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Wrye Bash Wiki Discussion Thread


Sharlikran

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Since @FelesNoctis has done such a good job on the documentation, which may still need some updating, there is no reason to have two sites for documentation. However, I need a resource to add things I find important about Wrye Bash. That could be functions not mentioned in the docs or explanations because what is in the documentation is that that clear. I am still working on what I want and in the end if there is too much modding information and not enough about Wrye Bash I may have to address that by splitting them up and making a modding wiki. Right now everything is in very early stages.

For certain I am not trying to replace sites like TAL, TESNexus, the Nexus, the CK Wiki, or UESP Wiki.

This thread is mostly just for discussing things. What things I don't know yet. I'll be honest I am making new decisions as I go. As I will mention below most of the reports for changes or issues should be made on the Wiki GitHub tracker.

One goal I do have however is to preserve some of the Bethesda posts and their information. As I do so I will link to the Bethesda post as the source in the credits. Once I have integrated the links into a page on the wiki you can consider those posts obsolete. If there was good information in a link to that post that links to a dead domain then I did not preserve the entry and or the dead link. I will not be linking to any Wayback Machine or web archive links such as archive.gamedev.net. A secondary goal I have is to verify every link and provide only links that are active and that don't look like a virus ridden haven for data mining. I may have a few sites that look somewhat questionable but only when I feel if it looks somewhat legitimate.

If you need to communicate about a link you can provide feedback here. Please keep the feedback constructive. Any decisions I make in regards to any feedback may not be final however, I also may not want to deal with it depending on the request itself.

The Wiki can be found at this link: Wrye Bash Wiki
The GitHub tracker for reporting issues is here: GitHub Issue Tracker

One feature I would like to share with you is that the site is made entirely from Wrye Text a form of converting text to HTML that Wrye used for Wryemusings. The download comes with a sample document and an optional Python script you can use to convert your text document to HTML and see approximately what it would look like on the site. With that I do not take CSS and HTML submissions. Everything should conform to the Wrye Text standard as that is how I will be building all the pages. I am open to some suggestions but I do not want the Wrye Text to be expanded on so that it becomes another form of HTML. It is meant to be simple enough that anyone can understand the format and provide Wrye Bash related or modding related information to share with others. Please do not use CSS or HTML when you submit your text document as I will have to remove it unless it's basic enough. Things for sure that would not be allowed is Font Size changes.

For more information visit the Contribute: Generate Wiki pages from Text Files portion section of the wiki.

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5 hours ago, Sharlikran said:

For certain I am not trying to replace sites like TAL, TESNexus, the Nexus, the CK Wiki, or UESP Wiki.

Of course not, but I need to remind you that people in the Morrowind modding community has always relied on the Wayback Machine.  Because the Morrowind community is the oldest TES community with almost 20 years of activity and many TES sites went down in the golden era of modding back in 2002-2004 which I posted about here.

However, if you doesn't want to have a separate Morrowind section for Wrye Mash and the other mod user tools then consider the option to add more information on the Morrowind Modding Community Wiki that brucoms started more than 5 years ago.  Unfortunately, he went MIA and haven't been active on TAL since then.  I also know his account on TAL is no longer valid and the reason for that is unknown to me.

If you haven't done that there is also the ES Archive site, now defunct, in which Yacoby created a long time ago and I think he did that when Bethesda switch forum back in 2005/2006 (that explains why Arthmoor joined BSF in 2006 when he in reality joined BSF in 2002/2003).  Back then it was called the Elder Scrolls forum IIRC.

There is also the Morrowind Mythic Mods site, still working and updated.

