Talk:Main Page

Questions should go to the forums

This is not the place to ask random questions about the CS. The only things that should be discussed here are things related to the use and structure of the wiki itself. Direct CS questions to the Construction Set forum or the Questions page.

The admins are going to start enforcing this policy, so you should stop putting questions here or they are likely to be rolled back.

--Kkuhlmann 08:49, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

The existing game?

Is this wiki a suitable place for discussing bugs/oddities with the engine, or the main Oblivion game? I realise these may not really be editing-related.. If not, is there a wiki that is suitable? Moo 14:47, 25 March 2006 (EST)

This wiki is a reference for The Construction Set and mods. Our official forums are where discussions on engine/game related bugs and quirks should be discussed. Ashileedo 14:27, 26 Mar 2006

UESP Oblivion. You can start the Glitches/Goofs page starting from the link a the bottom. If there's a problem with the engine itself, in regards to modding, that should probably go on the Tes4Mod section. You should look in the corresponding sections of the Morrowindpages for similar pages and follow the lead. (Hmmm... Though I would have thought that glitches in the game engine would be reasonable to put here -- since modders need to work around them while working in CS4.) --Wrye 00:56, 27 March 2006 (EST)

Good point about putting engine issues on here as it could be useful -- My concern is that a list of issues with the game and engine here could turn into a point of contention and attract vandalism. As long as the tone is factual and neutral, should be okay. I would strongly suggest that anything documented must be verified by the contributor themselves or can be based on our readme documentation but not based off forum posts which can be unreliable. We want people to be able to trust what they read is factual and has been verified. Ashileedo 10:28, 27 Mar 2006

I would suggest something like an editors page (might the same as the Help:Editing page). Site policy (what does and doesn't belong, plus standards for addition can be listed there). When listing what doesn't belong (e.g., mod lists, mod ideas(?)), you could also provide links to wikis/sites that are intended for that (and the forums, of course). Also, for page specific formatting and rules, you can put a "Style and Content" section at the top of the talk page (e.g., Uesp Scripting Pitfalls Talk.) --Wrye 11:38, 27 March 2006 (EST)

Looking for something like this: Standards and Policies? It isn't very easy to find at the moment, though.

More Tutorials Please

I loved the create a dungeon tutorial, I wish there were more intermediate tutorials. I've been messing around with the editor and but learning on my own is slow and cumbersome. Do any other good editing resources exist? FViral 17:42, 26 March 2006 (EST)

I also thought that the "My First Dungeon" tutorial was excellent, but we need to expand on it and add more. One on basic quests, scripting, havok, etc would be great. I already have a fairly cool dungeon laid out, but I am not sure where to go with the NPC quests for it. Also, does anyone know how to include havok'd rocks in a project?

--Void Main() 00:52, 27 March 2006 (EST)

For my part, I'd like a tutorial on creating shopkeepers - I figure just about everyone is going to be creating dungeons, so I'd play around with something different. I'd also really like if, when Bethesda releases everything necessary for full creation of armor/clothing, someone could post a MAX file of something generic with all the settings correct so I could open it up and look at it. An ideal situation would be Bethesda actually posting one or more of the MAX files used to create the master file...

Aesirgard 12:35, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

I plan on releasing a tutorial explaining how I did my mod when it's finished. It'll cover some scripting, dialogue options, and NPC creation. Sockmonkeh 12:58, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

-Criss It would be nice with a detailed tutorial that showed you how to create new races and stuff.

-Bobman I think it would be cool if there were another scripting tutorial to help learn some new commands. I really liked the first one but I wish there were more.

Offline Help

Is there a way to download this Wiki or offer it for download so that those without internet access 24/7 can still get help when modding, if it was html a simple downloader would work, but its php and I can not find one suited for it.

Thanks StaticNation 4:55 AM 28 March 2006 (CST)

Well, the problem with that is that a Wiki is always changing, and at this point the TESCSWiki is far from complete. --JT 14:07, 31 March 2006 (EST)

I'm in the same situation as StaticNation, i can only access this page from the computer (in a different house), but this is unable to run oblivion or CS, so all my editing has to be done elsewhere. Even though the wiki is always changing and is still incomplete it would still be helpful, and i do belive wikipedia has an ability to download its current archives onto your PC, and since this is based on the same technology as far as i know, would this be possible? --Yacob

Bethesda Editors?

