removing bogus journal-quest entries

[PierreBeauregard]

As many know, sometimes the entries under journal->quests remain even if the quest is completed or never assigned.

 

*possible miscellaneous quest spoiler alert*

 

Here are some examples from my own journal:

-Fjol the Outlaw-

As you know, if you *don't* get the quest assigned to you from general what's-his-face, you still have the quest appear if you meet him. If you kill him without talking to the general, you cannot fulfill the quest, and it is now permanently on your journal.

-Umbra-

If you meet Umbra or listen to gossip in Suran, this quest appears in your quest list. Even after completing the quest by killing him, the quest remains. (I hear the way you avoid this is by REFUSING which closes the quest, and you can kill him later, but I didn't find out until after I met and killed umbra).

 

And there's probably a few others.

 

I looked through the construction (destruction) set, and couldn't find a script in the help file relating to removing quest entries.

 

What would be the relevant console command and its related parameters? How would I find the ID's of the troublesome quests?

[cmac]

There is a Pinned topic about this in Spoilers...may I suggest you look there.

[PierreBeauregard]

Yeah, I read that thread already. A basic summary of it is "Remember to complete these quests exactly as so, or else you have to use the console command". He unfortunately did *not* post a description on how to fix the quests using the console after they had been screwed up.

 

Thanks for replying so quickly by the way :)

 

Oh, and I saw this one program listed somewhere called qc.exe, a "quest collater". I didn't download it though, because I have no idea if it would fix this problem while destroying my journal.

 

EDIT:

I found two console commands related to this issue, but unfortunately no information as to how to use them:

 

From TES construction set, verbatim:

ClearInfoActor Makes this info NOT appear in the journal.

//supposedly called by player->ClearInfoActor, but does it take arguments (questname)?

GetJournalIndex, JournalID

//I hear that you can "reset" quests by assigning 0 to a questname using this command. Unfortunately that RESETS the quest, it doesn't remove the topic from the active quest list

 

 

There *must* be some sort of command that can send a quest topic from the "active" quest list to the "all active quests" list, or else how do modders and morrowind do it? I don't know if the two commands I lists are it or not.

[Malchik]

I hope I didn't suggest that leaving an open journal entry means you screwed up! In some cases (the Ahnassi one, Mastrius etc.) you are actually forfeiting good loot for the journal entry! And I have never found a way to get rid of the Venim one. As you're going to have a couple outstanding forget Umbra and Fjol until the next game. I don't believe there is a console command to change a quest from open to completed. All you can do (I am told) is wipe it out of the journal completely.

[PierreBeauregard]

So basically, these are annoying bugs that don't affect my game. However, these are still irritating to gameplay: as you get more and more quests, it gets tedious to scroll through them all when there's so many as bogus ones. For instance, I forgot to mention the fact that I have several hlaluu and redoran quests when I haven't even joined any houses yet (with the exeption of one in balmora--the murder of hlaalo mystery, which was a legitimate quest).

 

I wish bethesda would just release another patch, or mark a fan-made bugfix as official.

 

I guess my best bet is to download this plugin:

http://www.strong-family.net/morrowind/

 

So that my next game is journal-annoyance free. If I'm lucky maybe it will fix my current journal.

 

I heard you can export your journal, edit it, and reimport it. How drastic is this fix?

Also, I heard there is an editor called TESAME.exe which can edit your save files?

 

Any thoughts on these?

[Malchik]

I think I saw some posts here to indicate that Almelexia was trying to do just that. I'm afraid I can't remember where they were.

 

It is possible to join Redoran and then later on join Hlaalu which would I think get rid of the journal entries. (You can't do it the other way round). However I think the Hlaalu ones can all be done without being a member of the house. (Which ones do you have as outstanding?)

 

I managed to finish my last game with my journal showing only two quests (Mastrius and Venim) and two bugged Mead Hall quests in Bloodmoon. But that was not my first game!

 

If you experiment with more ruthless excision please PM me to tell me how successful you were.

[PierreBeauregard]

For the hlaluu quests, I completed a couple without quite knowing what was going on (I'm not listed as being a member). I obtained the quests from one of the two hlaluu quest givers in Vivec Hlaluu Canton. The next one I'm supposed to (or not supposed to I guess) accomplish is to get some money off of some dude in Hla Oad.

 

But now onto my quest to remove the quest topics...

