idea. Could it be possible to increase the amount of hours you may rest or wait? You could sleep for a whole month in Arena.

That seems silly imo.

I think what happens is that the game misassigns a memory pointer and then throws a fit when it discovers its mistake. I don't think MCP touches it, but I would be surpirsed if it couldn't be fixed at least to some degree.

AFAIK, it would be a little weird to do that, to be honest, but I don't know about silly.

A long duration paralysis spell maybe?
Edit: Jac, It's confusing when you post that fast.

Extending the range of the "Sleep how many hours?" slider would probably be relatively easy (compared to many other things that Hrnchamd has already accomplished). I don't think there are many people who would actually use this feature though, and those who want it can easily rest repeatedly if they want to cover a larger timespan. So it might be more useful to spend the time that would be necessary to implement this tweak on other issues.

(There also may be unintended repercussions with regard to mods that monitor the passing of time, like NoM.)

Possibly, however finding the one pointer that sometimes might get misassigned in 4 MB of compiled code is worse than hunting a needle in a haystack while blindfolded. It would probably help immensely if someone could provide a savegame which reproduces the crash at least somewhat reliably, but I realize that due to the nature of the bug that might not be possible. Unfortunately, this means that the chances of fixing this bug are very low.

This was proabably asked here but here goes. Does this conflict (or create problems) with UUMWP (unoffcial unoffical MW patch by quorn) and MGE?

No, the MCP is compatible to both (and complements them nicely imho).

Cool. I'll probably install it tonight.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I haven't had it happen since using the patch that I know of, so I don't have a saved game. If it does happen again, I'll try forwarding the recovery save, but that may be a bit problematic since I use custom mods and changes to released mods as well as unchanged released mods.


I use it with both with no problems.

I'd be surprised if it is reproducible. One place I've noticed it can happen (to me anyway) is when picking up items in the room with the puzzle box.
I routinely save after killing the opposition now and reload to that point if I get a pointer error. I've never seen a repeat pointer error so I suspect tracking it will be very hard.

It would be useful to know if those 'last ditch saves' can be trusted however, as I've always been leery of them.

Surprisingly, I have never had a problem with the restore ess.

sieboldii

Me either, which makes me wonder what exactly causes the error.

Very interesting! I may have to experiment with one the next time I get one.

Just to clarify, is this compatible with repair all in Wyre mash?

I've had issue with a companion mod, so I would recommend against it. Whenever I used that function, WM kept deleting orphaned records from my nPCs, yet I saw them just fine in game and their scripts worked like they should.

Do not use it if you are using the save portion of MCP.

I am not employing that portion of MCP and occasionally run Repair All, but I have yet to have Repair All find anything since I started using MCP.

sieboldii

Yes, it's compatible. We spent a lot of time making sure that it is, Hrnchamd even completely rewrote a working part of the savegame corruption fix because in its earlier form it would produce saves that Mash couldn't understand. But it's compatible now.

There is one situation (which is explained in the readme) where you cannot use Mash's "Repair All" function; this is when you just used the KRR functionality of the MCP. KRR'ed saves can be saved normally again and then will be compatible with Mash's "Repair All" again. The readme explains this in more detail.

Note that the save corruption fix of the MCP removes the main reason for using "Repair All". "Repair All" re-matches or deletes references in the savegame that have been mismatched due to the local ref bug. The MCP fixes the local ref bug so its savegames donÄt have mismatched references to fix.


This is an issue with Mash, it's unrelated to the MCP (it happens no matter whether you installed the MCP or not). The most common cause for these (non-)orphaned entries is that references have been moved across cell borders with a plugin. You can reproduce the effect by the following means: Make a plugin that moves a spawn point from morrowind.esm across a cell border, activate the plugin, load the game, visit the cell in question so that the creature spawns, then save, and use Mash's "Repair All" on the save. Mash will then remove the spawn point from the savegame (because it cannot find the moved one in the plugin). A side effect of the spawn point removal is that the spawned creature is now orphaned, the save now has no information about the spawn point from which it originated. So the creature gets removed too. This only happens in special cases though and it's rarely noticeable in-game.


It's perfectly okay to use it with the save portion of the MCP (unless, as mentioned above, you just KRR'ed your save), but usually not necessary any more.

Ah.

So does that mean I won't get any duplicates then?

I've been avoiding playing Tamriel Rebuilt because I had no idea where I was going on the map - thank you so much for making this, it's probably the most useful mod I've ever downloaded!

EDIT: Gosh you even fixed the Fortified Attributes bug - what a hero! =D

One component of the MCP is the save corruption fix. This component changes the way how Morrowind manages references.This fixes the two most common causes of doubling (reference misassignment due to changes in load order, and reference misassignment due to the local ref bug, although the latter usually leads to vanishing objects, not doubling). There are other ways to cause doubling which the MCP doen't address (for example when you're updating a mod for a game in progress; this will still cause doubling, but it can still be prevented by using the Updater function of Wrye Mash). So there still is a risk of doubling depending on what you do, but the MCP greatly reduces it by fixing the two most common causes.