I'd really like to see an official page that lists all the official Bethesda editors. The page should be locked. As TESIV ages, the developers will have less and less input on the CS. When comparing revisions of documents on here, it would be nice to know that certain users were official Bethesda authors, versus someone adding into their User page Bethesda level designer or such, even if they aren't. An official locked page would remedy this problem (and it will happen, it always does on larger Wikis). Daego 11:57, 28 March 2006 (EST)

Admins list

--Kkuhlmann 13:32, 28 March 2006 (EST): List of admins (this is linked from the Standards and Policies page, which might be what someone else was asking about).

what's the difference between a sysop and Bearucrat? (sp?) Stormscape

That's wiki admin stuff. Bureaucrats have the ability to raise other users to sysops. See MediaWiki for more info. --Wrye 19:01, 29 March 2006 (EST)

Adding new pages?

Can we add new pages/categories/etc to the Wiki? I haven't figured out how, but in particular I think that .ini mods and .xml mods need sections for them, since they are probably the most popular mods right now, and are going to continue to be important. They're also something that the average person would be very interested in tweaking for their own preferences, and so this Wiki definitely ought to have sections for them. Does anyone know if we can add them, and if so, how? And if not, why not? And if not, can Beth do it for us, please?

--Kkuhlmann 16:08, 30 March 2006 (EST)Anyone can add a new page by simply typing the URL, and editing the blank page that comes up. You'll need to put a Category:XXX link at the bottom of new pages if you want anyone to find them (preferred), or link them directly from another page (usually not preferred).

Adding potentially obvious instructions?

I was flipping through some of the character settings in the editor and was looking at adding a Birthsign and couldn't figure out how I was supposed to get spells in the list. After a minute or two, it occurred to me to go look through the objects list instead of magic efects. Then you just drag and drop a spell from there. Arguably, it didn't take me long and would be completely obvious to some people. So my question is whether or not adding these kinds of potentially obvious instructions would be frowned upon for cluttering up the Wiki or some such.

If not, should they be contained on directly on that page or a page linked under it? Gunslinger 19:12, 31 March 2006 (EST)

Lacking useful functions

I've been browsing through the list of functions, and I'm surprised that some obvious ones seem to be missing. One thing is, there are no alchemy functions. Another, more surprising is that there are no angle/radius positioning functions, apart from PlaceAtMe, which creates a new instance.

You can get a heading and distance to something, but you can't position objects by them, so you can't e.g. move an existing object to be in front of the player or another actor. There also seems to be no way to tell actors to simply move a distance ahead. It seems that the only way that this can be done now is using trigonometry, but of course, there are no trigonometry functions.

Is there a wishlist for the next version/expansion? EagleEye 09:50, 1 April 2006 (EST)

Square root also seems to be gone :(EagleEye

UESP Wiki has some math approximations: Math Functions. Sqrt not included since they're for Morrowind, which has sqrt. --Wrye 00:38, 2 April 2006 (EST)

--Kkuhlmann 09:43, 4 April 2006 (EDT): There are a number of position functions: SetAngle, SetPos, PositionCell, PositionWorld. Using these on actors, however, can lead to unexpected results (they may still think they are somewhere else). Actors should be controlled using packages.

Jaks 13:50, 4 April 2006 (EDT): Not sure thats always possible. Packages, at least in this early stage of my learning curve, seem VERY limiting. Its difficult to integrate them with in with scripts and their needed timings for intricate manueverings of NPCs. I tend to think of packages as daily routines for the AI to go about their business but quests and player interaction, in my eyes, should use scripts to override those routines. On the other hand, the script API does provide the ability to add and remove packages on the fly, so maybe a combination (much like the recently released HorseCommands mod does) is the better choice. In the end though, I do not think packages provide for the level of detail this request is asking for.

--Kkuhlmann 16:50, 7 April 2006 (EDT): Well, we managed to put together a number of rather intricate scenes using the same tools you have available to you -- charactergen, for example. Every staged scene in the main quest. Do I wish we had better tools? Sure. But I think you need to look at some of the scripts and NPC packages used in charactergen (for example) before you decide that packages are "very limiting".

Known Issues

Doppelganger 18:58, 3 April 2006 (EDT): "Data race" was in fact undocumented modifiers on the ModActorValue function, now documented by one of the people in the know. The difficulty, however, in getting this information was altogether too much...

/signed, we need an area to report issues and verify them as known. Nowhere does it say that the script compiler/editor will silently fail to compile a script with mismatching parens () .. I just spent an hour looking for a syntax error, it turned out to be a missing open paren, the script editor silently failed with no warning when compiling the script - it just refused to save my changes. I'd like to save other people this headache. --Halo112358 22:09, 2 April 2006 (EDT)

--Kkuhlmann 09:49, 4 April 2006 (EDT): Re: silently failing -- The compiler will throw up a warning over any compile error. Is it possible that you already clicked "Yes to All" to a previous warning (which would turn off all warnings for your current session)? Check the EditorWarnings.txt in the editor's folder -- you'll see the warnings there even if you turned off the popup.

