TheLaugher's Quest Showcase

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TheLaugher's picture
TheLaugher
Joined:
2023-06-06 04:09
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1 year 4 months ago

Hello, my name is Nick "TheLaugher", and I have some ideas for quests in Morrowind, and what better place to make quests in Morrowind than in Tamriel Rebuilt.  I've heard whispers of this project, but I learned about this project and what it's doing from Warlockracy, and I'm interested. So here is my application for quest designer and writer, and a show case for a quest I'd like to make.  The quests I plan on making are side quests, and a lot of the quests I plan on working with are quests about slavery, if that's not too weird, and this quest I'll be showcasing isn't any different.  So here's the quest:

May be a Price to Pay:

In Balmora there is a farm owner named Dayllen Kryn on buisness, and he believes he left something behind at his farm, but he doesn't know what he left behind, and wants you to see what he left at his farm.  At the farm is a slave who tells you that what was left behind was Dayllen Kryn's slave key, and the rest of the slaves used it to escape. You can find the escaped slaves in a cave nearby where they are hiding and they will ask you to get in touch with the Twin Lamps who will help them get off of Vvardenfell.  Will you help Dayllen Kryn in getting his slaves back, or will you get the Twin Lamps to take the slaves away.

This is a proto version of the quest I'd like to make in the mainland.  If a quest like this would work for the area where you are developing on, let me know.  Right now in this quest you can't get the slaves to work for Dayllen Kryn, but to expand on the quest I want to give the player the ability to get the slaves to work for Dayllen Kryn by getting the help of the Cat Catchers, but I wonder if there is going to be a Cat Catcher hall in Narsis or is there only going to be one in Almalexia.  I also plan on expanding the character of the Twin Lamps agent, See-Kret, who is on the mainland, and here he is a double agent for the Twin Lamps on the Cat Catchers.  If this doesn't make sense because the Twin Lamps don't work on the mainland, than let me know about the abolitionists in the region. If this doesn't make sense because the area he will be in might have an overabundance of abolitionists, than I'll keep the character the same as he is now. I thought it would be a good way for the player to come in conflict with the Cat Catchers if they want to help the slaves, and I wanted to make a chatacter who is a slaver double agent for abolitionists.

Another way I was planning on expanding the quest was when the quest ends and Dayllen comes back on his farm he will develop it over time. After one day he gets a guard for his farm, who I'm planning on being a Cat Catcher that helped Dayllen Kryn to get his slaves back.  If the escaped slaves were killed or got out of Morrowind, than Dayllen Kryn will get two new slaves over time to work on his farm.  If Dayllen Kryn dies than I plan on making a follow up quest where the player finds if they can get someone to take over the farm, or help a former slave of Dayllen Kryn in taking over the farm.

Thank you for checking me out!

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Binary Data TR_m0_PricetoPay.ESP104.51 KB2023-06-27 04:30
aveno's picture
aveno
Senior DeveloperInterior Reviewer
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2022-10-07 22:15
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6 days 13 hours ago

Hey. Thanks for uploading this

I'm no quest dev so I cannot offer any input on your quest, however I can suggest you join the discord if you have not done so already. It's great help with the development process and you can get good advice on your showcase 

Ronik's picture
Ronik
Senior DeveloperQuest Reviewer
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2023-04-16 18:05
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7 hours 55 min ago

Hi! I'm not a quest reviewer, only a quest developer, so I can't give you a proper review of the showcase, but I've taken a quick look to give you some general feedback.

First of all, to me the quest seems to be quite well written! I didn't see any major issues with the writing, but this is something that the reviewers will tell you better than I can :)

Here's some specific feedback regarding the implementation:

