Hello, I've been lurking and thinking of posting a showcase for well over a year, and have finally gotten around to it.
My quest showcase begins at the Fields of Kummu shrine.
The overall goal of the quest is to get rid of Gitienne Voirel, who has been stealing and reselling muck from the shrine.
The player has numerous ways to solve this issue. The following should all have distinct journal entries and reactions from the quest giver:
1. Convince Alof the Easterner to deal with Gitienne's theft
2. Pickpocket Kummu muck from Gitienne and confront him
3. Kill Gitienne while undetected
4. Command Gitienne and get him killed in combat
5. Command Gitienne and have him die out of sight
6. Openly kill Gitienne
All of my additions in the construction set are prefixed with wnx_
| Attachment | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|
 Wanax_Showcase.ESP | 21.3 KB | 2022-02-12 03:21 |
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
The quest is pretty solid technically, just needs a few stylistic changes. These are of course more subjective than the techncal stuff, so feel free to question some of the stuff here! That said, here's the review.
Dialogue
-Journal index 100- "He told me to stay away to keep his involvement a secret." Is a little redundant for the journal. It might work if you rephrase it that you defied him in the first sentence itself, but it isn't needed.
-While it's great that you accounted for the PC to command Gitienne, different journals for this creates an expectation for more detail than there is feasable to do. Like here a follow up question would be, "Why is there an entry for killing Galen too?", and while that's doable here, it simply isn't feasible to account for everything in this detail, specially for bigger questlines. You don't need to change it for the review, but the smarter thing to do here would be to just merge this into "I killed ...", because even if you might not have killed him directly, your involvement was the only reason he died.
-Greeting "Are you here to pay a visit to the shrine?..." needs `AddTopic "muckspunge thief"` in the results.
-The way you've filtered it, every dunmer in balmora will say they bought the mucksponge, which feels a little off. At the very least, filter it for (NotLocal NoLore = 0) and disposition>30 (standard for misc dialogue), but IMO have the generic people point the player to the merchant for a specific description. (He might know more about it/ I heard him talking about it, or something like that.)
-"There's no point in lying now. Yes, I've been selling muck. ..." might be a good idea to add "You took my muck? There's no point..." so it feels less abrupt.
-"I've heard foul rumors..." Choices need full stops at the end.
-"The muckspunge thief is on Alof's farm. Deal with him." on->at
-"Gitienne Voirel fits that description. He works on Alof's farm,..." on->at
-"Why would you kill Alof? He was different than other outlanders. ..." "He was different than other outlanders" feels off. maybe replace than to "from the", ?
-"Good. I want to you to go to Balmora and ask locals about the muckspunge thief. ..." needs (showmap "Balmora") in the results.
Scripts
-Generally variables are declared before everything else. Mostly just as a custom, but best to keep things consistent.
-Other than that, the scripts are pretty good.
Playtesting
-Maybe there should be an extra greeting for Galen if you deny the offer to help the first time, something like "Did you have a change of heart? Are you here to help me with the mucksponge thief?".
-(Not strictly needed for the review) It is really hard to actually kill him without him having his weapons drawn at low levels. You have to either kill him in one hit, or calm and then kill. I don't think weapondrawn is needed for this, personally. I get where you're coming from, but checking for no crime being reported is enough for morrowind imo.
-If you find at the chest->talk to Alof, he still wants you to look around for the chest. What I'd do was that if PC found the chest before, I'd bypass the disposition check and just have Alof fire him.
-There's some weird edge cases with command humanoid. If he's attacking some kagouti and dies by their hand(say in an area where no one's there), that's alright, but if I kill him, the journal says that my involvement is not a secret. This is just a consequence of both weapondrawn and command humanoid checks. (For the record, this is why general fallbacks are better for unprobable things than specific journals/script)
Take care!!
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
Thanks for the quick response. My only point of disagreement is the preposition before farm. I feel works on the farm is more natural than at the farm.
As for the scripting around killing Gitienne, I was trying to make it so the player has to be sneaky. I also wanted to prevent the player from just taunting him into attacking, but that's probably too much of my own personal dislike of Morrowind's taunt mechanic. I'll just simplfiy it into either receiving or not receiving a bounty. Trying to get this script to work consistently has been the hardest part, and it looks like there's still some weird outcomes that I didn't expect.
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
Hmm, I've always felt that at was better, but fair enough. About disliking taunt, if you really want to not let that be an option (I feel like it's good, more uses for speechcraft are always welcome IMO), you can take a page out of MT's books and have a greeting that uses goodbye. If you make it sound natural enough here, it'll fit well too.