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One more for you Sharlikran which you may not have seen before

Someone from the old Bethesda site, Tomlong75210 did a site called TES:Positive, which evolved into TES:COSI. Tomlong left the community RL took priority .. And then Andalaybay contacted Tomlong getting permission to preserve the site over on TAL, and it was then moved to TAL WIKI :

TESCOSI

I have linked you to a page you may not have seen before (although it has been presented I think in the Wrye Bash documentation a bit less fleshed out), which is a general guide to Wrye Bash BAIN Install Order (as opposed to Load Order)

 

The site was very well researched at the time, and has some gems of information among pages which may take quite a lot of looking through, a lot of people found it very useful .. But I dont know how up to date it is, so some info may be a bit behind the times for current Wrye Bash developments.

Anyway thought I would link it as a possible useful resource which may not be easy to find on The Assimilation Lab forum, if you dont know it is linked there to the WIKI

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If you click the TESCOSI Main Page link, there are more links on the right of the page .. Where exactly the lists of mods are I dont know, but I do know not everything is linked on the main page and may take a bit of finding among all the pages ..

.. As far as I know though, everything on the TAL WIKI is all that was recoverable.

I wouldn't try following old TESIV POSitive links, those sites will probably have changed hands with porn / malware pushers since.

UBlock Origins filter list is certainly blocking it as not trusted anymore.

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3 hours ago, alt3rn1ty said:

If you click the TESCOSI Main Page link, there are more links on the right of the page .. Where exactly the lists of mods are I dont know, but I do know not everything is linked on the main page and may take a bit of finding among all the pages ..

.. As far as I know though, everything on the TAL WIKI is all that was recoverable.

Yep, here is the link.

http://wiki.theassimilationlab.com/tescosi/Where_and_How_to_Find_Mods

However, I know both elderscrolls.filefront.com and ElricM are now defunct sites and has been for over 5 years now.

Below is the last working snapshot for TES Search.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150113004755/http://www.tessearch.com/

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@alt3rn1ty I added Emma's and Canadian Ice even though it's scheduled to go down as of a year ago. I have links to the popular mods that are on MMH.

@Leonardo I addressed the official file you mentioned, it's now an unofficial patch.

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Thanks for changing that. :)

Although, I think it would be better to change it to "community patch" rather to an unofficial patch.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Leonardo I don't know how to do it or if it is a function or feature. However, Bethesda may consider taking down the old Bethesda forums for good. Mostly for security concerns. Because of that if there is a way to get the Wayback Machine, despite my previous comments, to start archiving the Bethesda site now would be a good time. The time frame could be weeks rather then months.

I don't see a way to make it pull or crawl the entire Bethesda site to try and capture it all.

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4 hours ago, Sharlikran said:

I don't know how to do it or if it is a function or feature. However, Bethesda may consider taking down the old Bethesda forums for good. Mostly for security concerns. Because of that if there is a way to get the Wayback Machine, despite my previous comments, to start archiving the Bethesda site now would be a good time. The time frame could be weeks rather then months.

I don't see a way to make it pull or crawl the entire Bethesda site to try and capture it all.

What do you mean, I don't follow you?

If you mean how to use the Wayback Machine then it is easy, just copy a link, any link, and paste it in at the top line there it says.  See below.

http://

And search for it.  Although, you might need to wait a minute or two before a snapshot appear, if there is a snapshot available of course.

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@Leonardo Acording to Arthmoor he mentioned they have a procedure to block what the Wayback Machine does. I'll give it to you but I fear it will not work. I have been looking for any posts I feel has good information in it and keeping them. I won't be able to keep all the RELz posts for those who host links still active for sites not on the nexus and preserve that but I don't know how I am going to capture and organize everything. I especially don't want all the whining and CTD posts or any other garbage posts but the forums will come down in more like weeks rather then months

With the state of IBP software and all the customization and plugins they have it would be far more work then we would realize to keep them up and they have had two issues recently within the last few weeks so the time has come. Even if I don't want it to. So if you have links somewhere post them here so I can visit them. Keep in mind I already any of the popular ones. Especially if someone like Psymon posted it.

The main start of the forums is here though. From there you can choose Elder Scrolls and then any of it's subboards.