1) Even though you're not editing the mainland, the file always needs to be dependant on TR_Mainland.esm.
2) The file is quite dirty. There are some exterior edits that I doubt are intended, also quite a few edits of vanilla dialogue entries. This should be cleaned with TESAME.
3) You're not adding NPCs to mainland and therefore you're not using the TR map scripts for NPCs, but even in your custom Map 0 scripts, you should still declare the same variables and try to use them where possible. For example, in Dayllen Kryn's script, you're declaring "atFarm" and "count" variables where you could use the standartized "control" and "controlQ" variables that TR uses instead. This is done so we don't declare a million different local variables that are only used once. Please take a look at some of the generic TR scripts (like T_ScNpc_Mw_Map4).
4) To follow up on that, you have created a Khajiit NPC that uses one of the new TR Khajiit races, but you're not declaring a T_Local_Khajiit variable and you're not including the check that sets it to 1. Once again, you should take a look at the generic TR scripts to see how that's done.
5) You never have to (and shouldn't) use commas in your scripts, so for example "Position, -556, -40430, 525, 0" should just be "Position -556 -40430 525 0".
6) A few times, you're multiplying the same dialogue lines just so you can offer different choices. You shouldn't do this and it's not necessary - you should just handle it by conditionals in the results window. For example, the results for the Hmm, escaped slaves in Harkanon... Well, I have a question for you. Have you seen the Twin Lamps? line in the escaped slaves topic can look like this to achieve the same result:

if ( GetJournalIndex "TR_m0_PriceToPay" >= 20 )
Choice "Im-Kilaya told me about you." 3 "They light the way to freedom." 2
elseif ( GetJournalIndex "HH_TwinLamps1" >= 5 )
Choice "They light the way to freedom." 2
endif
Choice "Why are you asking me this question?" 1

7) To add to that, I don't know exactly why do you have six copies of this line with different conditions, but my hunch is that this is a bit overcomplicated and can probably be handled in a more simpler way.
8) There's also quite a lot of journal entries for a quest like this. I would suggest to take a look if you really need all of them. Generally, vanilla TES3 quests don't use as many journal entries and the player instead has to search for information across the different topics.
9) I would also suggest changing the escaped slaves topic to something a bit more specific so it's easier to search for, like Kryn's escaped slaves.

This is all that has caught my eye so far, but I didn't playtest the quest, so I can't give you feedback in regards to that.

Regarding Narsis, there is definitely going to be a Cat Catcher hall there, so I think that this quest could be adapted for Narsis. I'm not too familiar with the Twin Lamps plans, but considering Narsis questing will most likely start somewhat soon, it's likely that a quest like this could be implemented to Narsis with some changes so it fits the overall plan. It would be best to discuss this on the Discord.

As Aveno mentioned, please feel free to ask any questions or ask for feedback in the showcase channel of the Discord. We would be happy to help you out :)

TheLaugher's picture
TheLaugher
Joined:
2023-06-06 04:09
Last seen:
1 year 4 months ago

I've made those fixes Ronik.  One thing that maybe contentious are the journal entries I've deleted.  I only deleted 4 entries: 2, 145, a_30, a_60.  If you think there are other journal entries that should be deleted let me know.

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Binary Data TR_m0_PricetoPay_cleaned.esp95.33 KB2023-07-05 04:01
pralec's picture
pralec
Senior DeveloperWriting ReviewerExterior DeveloperQuest Reviewer
Joined:
2022-04-18 15:48
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6 hours 52 sec ago

Hello Nick! I'm a reviewer for TR and I've taken a look at your quest.

Unfortunately I don't think it will make a suitable showcase. It is too large and complex to review effectively, and has some design issues which make it difficult to test -- that is, asking the player to escort Kryn from Balmora to his farm.

Also you use the trope of the appreciative slave in the quest, who is thankful that his master doesn't whip him. This is content that we avoid in TR. Also I am afraid that when you join TR, that does not give you free reign to implement only the stories which interest you. We have a claims process where quest designs are reviewed by the development team. If you only want to implement this slave-related content, TR may not be a good fit for you, especially because slave-related content is an area that will be very tightly moderated by the development team.

Your writing is quite good, though I would advise you to take a look at the Style Guide, and particularly the advice on simplifying and shortening. With the amount of reading you are asked to do when playing Morrowind, it is best if dialogue gets to the point.

All this being said, you clearly have a grasp of the Dialogue window and MWScript. If you want to, you can implement a simpler quest design. Take a look at Khazar's most recent showcase for an example of what a simple showcase design looks like. Alternatively, I recommend you keep an eye out for when misc claims are opened for the Thirr Valley section (in the next day or two) and claim one of those for your showcase.