I'm Sorry Too

I'll try to make this as brief as possible.

It's extremely annoying when I have to fix other people's mods before I can play them.

Lately I've been focusing my attention on Morrowind, getting my install with around 200 mods running properly so I can actually enjoy playing it from time to time. This has involved my having to fix a few mods created by other people just to get them to work properly. I wanted to take this opportunity to rant about one such instance which particularly pissed me off to the point of spouting profanity out loud.

For those of you unfamiliar with Morrowind modding I'll try to keep the techno-babble brief, but suffice it to say it's a tad different from modding Oblivion or the Fallouts and in some ways more difficult. For leveled lists and dialog to work properly merged patches have to be created and this can pose unique problems if you're working on a mod or simply adding something new to your load order in mid-game. In Oblivion, for example, you can drop in some new companion characters, load up a save and go on about your merry way (most of the time; I know there are a few exceptions). If you try to do this in Morrowind, however, you're likely to end up seeing duplicate copies of every modded NPC, creature or item in the game, then you have to use a utility to delete or re-sequence the records in your saved game to hopefully fix the issues, as well as having to recreate all those merged lists I mentioned.

So my character is level 4 now, and I decide to add a few newly-discovered mods to my game as I'm playing along. The mods just add some dungeons and NPCs, so this should be simple enough. As expected, however, I get some of these doubling effects produced by some of my previously installed mods and I set out to take all the measures necessary to fix the problems. I recreate all the merged patches and clean my save game as directed, then I load up my game and still see a duplicate NPC walking around. So I go through the entire cleaning process again, and again the duplicates are there. Thinking I must have missed something or not done it properly, I go through the process again. Still the duplicates are there. I try the suggestion of making the .esp into an .esm and then go through the cleaning process yet again. Still the duplicate NPC is there. Finally I get so frustrated that I simply give up and go to bed.

This morning I felt like trying again, but this time I had the presence of mind to find out which mod contains the NPC that's being duplicated and open it in the CS to see if maybe the issue is in the plugin itself. I normally would have done this sooner, but the mod is entitled "Clean Dungeon Mages"; in the world of Morrowind mods, having the word "clean" as the first word in the mod title supposedly indicates that it has been cleaned of all the unnecessary cell references and GMSTs that cause major problems with plugins for this game and the mod is thus totally safe to use. But guess what I discover when I open the mod in the editor?

That's right... the mod author placed two copies of the same NPC in the same cell. No fucking wonder I couldn't get rid of the duplicate from my saved game! I've wasted an entire evening and most of the following morning trying to remove something that can't be removed from the save because it's in the fucking plugin itself!

So to TrevorDemented, author of "Clean Dungeon Mages", I would simply like to say this:

Thanks a lot, you fucking moron!

And with that, I bid the rest of you have a good day...