[This page is outdated! See instead the wiki page: https://wiki.project-tamriel.com/wiki/Questing#Showcases]
Showcases must be made by all modders who work directly in the Construction Set and want to claim exterior, interior, or questing claims. Everyone else does not need to and should not post a showcase thread; check the Modding Guides instead.
Showcases should all be posted in the Showcase Forum.
You should post exactly one showcase thread, in which you can display however many of the three types of showcase you would like.
If your showcase has not been officially reviewed or it seems to be taking a while, please bump the thread as a reminder. Sometimes we forget!
Before posting a quest showcase, please make sure you are familiar with our Quest and Dialogue Tutorial, Quest and Dialogue Guidelines, and Style Guidelines.
Quester Showcase Guidelines
Use the latest version of TR Mainland and TR Data Addon along with the recommended TR Data listed on the TR Addon page.
Quests are designed in the implementation forum or in the asset browser, but the job of actually implementing these quests into the game with the Construction Set is done by questers. Questers will write the dialogue and journal entries for those quests, or implement already written lines.
To make a showcase, post an esp in which you have implemented a quest. Post a brief description of the quest as well. In some cases, you may implement an unclaimed quest as your showcase. If so, please inform someone by posting on the forum or Discord chat.
Quest Showcase Requirements
- Location: Anywhere in Vanilla, TR, or PT.
- Conventions: Must use correct TR_Map ID for NPCs/Scripts/Journals. (Vanilla is m0)
- Journal: 6+ stages
- NPCs: Add 3+ NPCs or Creatures, 2 of which have speaking roles
- Topics: Add 1+ topic, and edit at least a greeting and latest rumors.
- Scripts: Must use at least 2 of: (Positioning, timers, AI Packages, item handling, death)
- Script Variables: Must use TR_Data and give NPCs correct default scripts, or ensure TR NPC local variables are set
We look to make sure:
- Dialogue in game is appropriate to the situation
- Journal progress is recorded, and the quest progresses when the right conditions are met
- The quest closes correctly when completed
- The plugin (.esp file) is clean.
Your scripts must:
- Trigger correctly
- Work efficiently
- Terminate correctly
- Not affect framerate
- Be properly formatted
Cleaning Your Files
On how to clean files, see the TESAME tutorial; for more information on what can be dirty in a quest mod:
Just like Interiors, you want to clean out anything you didn't change. Here are the most common ways a quest mod can be dirty.
NPCs:
Adding dialogue to an existing NPC does not constitute changing the NPC. If you use a pre-existing NPC to create a new one or access the dialogue window, you may end up marking them as "changed" even if you didn't change anything.
Dialogue:
If you add that dialogue to a pre-existing topic, such as greeting 5, it will mark the dialogue entries above and below the added ones as changed even if you haven't changed them. Clean them out.
Dialogue, the hard case:
When you duplicate a dialogue line (by right-clicking on it in the dialogue window and selecting "Copy"), you get two dialogue lines saying the same thing. It is important to know that the upper of these lines is the new one you just created, while the lower one is the old line. So you should edit the upper line, and later clean out the lower line (unless you duplicated a line from your own mod, in which case it's all fine and you don't need to clean). If you do it the other way round, you end up overwriting someone else's dialogue! If you are proficient with command line tools, a way to *find* such problems is using tes3cmd:
| Code: |
| tes3cmd common "Data Files\Morrowind.esm" "Data Files\[your showcase mod].esp" tes3cmd common "Data Files\Bloodmoon.esm" "Data Files\[your showcase mod].esp" tes3cmd common "Data Files\Tribunal.esm" "Data Files\[your showcase mod].esp" tes3cmd common "Data Files\TR_Data.esm" "Data Files\[your showcase mod].esp" |
and checking for all "INFO:" entries in the output. ("DIAL:" and "LTEX:" entries are OK and don't count as dirty.) Then tes3cmd delete can be used to get rid of them, but remember to put your dialogue lines back into your mod.
Cells:
The Construction Set likes to create dirty cell references (refs) even when you do not change cells - this is normal: usually about three or four of them, seven or more when Tamriel Rebuilt files are loaded - and they must be cleaned. Sometimes the only cell-change you make is adding one quest NPC along the road. In such a case it can be difficult to tell which cell you changed, because exterior cells often don't have a name listed in TESAME. What you need to do is double-click on the cell reference in TESAME. The program will display details as to what was changed in that cell. If you don't see something you put in there, it's a dirty cell and should be cleaned out.