TESVEdit is not hard, people.

[GrimyBunyip]

 

You sir are a master of understatement. If there's to be a concerted effort to clean mods, it should be led by the staff of this website. Otherwise we shouldn't make a fuss over it. Good if you can, oh well if you can't. Nothing more needs to be said. No threats. No accusations of laziness.

 

So I read post.

And basically it seems like you said "master of understatement" then decided to disregard my previous post and just restate your opinions, with no regard for mine.

 

I'm going to make one more attempt to communicate with you, before I just give up.

 

I think in order to do that, I want to know how exactly it is you measure "good" or "bad" in this situation.

Because for me, I'm viewing things from a utilitarian standpoint.

If Khormin can increase the net quality/quantity of mods in Skyrim, then I think he's justified, regardless of whether or not he's offensive or not.

 

Maybe if I can better understand how you're measuring good vs bad in this circumstance, we can come to a clearer understanding.

 

Grimy, I would say that comparing a modder to a carjacker or a hacker seems a bit ungrateful. I know that is not Khormin's intent, but if he wants the word to reach the modders, it needs to be written in such a way that instead of feeling disgust towards him because of his wording, they be left with the knowledge of the fact that mods do require cleaning (in most cases).

 

I agree, the hacker/carjacker statement on its own IS ungrateful.

But look at the context, he said that once in a 5 page thread.

And only after lots of accusations and being called ignorant and ungrateful and stuff.

 

Anyways, I spoke to Khormin via PM much earlier in this thread, to discuss how to frame the message of quality control more effectively.

And I know Wheeze, from the Luftahraan project is interested in some sort of system for promoting more knowledge about mod quality.

We have some ideas, perhaps if you're interested in discussing those we can chat in PM or via some instant messenger.

[Kraeten]

 

 

You sir are a master of understatement. If there's to be a concerted effort to clean mods, it should be led by the staff of this website. Otherwise we shouldn't make a fuss over it. Good if you can, oh well if you can't. Nothing more needs to be said. No threats. No accusations of laziness.

 

So I read post.

And basically it seems like you said "master of understatement" then decided to disregard my previous post and just restate your opinions, with no regard for mine.

 

I'm going to make one more attempt to communicate with you, before I just give up.

 

I think in order to do that, I want to know how exactly it is you measure "good" or "bad" in this situation.

Because for me, I'm viewing things from a utilitarian standpoint.

If Khormin can increase the net quality/quantity of mods in Skyrim, then I think he's justified, regardless of whether or not he's offensive or not.

 

Maybe if I can better understand how you're measuring good vs bad in this circumstance, we can come to a clearer understanding.

 

I don't subscribe to "the ends justify the means" philosophy. Modders will do their best when they're treated with respect and encouraged. Harrassing them will only do more damage than good. Especially if this little crusade is run by someone who's so eager to antagonize others. That answer your question?

[ripple]

You have to understand something....

 

Modding is a hobby. Anyone who can download the CK can upload a 'mod.' So of course, mods come in a....wide range of 'quality.' Because it's a hobby, modders come and go, and mods occasionally get 'abandoned' and neglected, so some mods made before the CK, or hasn't been updated for the latest patch, or where the modder has simply disappeared, have things like 'null records', outdated script edits, and other 'errors.' Most modders are not involved in the 'modding scene', so they are not necessarily 'on top' of the lastest community insights or the latest modding tool or tool updates. And yes, some 'modders' are messing with things they don't fully understand and can make a mess of things (like 'wild cell edits', which unlike 'dirty edits', can not be cleaned automatically using TES5Edit but need to be cleaned manually), which is also natural because 'modders' encapsulate people of varying levels of experience and expertise. Some may be new to modding (and we all had to start somewhere), and even those who are 'experienced' will still learn new things no matter how much we may already know.

 

So, it's simply not possible to 'enforce' some 'standardized quality control' for mods. This burden is inevitably shared between individual modders, the users, and members of the modding community. That fact will not change. This is no different than the game itself, because when you talk about holding modders to a 'higher standard', who are we talking about? 'Higher standard' than....who? ...Bethesda? Everyone who purchased Skyrim within the first few months of its release was -paying- Bethesda to be their beta testers, to literally test and help fix game-breaking bugs (something that, sadly, has now become an 'industry standard')--in fact, we are still doing it. If a company with infinitely more resources than any individual or groups of modder can't ensure 'quality control' over a commercial product, what can you realistically expect from unpaid modders working on their personal PCs during their spare 'leisure' time?