I know, just throwing out an idea. It can be very annoying to rest over and over again.

And people, I don't want to feel like I am insisting, but what do you all think about expanding the spell radius?

How much do you want it expanded? 1000 ft? To genocide all of Vvardenfell?

As for me, the maximum radius I normally make for an Area Effect spell is 30ft. Any more and it gets out of control. So personally I don't see it as an attractive feature.

There's also the issue of realistic spell cost. IMHO, Area Effect spells are already ridiculously cheap in terms of spellpoints (drakes too). They really ought to increase in magicka cost exponentially, as your spell is effectively filling the volume of a sphere. That's a change I'd much rather see than making the max spell radius larger.

^ That's a very good point. I can make a "deadly fireball" spell, with no radius, and I will have to cast it twice to kill two people, and 3 times to kill 3 people (etc.). Similarily, for just a little more money and a little more magicka, I can cast the "deadly fireball explosion" spell and wipe out a small town or bandit cave. Magicka (and enchantment point usage) should increase in the same way as "duration" maybe.

At some point between the begining of thread #7 and now MCP became incompatable with MGE. All the MGE/MWSE mods I use have stopped working with all the MCP options installed. In particular: Ownership Indicators, Companion Health Bars and Time Display all fail to function. Is there a particular option of MCP that could be disabled to get MGE working again?

The MCP has not changed in the timeframe you mention. If you're certain that it worked when thread #7 was begun, then the cause for the problems is problemly something else.

It's also possible that the MCP *does* break MGE mods, but no one noticed that so far because few people use them. I haven't seen any reports on problems related to MCP/MGE mod compatibility yet. Is someone here who uses the mods that Nicholiathan mentioned?

Hrm. That could be why Vampire Hunter's MGE add-on isn't work. I'll have to run a quick test.

EDIT: Nope, VH's MGE plugin is broken even with the normal EXE file. I think it's more of a problem with the latest MGE, as older versions work fine.

Actually, there were a few people posting that Vampire Hunger's blood meter was not showing up either. They assumed it was because of the newest version of MGE, but they didn't mention if they were using MCP. Perhaps these are linked? I'm using VH and the newest MGE and my blood meter shows up fine.

Well, I did run my test - my backup non-MCP EXE file and the latest MGE still make VH's bloodlust shaders and blood meter break, at least for me and some others. I don't think it's a link between the two...

Interesting... I get my local map misaligned whenever I try to use latest MGE.
It just becomes totally messed up and shows me kinda "shifted" position when cell change happens. What the...

I discovered the real problem: I had MWSE unchecked in MGE. After setting the right radio button everything works right.

Yep! Glad to hear that But my 'local map problem with MGE' is still there. And I'm using MCP too. Any opinions..?

Good points. I am no expert on balance, but I did notice that single target spells seemed expensive compared to area spells. I just thought to share an idea. Beyond 100ft may not be practical, but I don't think anyone would be likely to use the entire 1000 point magnitude MCP added either. Though it is at least, more useful. I still like the idea anyway. Though a balance fix would certainly be welcome.

I've got a problem. I've run the MCP and the game runs fine at least as far as I can tell. Can't save though. Get a warning about not being able to find the origional file. Did I do something wrong? This has happened for a new game and with one that existed before loading the fix.

Also had an attak from a Morrowind Comes Alive villan who somehow killed some people and I got charged with the crime, my weapon was not drawn and I don't have reflect. I'm pretty sure this isn't a MCP issue but hoped that someone could help.

I have never heard of that issue at all! Can you tell us more, and do you have Vista, because that sounds like it. And the second seems like a bug with MCA instead of the MCP.

Nope, I'm running xp professional. I'm also up to date with all of the patches. Only included the bit about the MCA, as I was hoping that someone knew what was going on.

Odd. There haven't been any reports of such a problem (and it certainly would have been reported if others had the same problem). Can you give us the exact wording of the warning? And when and how does it appear?


No idea.

I found this to be a fairly common problem with MCA, and indeed it does not have anything to do with the MCP. I just put up with the problem, usually just re-loaded a previous savegame. I don't know if there is a real solution.

Sure thing. First the game starts and behaves normally from what I can tell. When I hit save and select a normal save (not quick save or autosave) and get the message about overwriting the save. After selecting yes the cursor freezes and a dialog box comes up and the cursor becomes active again


after I select yes the following comes up


Then after selecting yes again the following box comes up.


After selecting ok the game resumes playing as normal. These did not come up in my warnings.txt. This has also happened while creating a new save.

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