--Gerrie Hi, dont know where else i should put this: Error Message: "Warning: Unable to complete operation due to failure removing previous tempfile remains. Continue playing? "Yes to all" will disable warnings this session." This means some application is still using your plugin file and the construction set fails to save your new version. Be careful not to press "Yes", as all your following saves will get lost with no error message. To solve this: Close your programs and reboot, when you get the errormessage for the first time. Does anybody know a better workaround, so you dont lose your newest save?

Settings Documentation

The settings page is home to many variables useful for tweaking gameplay easily. However, many of these variables have cryptic names and/or implementation. Would it be possible for developers to take some time detailing some of these setting and their affect on gameplay?

--ZantarV

Bethesda and mod developers releasing mods

Does Bethesda have a system in place for mod devs to launch a mod, and get payment for it (with security in place), as Bethesda is doing with their own mods? Just like Valve has for its huge mod community with HL/HL2 over Steam? Skjalg 14:40, 4 April 2006 (EDT)

I doubt it. If you read the license agreement, any mods created using the construction set are property of Bethesda. BCampbell 12:59, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

Site skin does not display properly on Mac Safari (10.4.5)

Hello all,

This site does not display properly on Mac OS X (PowerPC) 10.4.5 Safari web browser.

Here's a cropped screenshot:

File:Bad-render.png

Note that the sidebar (Navigation, Toolbox, Search, Personal Tools) seems to overdraw the rest of the page.

Thanks!

Callie 18:08, 4 April 2006 (EDT)

It's a problem with the javascript, apparently. I tried to do some troubleshooting on it thinking it was a stylesheet bug. I wasn't having problems with a local version, so I turned off javascript (using Shiira, it renders with Apple's WebKit) and it worked fine. Alternatively, you can use the other skin. Gunslinger 12:15, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

How can I add pages to the Index?

I created a "Questions" category that I think would be helpful to people with questions. Answered questions we can then move to the "Solutions" category. However, I cannot seem to figure out how to get my newly made category linked to the main index.

--Kkuhlmann 13:24, 8 April 2006 (EDT): Good idea. Done!

--Brainspackle 13:29, 8 April 2006 (EDT): Very nice! Good response time too, thanks. ;)

Categories Page is Helpful

I have found this page to be quite helpful: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php?title=Special:Categories

However, it is hard for me to find that page easily, as it does not seem to be linked from anywhere. I am not even quite sure how I originally found it.

--Kkuhlmann 13:25, 8 April 2006 (EDT): If you click on the "Category" link at the bottom of any page in a category, you'll go to the full list of categories.

--Moose 16:42, 10 April 2006 (EDT): That's one of the special pages Wikis put in by default. And they appear to all be gone when I try to go to the listing. Any particular reason? Just wondering.

The reason is that the specials pages is bugged in this wiki. if you refresh the page just long enough , the list of special pages appears. Vvenaya 16:55, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

Moose 17:07, 10 April 2006 (EDT): Weak. Any idea as to why it's happening?

--Brainspackle 13:30, 8 April 2006 (EDT): Thanks for the clarification. Wikis have a bit of a learning curve.

Tutorials versus Solutions

I just noticed that we have both a Category:Tutorials and Category:Solutions. I can understand why we would want both, but maybe we should define what tutorials and solutions are so we don't get tutorials in the solutions category and not under tutorials? Mrflippy 16:16, 8 April 2006 (EDT)

--Kkuhlmann 08:53, 10 April 2006 (EDT): My view is that a tutorial is a step-by-step guide to doing a general task in the editor: building a dungeon, creating a worldspace, creating a quest, etc. A "Solution" is a specific method for doing some tricky or obscure task -- a way to prevent others from having to "reinvent the wheel" whenever they try to do the same thing. Maybe they do overlap more than I think -- if the general consensus is that they are redundant, we can always fold them together into the same category ("Tutorials and Solutions").

No, I think it's a good idea to have both categories. We just need definitions for organization's sake. I think your definition is pretty good. In some cases the categories may overlap, but in that case we can just add a page to both categories. --Mrflippy 17:08, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

Discussing GUI/HUD mods

Would it be appropriate to add sections for GUI/HUD mods, even though these mods don't directly involve the CS? For example, BTMod deals almost exclusively with editing XML files unpacked from the misc.bsa file. Although these files aren't accessible from the CS, documenting their structure and functionality would bee a huge boon to the modding community, as BTMod is perhaps the most popular Oblivion mod right now, and those XML files are very complicated and deceptively powerful. --Mrdowns 10:16, 12 April 2006 (EDT)

If it's not appropriate here, we'll be glad to have it at UESP Wiki! We've already got a little material like that at: Oblivion Modding (look for File Formats section). I've got a little info on my own site too Oblivion Configuration which I'll merge into UESP wiki when I have some time. --Wrye 18:43, 12 April 2006 (EDT)

Wish list link

There should be a link on the main page to the Wish List. --Maian 21:32, 16 April 2006 (EDT)

Styles need work/horizontal scrolling is EVIL

Hi there,

with Firefox 1.5.0.2 on Windows XP I have to scroll horizontally to view the text. I'm not particularily fond of maximizing the browser just to view a web page, and would like to configure the browser window size to my preferences, not to the web page authors idea of workflow. Please don't do the fixed-width thing.