 

Yes, there should be more widespread 'modding literacy', to help disseminate 'clean modding practices' in the community. But making one random post in the Mod Talk forum isn't going to help much because it's a 'drop in the ocean' that will likely get buried in a few days or weeks. Instead, if you consistently help to spread 'modding literacy', either by informing specific modders (PMing them or posting in their mod support thread) to let them know about any dirty or 'error' records you have found after poking around 'under the hood' and pointing out how to clean them, share relevant information on 'clean modding practices' in the mod troubleshoot and support forums, to help spread and educate others in 'good modding and mod usage practices', who might themselves then be able to spread and disseminate these practices, then it will be less of a 'drop in the ocean', and might potentially become more of a....'ripple' effect. :smile:

Edited June 12, 2013 by ripple

[daventry]

I would still like a Word Tutorial in Detail with Pictures on How to use TESVEdit, since the Video doesent help me very much

 

By the way, why not Intergrate TESVEdit with Boss. You know, just click Run Boss and it Auto Cleanse the Mods

Edited June 12, 2013 by daventry

[prod80]

I would still like a Word Tutorial in Detail with Pictures on How to use TESVEdit, since the Video doesent help me very much

 

By the way, why not Intergrate TESVEdit with Boss. You know, just click Run Boss and it Auto Cleanse the Mods

 

Something like this? http://www.creationkit.com/TES5Edit_Cleaning_Guide_-_TES5Edit

 

And not all errors tes5edit finds can be corrected automatically using that program. Some of the more lethal errors have to be corrected in the CK.

[daventry]

That Site mostly talks about the Program, so i guess this is the Instructions

1. Download TES5Edit.
2. Extract the downloaded archive to wherever you want.
3. Run the TES5Edit.exe file.
4. A dialog box appears listing all your installed plugins, with all currently active plugins ticked. Right-click anywhere in the list and pick "Select None".
5. Tick the boxes for the plugin you want to clean and for any of its implicit dependencies. You don't need to tick the boxes for its explicit dependencies as TES5Edit will automatically load them anyway.
6. Click "OK" in the dialog box.
7. A mod group dialog box may be displayed. Never tick any of the boxes in this dialog box when cleaning plugins. Click "OK" in the dialog box.
8. After the plugins have finished loading, right click the plugin you want to clean and select "Apply Filter For Cleaning".
9. Filtering will likely take a long time.
10. Right click on the plugin you are cleaning and pick “Remove "Identical to Master" records”.
11. Wait two seconds when the big warning message appears and click “Yes…”.
12. The plugin name will turn bold if any dirty edits were found and removed. Check the Messages tab to see what was changed. Make a note of the number of ITM records removed for when reporting the plugin to the BOSS team.
13. Right click again on the plugin you are cleaning and select “Undelete and Disable References.” Again, check the Messages tab to see what was changed. Make a note of the number of undeleted and disabled references for when reporting the plugin to the BOSS team.
14. Try to close the program. If there were no dirty edits or deleted references found, the program will close immediately. Otherwise, a dialog box will be displayed, listing the plugin you cleaned.
15. Make sure that the checkbox for the plugin you cleaned is ticked, then click "OK". This will save the cleaned plugin. A backup of the plugin before cleaning is placed in your Data folder, with its file extension being the timestamp at which it was created.

[Khormin]

TL;DR, http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1013468-tesvedit-is-not-hard-people/page-5&do=findComment&comment=8239037, though your copy is easier to follow.

16. Make note of the references to errors that could not be cleaned. After all, any automated process is bound to have issues.
17. While the filter is still running, check to ensure that the background of your mod is just white, green, or yellow.

18. If not, then you have a conflict between your mod, and another further along the line. Open up the tree of your mod to find the red-background entry, and then click on it - it will then give you a comparison to tell you where the conflict arises. You can then edit as necessary.

[bben46]

TESVedit, like all of the tesedit tools are just that tools. And, in my own opinion excellent and useful tools. Cleaning a mod using it is commendable, but not cleaning a mod that works without cleaning is not in any way lazy or evil. Probably over 90% of dirty edits have no effect one way or another on the game. There are a very few that do cause crashes in some circumstances. Do I think authors should check their work using a tool such as TesVedit before releasing it? - Yes. Should they be condemned for not doing so? No.

 

Then there is the issue of the version of the tool - if an author does clean his mod but uses a very early version. Then a user checks that same mod using a version that came out over a year later - the user is likely going to find dirty edits that the earlier version missed. Is that the author's fault? What if that mod has been rock solid (or as rock solid as mods ever get) the entire time? Should that author, who has likely moved on to some other game, be forced to return to something he did over a year ago to clean dirty edits that have not caused any known problems in anyone's game just because they are there?

 

Some of the dirtiest 'mods' I have seen were the early Oblivion DLCs. :whistling:Should we demand that Bethesda clean their DLCs? In all fairness these came out before the Tes4edit did. :P

 

Having made mods and having seen how easy it is to have multiple a dirty edits get into a mod despite the author's best intentions, and how very few times it even makes any difference - As long as there is no in game effect, I don't second guess the author of mods I download. If I see a problem that I believe may be related to a dirty edit, then I run a cleaner - and guess what - nearly every time it turned out to be something else and not the dirty edits that caused the problem. :rolleyes:

 

If you feel that cleaning every mod makes a difference in your game, by all means run TesVedit on every mod before installing. If an author claims the mod is 'clean' - will you still check it to be sure? Or check it anyway just in case he used an older version of TesVedit? :ermm:

 

The pursuit of perfection just for the sake of perfection can be very frustrating - as none of us (or our mods) are inherently perfect. So, we do the best we can with what we have. And hope it's good enough. :blush:

[prod80]

There is much more information there than just the simple step-guide. I would suggest you read all and try and understand it. Also, there isnt really much point to clean your mods when your game is fine and you have no bugs/crashes/extreme load times/etc. Dont fix things that arent broken. Don't clean Skyrim.esm no matter what you do (actually don't clean any of the official masters I'd say) - but lotta people disagree.