Take care!!
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
I agree taunt is good from a gameplay perspective, to add more utility to speechcraft. I just find it silly how everyone in Morrowind is ready to fight to the death against a guy in daedric armour because he called them a swit. Anyways, I've added the forced goodbye greeting just for the experience of getting it to work.
Here are all the changes. I think it covers everything:
Added showmap Balmora when sent to Balmora
Addtopic in first greeting.
Set initial greeting from Galen Llandu to only appear if player has not yet talked to him. New greeting if they have but have not accepted quest.
Made Dralasa Nithryon the main informant in Balmora. Other Dunmer direct the player to her.
Modified chest script. Should now give journal entry once player knows thief is Gitienne but before Alof has told them to look for the hidden gold. This now allows player to convince Alof to fire Gitienne, without the disposition check.
Killing Gitienne script now just checks if bounty was applied or not. Journal entries and reaction from Galen Llandu modified accordingly.
Gitienne now greets player with forced goodbye after quest stage 15, unless player has Kummu Muck in their possession.
Various other dialogue and journal changes.
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
There is some mostly minor stuff needed to fix, but since it is still pretty polished and you took the feedback from the previous review really well, I'm recommending you for promotion.
Here's the reivew:
-"Gitienne Voirel is dead. but my involvement is known. I should report back to Galen Llandu." comma after dead instead of full stop.
-"Gitienne does go out at night often enough, and has made a few trips to Balmora. ..." The part when Alof says "What? You already found his..." feels odd mid sentence. I recommend either having the player say that as a choice, or the dialogue implying that the player already said it.
-If you find the chest before talking to Alof first, the "I should talk to Alof." part of the journal feels off. It'd be better to let the player find that themselves.
-"The muck has been growing in peace, thanks to you." feels a bit weird if you talk about it just after telling him that you helped him. "Muck will be safe" fits better for both contexts.
-Making Gitienne disable after some time if he leaves/is fired might be a good idea immersion wise.
-Weird interaction: if you look at the stash before doing anything, you have to look at it again afterwards for it to work properly. If you actually want it to work, creating a global that tracks it is probably the easiest way.
-For the stash script, you can also do
So you don't have to use activate multiple times.
Take care!!
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
Great to be able to join! Hope I'll be able to help once EoE claims open.
In terms of a global script for the chest. Would something like this work?
Then have a condition for Alof "muckspunge thief" topic: Global gitienne_chest_var = 1 (and also some journal stage conditions so he isn't going to have the topic outside the quest).
2018-06-02 23:21
1 hour 7 min ago
Promoted to quest dev :)
https://github.com/cheflul/Chefmod
https://github.com/cheflul/chefs-files
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
Yeah that'll work. Also, I recommend reading https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/resource-trmainland-cs-id-guidel... if you haven't already, for the IDs TR uses.
Take care!!
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
My exterior showcase is attached.
2022-08-03 17:47
7 months 3 weeks ago
I took a quick look and I don't see any major errors. The Hlaalu village is quite nice. I think a bit more detail could help.
I hope that an exterior reviewer can take a closer look.
2018-06-02 23:21
1 hour 7 min ago
The island is very promising but there are a few things I feel need to be addressed before its ready for review
-While the ref count is similar to vanilla BC cells, the land feels a little bare on detailing. You could reduce some of the large groups of grass and knees and place more ferns and shrooms around.
-A lot of rough jagged spots along the coast, do a smoothing pass on it.
-The hlaalu town pavement should be WG_Road or WG_Cobblestones
-The road could be sunk a bit better in some places. There are parts where it just conforms to the hill slopes.
-The pathspears should be lower, they are almost head height.
-The hill the city is on could be more detailed (only a little more)
https://github.com/cheflul/Chefmod
https://github.com/cheflul/chefs-files
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
New version. Still needs some work but uploading it for now.
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
If there are no major style issues, this should be alright. I've checked it closely for smaller problems.
I've sunken roads, where possible. Any more would need some larger terrain changes. Also increased the amount of detail, while trying to stay below 250 refs.
2019-03-29 08:58
4 weeks 7 hours ago
gave some feedback in Discord, showcase is coming close to completion
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
Addressed comments in DM.
2022-02-06 18:13
3 hours 40 min ago
Fixed some crates. Hopefully the very last one.
2019-03-29 08:58
4 weeks 7 hours ago
All good, recommending for promotion