 

Elder Scrolls

Oblivion

Morrowind

Skyrim

Fallout if you are interested

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image.thumb.png.a8110b1113aef0b020847d6470b360a1.png

 

All I ever see is a calendar so if you know where to go just do it rather then try to tell me how. I'm working on my own methods with a program that hooks into my browser to record the html as I view the page.

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@Arthmoor If you have any links you think would be good to preserve, leave them here. No list is too long. I can sort through the HTML later and organize the information or the links at a later time. For now I just need to capture the information. it takes only a few seconds to capture each page and if the post has 4 pages I get all 4 at once. I just don't know where to look.

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7 hours ago, Sharlikran said:

All I ever see is a calendar so if you know where to go just do it rather then try to tell me how. I'm working on my own methods with a program that hooks into my browser to record the html as I view the page.

The Wayback Machine will always show a page like that, so that means the old BSF can be viewed via the Wayback Machine even after it enter the closest Oblivion portal and vanish from normal browsing.

Now, see the linked 31th of March and that means you can click on that to view that snapshot.  Try it and see it what it show. :)

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You'll be lucky if there's much there at a deeper level. Even on a site with no bots being blocked, archive.org is notoriously unreliable at getting everything that's there.

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Archive.org uses what it calls Wikipedia Eventstream for collections. This may be related to EventStreams or even Event Stream Processing, however one might imagine the old Bethsoft forums to have not ever glutted on RT events. What I believe it does is run the following scripts for Morrowind in a separate namespace:

Spoiler

http://forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/ips.forums.js -2 months 24 days
https://forums.bethsoft.com/uploads/profile/photo-553102.jpg?_r=1396433642 -2 months 12 days
https://forums.bethsoft.com/uploads/profile/photo-893497.jpg?_r=1379274395 -2 months 12 days
http://forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/ipb.js?ipbv=41fb2133379a024b7c2e9ff949cb94ed&load=quickpm,hovercard,forums -2 months 15 hours
https://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?app=core&module=task -1 month 6 days
http://forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/ips.hovercard.js -26 days 16 hours
http://forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/ips.quickpm.js -26 days 16 hours
https://esrbstorage.blob.core.windows.net/esrbcontent/images/privacy_certified_globe_color.gif -21 days 3 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_css/css_7/calendar_select.css?ipbv=41fb2133379a024b7c2e9ff949cb94ed -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/user_register.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/feed.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/js/ipbforumskins.js -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_css/css_7/ipb_common.css?ipbv=41fb2133379a024b7c2e9ff949cb94ed -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/js/logogarden.js?ipbv=41fb2133379a024b7c2e9ff949cb94ed -20 days 23 hours
http://forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/3rd_party/scriptaculous/scriptaculous-cache.js -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/_custom/dropdown_arrow.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/useropts_arrow.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/top.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_css/css_7/ipb_styles.css?ipbv=41fb2133379a024b7c2e9ff949cb94ed -20 days 23 hours
http://forums.bethsoft.com/cache/lang_cache/1/ipb.lang.js?nck=4b93cd7f1f76df9c2c1783aae5cc39b1 -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/user_login.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/_custom/icon-social_twitter.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/_custom/icon-social_facebook.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/_cache/Platform.js -20 days 23 hours
http://forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/3rd_party/prototype.js -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/_custom/icon-social_youtube.png -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/clear.gif -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_css/css_7/skinbox.css?ipbv=41fb2133379a024b7c2e9ff949cb94ed -20 days 23 hours
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/bethesda-logo.png -20 days 23 hours
http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/logos/pcsoft.png -20 days 22 hours
http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/logos/bethesda.png -20 days 22 hours
http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/logos/bgs.png -20 days 22 hours
http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/logos/ps3_psn.png -20 days 22 hours
http://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com/bethsoft.com/images/ratings/esrb_morrowind.png -20 days 22 hours
http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/logos/xbox360_live.png -20 days 22 hours
http://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com/forums.bethsoft.com/mental-health-gov.png -20 days 22 hours