 

I have ~130 plugins (containing a few merged ones) and (give or take) another 100-120 or so texture replacers (yes I have a lot of those), and I have not ran any automatic cleaning on any of them, ever. I did however take around 5-6 NPC mods and created a single mod out of them in the CK to my own preference, using 1 mod as base and modified about everything there is to modify about NPC's. And I did change a thing left and right in other mods that I didnt particularly like - doing a complete overhaul of a few mods as well for my personal use so they work better with my game/style. I have a lot of mechanics changed - my game is very hard - because I like it like this (my character cannot win a 1vs1 against a (similar leveled - forget about higher leveled) NPC, I have to create an advantage to win and with more opponents I need to create a whole strategy to take them out - I run for my life sometimes.

 

When I load tes5edit I can find billions of problems, but my game runs, my quests work, everything works, no crashes, no other weird out of place looking things, everything in my load order is working and showing in game, my NPC act normal, haven't found anything weird lately except 2 benches placed in a wrong area (blocking NPC paths for 1 NPC and conflicting with a guard standing position) but been too lazy to take them out so far. My papyrus spam is minimal (about 4KB file size after 2 hours or so).

 

That's why I always am a bit sceptic when someone comes with a problem and the first reply is "You have dirty edits in your mods and tes5edit clean blablabla them" mostly it's not a dirty edit at all causing problems, and a problem caused by a dirty edit has to be identified using tes5edit, CK and the game itself to make a proper diagnosis.

 

But OK, I cannot say I had a stable game always. I have had my fair share of issues, from simple things to completely and utterly destroying my game, sorta like this;

*Ugh*

 

http://i.imgur.com/Fa9NFbu.jpg

 

*Ugh*

[ripple]

Also, there isnt really much point to clean your mods when your game is fine and you have no bugs/crashes/extreme load times/etc. Dont fix things that arent broken. Don't clean Skyrim.esm no matter what you do (actually don't clean any of the official masters I'd say) - but lotta people disagree.

 

The thing with 'dirty edits' is not that they will crash your game (although deleted references can potentially do that), but that duplicate to master entries are (99.9% of the time) completely unnecessary, and will often override conflicting records if they are lower in the load order. This happens a lot with mods involving edits to default game cells (which also often include 'wild edits' that can't be automatically cleaned), but it can involve just about any sort of records. An example would be when someone has a mod that includes duplicate to master records for game settings like cell refresh times or dragon spawn times (but in which the mod has nothing to do with cell fresh or dragon spawn times), and users install a mod that either decrease or increase the cell fresh or dragon spawn times which gets loaded earlier than the mod containing the duplicate to master records. The record is 'overwritten' by the duplicate to master entry and the user notices that the mod with the altered cell refresh or dragon spawn times is not working properly, but has no idea why because s/he does not know there is a mod loading later, containing one or more duplicate to master record that has caused this. When something like this gets reported, the mod author for the altered cell refresh or dragon spawn time mod might waste days trying to figure out why the mod does not work for some users, thinking the problem might be on his/her end--and this is only the least harmful possible repercussion from duplicate to master entries.

 

The possible repercussions of 'what might go wrong' due to a mod's edits being 'overwritten' by duplicate to master records is just too varied (since it depends on the type of record that is 'overwritten') to say how much damage it might do. We can say that 'in general', they are harmless, but that would be little consolation to the minority of mod users for whom these records might have broken important things in the game. Cleaning is a practice that will preemptively address such problems, and it's entirely harmless as long as the user does not 'repeatedly clean' the plugin (so if the mod author has already cleaned the plugin, they should state it in the mod description or readme, so users will not try to clean it again--although they should still check to see if it has indeed been cleaned, and report any issues they find to the mod author). Cleaning duplicate to master records is akin to looking both ways when crossing a street, it's just something you should do 'to be safe.'

 

Deleted references, of course, need to always be undeleted and set to 'disabled.' I have noticed that since we are seeing more and more 'overhaul city x' mods, we are seeing a lot more of these and users reporting in these mod support threads that they experience CTDs. I would say that at least 60% of mods I've checked that involved cell edits have deleted references (hell, even some of the DLCs have deleted references..,.good job Bethesda...). That's pretty scary if you think about it...definitely don't take any chances there.

Edited June 12, 2013 by ripple