 

*note, do not attempt to follow what I'm doing unless you have backups of your save files*

 

The name of the Umbra quest topic/dialog threaad in morrowind is apparently MS_Umbra. I downloaded a "save game editor" (MSGE.exe), but nothing umbra-ish showed up in the editor. I decided to try something riskier, and I was able to open up the save file inside of TES Advanced Mod Editor.

 

Some very interesting stuff in here. Not only I was able to discover the quest topic "Umbra" and the dialogue sequence "MS_Umbra", I found all these excess variables from old plugins that were never cleaned out (which might explain my previous problem with uninstalling MultiMarkMod). Don't think your save files are completely clean after you overwrite your saves and restart!

 

Anyway, for some reason after I found the *Umbra variables, I couldn't edit them. I could delete them though (which I did not attempt to do, as that might seriously corrupt my journal). In any case, there would be no way to edit them without doing damage because the data was displayed in Hex, and therefore undecipherable.

 

So that concludes my attempt to remove quest entries. I don't have that much experience in TES tool sets, so I cannot proceed any further.

[Malchik]

You will be able to report the Hlaalu quests and get a journal entry , even if you are not in House Hlaalu. So you can join Redoran to remove their journal entries if you wish. I think the full list of problems is included in my pinned thread so you will know how many you will end up with. But there are lots of things in MW plus expansions you can't do together (without mods), i.e only one of three houses, only one of three vamp clans, one or other side of the Raven Rock settlement, play as werewolf or not. The chances are that you'll want to play more than one game. Treat the first one as getting experience for the second!

[PierreBeauregard]

This is getting a little off topic, but I'll tell you why this is my *second* game actually:

 

The first time I played the game I was an Imperial custom mage. Only problem is, I screwed up on the sign-race deal, and ended up as a really crappy mage. I think it was a failure at multiclassing. I wound up being a decent warrior though. I was dissapointed overall even though I got pretty far in the game: I had started a telvanni stronghold, I had finished the main quest partly beyond the urishilaku portion, and risen pretty far in the mage/theif/warrior guilds.

 

So I decided to give up and do the mage thing right, and boy was I glad!

I decided to be a breton sorcerer (the one with most mage abilities and minors in heavy-medium armor, shortsword, and marksman), with the sign of the atronach. At level 2 I was able to defeat the group of comonna tong in balmora, and bested Umbra at level 12. At level 13, I have a combination indoril/orc armor set with a dreugh sheild. I created a "Dwemer righteous sword" (A dwemer shortsword that absorbs 6 health on strike), so not only can I absorb/negate most magic (see racial-sign combo), I can also absorb health through combat. That and I can summon about 5 different creatures at a time, so I'm pretty fiesty for a low level character.

 

The only drawback is that with my combination, I can't carry much stuff around, so I downloaded a "carry more mod". I figure it's not as cheap (and buggy) as using multimark.

 

I am a member of the mages guild, theives guild, fighters guild, Temple *and* imperial cult, *and* I plan on joining the Imperial Legion upon my arrival in Gnisis. Once I make it to sadrith mora, I'll join telvanni.

 

So I assume by joining telvanni, this will close the open quests (like caldera mines) and any hlaluu quests I wasn't able to complete?

 

I have quite a handful to do before I even get near to finishing the main quest (in morrowind!). I probably won't even get to tribunal/bloodmoon for another year.

 

So what does that leave me for the next game (in two years or so)?

 

I'll try to play the game *without* using magic--a pure tank. This will actually be very hard to do, since I'll have to rely on items and possibly alchemy to get through the game. No more instantly unlocking level100 doors and levitating myself out of combat! In that case I'll join the "warrior" house instead of Telvanni. Also, *purposely* completing the vampire quests would be interesting.

 

BTW, the avatar is my character standing next to all the junk I found before reaching level 2.

[Malchik]

I note that you haven't included the Morag Tong. Thery are interesting more especially for the special duties and 'threads of the webspinner' quests. Also as a Vampire you can only be one of the three clans and each has different quests. I pinned a thread on quests easy to miss you might also want to look at.

 

If you join telvanni you can later join Hlaalu, after you have been declared Hlaalu hortator owing to a 'glitch' in the system. However the Redoran quests will remain open even if you have completed them.

 

And why not play as a thief class without magic - light armour, short sword, marksman etc under the sign of the tower? Download a few mods or create your own. Collect all the items listed in the book next to the dwarf in the Corprusarium.

 

Just a couple of ideas.