/zenimax.com/legal/new_text_en.png +14 hours 58 minutes
https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/f_icon_read.png -2 hours 45 minutes
http://forums.bethsoft.com/uploads/av-250441.gif?_r=0 -2 hours 43 minutes
https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js +55 minutes 51 seconds
http://forums.bethsoft.com/uploads/profile/photo-914644.gif?_r=1465668636 -50 minutes 17 seconds

It's yet to be verified that these same files are associated with any forum topic, which implies they are not just specific to Morrowind (86).

Not sure if that is all either, because there doesn't appear to be any direct link to any database for the actual forum content.

What's interesting is that the link http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com appears to time out- it then defaults to an (alt tag?) redirection to http://smugcat.bethsoft.com/forums.bethsoft.com/. An ex Bethsoft techo might know a thing about that- if it signifies anything at all.

https://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com doesn't appear to be archived at all- perhaps the D/B resides in there?

Similar to above, try https://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com/zenimax.com and get:

Spoiler

<Error>
<Code>AccessDenied</Code>
<Message>Access Denied</Message>
<RequestId>944F6768D3C8F21E</RequestId>
<HostId>
GAz8ACKYgMsPw3I0tIQ04s8eBz+v7DXngNZtBfHbNTgfjbovYY+W47e3ckU+YCsyHmc9MJgW+CA=
</HostId>
</Error>

Not much either at https://static.zenimax.com/, a 403 at http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/, and another 403 at https://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/ with a handy back button prompt.

There may be more info with other tools, obtaining a full directory listing on a guest login would be a start.

The individual js files don't reveal too much- this one has the logo ids which correspond to their forum urls:

http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/style_images/warriorimg/js/logogarden.js?

Note that different edits of the same versions of the board js files reside in different locations:

e.g. http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/ips.board.js vs. http://static.zenimax.com/forums/public/js/ips.board.js

or http://static.zenimax.com/forums.bethsoft.com/public/js/ips.forums.js vs. http://static.zenimax.com/forums/public/js/ips.forums.js

And so on. Might this have later broken the functionality in the forums?

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There may be help at hand. A magical script to re-organize the entire content into a searchable format. Stay tuned for updates! :)

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After slumbering for eighteen months in a dark morass, a messenger appeared in the light of a new day, directing me to this discourse that some assistance may be desired. The quest to be undertaken, this I was told, will be to save BSF from being banished into the Nether.

 

On this, I have a suggestion to propose. It may be possible to cast a spell of duplication on the subject to save it from being lost in the abyss of the Infernal Regions. Seven years ago, I had figured out a way of configuring wget to archive an IP.Board site. While my notes are lost somewhere in my library, it may be possible, nevertheless, to rebuild them from the confines of my brain.

 

I am not able to make any promises as my soul and spirit are still somewhat trapped in a cage crafted by a dark force, fighting to escape, but I will attempt to assist in this grand quest and endeavor.

 

Now, my proposal does come with two caveats:

1) storage - I have no idea how large this will be and I'm not entirely sure I'll have the space for if

2) hosting - in order to serve this, should it be successful, explicit permission will need to be acquired from Zenimax for legal reasons.

 

For both those reasons, I'll not (more than likely) be able to host the final product (if there is one) as my server is being set up for an upcoming project/somewhat business and will have limited resources in the begining (it is also still being worked on as I've been very slow).

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I wouldn't say I'm back to this Realm but I will attempt to recreate the incantation. I can provide more details as for why I'm not exactly back just yet in private (preferably email as I am not able to effectively use the forum software) however.

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I started looking at wget a few minutes ago and the settings have started to come back to me. I may have something in a couple of days. 😄

 

It won't be the basic mirroring command as we'll want to do some filtering. As I recall, it consisted of about five options in all that had to be set to grab a forum.

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