I resorted to the alternative style, which looks rather poor. It should have a different background (darktan_bg.jpg, paper + MediaWiki style don't work very well together) and a different logo (banner.jpg), which is displayed behind the text frame. I just adblocked that one, resulting in an empty space where the pages logo should be.

Thanks & best regards.

This isn't specific to Firefox - does the same thing in IE. --Maian 06:37, 4 May 2006 (EDT)

The site is designed for a minimum width of about 1000px. At 1024x768 resolution, that means maximizing the page. At 800x600, I imagine, it wouldn't fit even maximized. This was a decision made by the site designers, and its a decision the designers of most sites must make, though most try to make the minimum width about 800px...--DragoonWraith 22:56, 13 May 2006 (EDT)

For my browsing, I seldom use less than 1600px in the horizontal resolution. While horizontal scrolling is evil, wasting about 50% of my screen space (at the lowest resolution I use) for black borders is nontheless highly annoying. The web site designers of the elderscrolls.com should really learn their job and look up "fluid design" sometime. Thankfully, they left the Monobook CSS mostly intact, which means I don't have to write my own style into User:(myusername)/Monobook.css ... --Khadir 11:30, 21 June 2006 (EDT)

... which doesn't work here anyway, it seems. Why is $wgAllowUserCss disabled, exactly? --Khadir 11:43, 21 June 2006 (EDT)

StartYourMod

I made a tutorial which I think is an important one, but i didn't realise that it didn;t go in the tutorial section of the wiki. StartYourMod if someone could move it and my first discussion item attached I would appreciate it.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 13:35, 1 June 2006 (EDT): I moved it to Start Your Mod, since it didn't make sense for it to not have spaces, and I added it to the Category:Tutorials category. I also explained how these things are done on its Talk page.

Claim cell ownership in the Tamriel world space

Well, since this is the place most modders go to after the TES forums, how about doing a page where people can make claims to certain cells. Then this info could go into their documentation. Those modmakers who don't use this will at least alert people to the fact that it might conflict with any number of mods. Unless this is already up and working and I'm too stupid to find it - the navigation of this site leaves something to be desired :-) tho' it is getting better. Franc Kaos.

IMO there isn't much reason to claim cells in Tamriel, make new Worldspaces instead.--JOG 04:20, 18 June 2006 (EDT)

"Claim" isn't a good idea, either. Would be nice to have a repository of this data, though. Even with the existance of new worldspaces, it's good to know for people who specifically add things to Cyrodiil.

Articles for Deletion Category

It would be quite useful if an administrator could list the "Category:Articles for Deletion" page on the main page, or at least review it -- as that was the intention: for administrators to review it and delete pages that get categorized under it. --MaXiMiUS 20:21, 25 June 2006 (EDT)

"Create a login"

As any geek or wiki user would tell you, that is a horribly stupid phrase. It should read "create an account". "Login" is a verb, not a noun. Aaa 02:46, 26 June 2006 (EDT)

Question about the History lists

In the History of a page, and on the Recent Changes page, there's an exclamation point (!) next to some of the edits. I was wondering what that signified?

I know that 'N' means "new" and 'm' means "minor", but I haven't seen an explanation of the !.

ShadowDancer 13:46, 13 July 2006 (EDT): The exclaimation point indicate articles that are not patrolled. When you click on (diff) it shows you the revisions box with previous things for that edit in the yellow boxes, new things in the green boxes, and things in red are changed items. In that box under the name of the person who made that edit is [Mark as patrolled] which when clicked removes the exclaimation point from the recent changes page. New pages don't have a (diff) selection because they are new, but if you click on the link to that page from the recent changes list, there is [Mark this article as patrolled] down on the lower right corner which does the same thing when you click on it. Anytime someone looks at that article and verifies that that change wasn't spam should click on [Mark as patrolled] so that it is known that the changes are OK. It should also be done to article changes that are reverted or removed so that everyone knows that that particular change has been checked. See also: How to Mark an Article as Patrolled.

I haven't seen a history page with the exclaimation point. Can you point one out?