Unclean Dialogue
Compared to Morrowind, Oblivion is very safe when it comes up to mod incompatibilities, a serious issue can be dialogue-conflicts, though. Dialogue-conflicts are always caused by unclean dialogue in both mods. Thus it's very important to keep a close eye on the FormIDs of the dialogue-lines.
This is rather lengthy, but you should take the time to read it to understand the Conclusions below. Always look at the FormID tab first, this is how Oblivion sees the dialogue, while our human mind would like to look just at the text and ignore the problems with the numbers.
Causales[edit | edit source]
When you add dialogue-lines to existing quests or in the Filtered Dialogue you end up with two changed lines in your mod.
e.g GREETING:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo What is it now? 00028a25 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
When you add a new line on top you'll end up with this:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * NEW Line 01xxxxxx EmfridDemo What is it now? 00028a25 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
- (The line marked with * is stored in the ESP)
When you add a line somewhere inbetween, you get this result:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 00028a25 EmfridDemo * NEW Line 01xxxxxx EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
- Now both lines are stored in the ESP, and the CS complains when you load two mods that contain the line with the FormID 00028a25 but the game can still handle it.
The real fun begins when you use "Copy" Instead of "New"
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo What is it now? 00028a25 EmfridDemo * Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 01xxxxxx Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
- There is a little bug in the CS: Until you save and reopen the mod only the OLD line is marked as changed, so it seems as if the NEW line (01xxxxxx) were the original one. If you now change the text of 00028a26, a mod that inserted a line at the same place and contains the unchanged line 00028a26 will overwrite your mod's line.
Effects[edit | edit source]
Slightly Unclean Dialogue[edit | edit source]
Let's assume we have two mods that add two lines at the top of "GREETINGS" (and let's also assume that Mod "A" is older than Mod "B")
Mod "A":
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 00028a25 ModA * I'm line one of Mod "A" 01xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 01xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
Mod "B":
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 00028a25 ModB * I'm line one of Mod "B" 01xxxxx1 ModB * I'm line two of Mod "B" 01xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
This is what we call "Slightly Unclean" dialogue. "Unclean" because it contains lines from Oblivion.esm but "slightly" because that causes no damage per se.
In-game a combination of two slightly unclean mods this will result in the following:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 00028a25 ModB * I'm line one of Mod "B" 02xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line one of Mod "A" 01xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 01xxxxx2 ModB * I'm line two of Mod "B" 02xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
- Although both mods were slightly unclean and contained the original Oblivion.esm line with the FormID 00028A25, everything is fine ingame. (The Construction Set will complain about this small conflict, though.)
Unclean Dialogue[edit | edit source]
Now let's assume Mod "A" was created by using the "Copy" function and not heeding the info in the "Causales" section above:
Mod "A":
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 01xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line one of Mod "A" 00028a25 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 01xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
Take note that the line I'm line one of Mod "A" is in truth the modified original Oblivion line with the FormID 00028a25 , while the "What is it now?" line that seems to be from Oblivion.ESM is in truth a new line introduced by the mod. This is a mod with Unclean Dialogue.
Mod "B" is still the slightly unclean mod from above, containing the original but unchanged line with the FormID 00028A25:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 00028a25 ModB * I'm line one of Mod "B" 01xxxxx1 ModB * I'm line two of Mod "B" 01xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
Mod "C" is a clean mod that doesn't contain any original lines:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo What is it now? 00028a25 ModC * I'm line one of Mod "C" 01xxxxx1 ModC * I'm line two of Mod "C" 01xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
Combination of two unclean mods[edit | edit source]
There are two possible results when you combine mod "A" and mod "B" depending on which is older (has the older file-date):
First: Mod "B" (slightly unclean) is older than Mod "A" (unclean)
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 02xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line one of Mod "A" 00028a25 ModB * I'm line one of Mod "B" 01xxxxx1 ModB * I'm line two of Mod "B" 01xxxxx2 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 02xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
- Lucky You, everything is fine, although the original line with the FormID 00028a25 was modified, the game sorted in everything right and there are no problems.
But when Mod "A" is older than Mod "B" this happens:
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 02xxxxx1 EmfridDemo * What is it now? 00028a25 ModB * I'm line one of Mod "B" 01xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 02xxxxx2 ModB * I'm line two of Mod "B" 01xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
- Mod "B" overwrote the changed line with the FormID 00028a25, and suddenly a line of Mod A is missing...
Combining an unclean mod with a clean one[edit | edit source]
A combination of an unclean mod ("A") with a perfectly clean mod ("C") will do no damage at all:
"C" older than "A"
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 01xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line one of Mod "A" 00028a25 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 01xxxxx2 ModC * I'm line one of Mod "C" 02xxxxx1 ModC * I'm line two of Mod "C" 02xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
"A" older than "C"
Quest Name Info FormID -------------------------------------------------------------- EmfridDemo * What is it now? 01xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line one of Mod "A" 00028a25 ModC * I'm line one of Mod "C" 02xxxxx1 ModA * I'm line two of Mod "A" 01xxxxx2 ModC * I'm line two of Mod "C" 02xxxxx2 EmfridDemo Good to see you again.(...) 00028A26 Crime Feeding Time is over (...) 000BF16B
Conclusions[edit | edit source]
- When two mods insert dialogue-lines at the same place in the list, the lines of the older mod will be inserted right after the first line of the newer mod, after that come the remaining lines of the newer mod.
- This is why a mod that modifies original lines from Oblivion is to be considered very unclean, even when there are copies of the original lines that retain the dialogue-functionality while only the unclean mod is installed.
- This is also the reason why mods that just contain unchanged original lines are considered unclean: Those slightly unclean mods will break the unclean ones.
- To prevent this use the Quests-window instead of the Filtered Dialogue-window whenever possible.
- Always have a look on the changed dialogue-lines and the FormIDs Changing a line with a FormID that begins with 00 will create an unclean mod. Having a such a line marked with a "*" means that you have a slightly unclean mod, even when you didn't change line.
- When your mod contains original FormIDs use the Files/Data...Details menu to remove them this way you do the autors of unclean mods a favor by making sure that your mod doesn't break their dialogue.
- Remember: No matter how unclean other mods are, they can't damage your mod as long as it's clean.
Comments[edit | edit source]
As stated above, upon adding a new line the CS is marking edited (*) the line immediately before. This will cause the FormID being stored in the esp even if there's no change on it. From my experience this is useless, and even worse is a potential conflict cause, so my recommendation is to further clean the mod by wiping out this unchanged references through Ignore setting followed by a save.