Hello everybody! I have recently played with the latest release of Tamriel Rebuilt and I was impressed by it. Therefore, I would like to apply to the team as a quest developer and writer. I'm mostly interested in the roleplaying aspect of the game, which I think is reflected in my work. I'm always looking for ways to give players the ability to make more choices in quests and also to bear the consequences (in a tangible, visible manner) of said choices. I have created several mods in the last couple of years, however for showcase I would like to choose only one of them which contains a single quest. I believe that despite its shortness, it demonstrates everything that you might be interested in: in addition to having dialogue with multiple choices and journal entries, it also contains a new NPC and even a script.
The Mystery of the Ghost Snake
Mabrigash are outcast Ashlander witch-warriors who are rumored to have the ability to drain men's vital essences. This mod adds a new quest into the game: help out a tribe of non-aggressive Mabrigash, by finding them a replacement for the male slave they have just killed. In return, they would share some knowledge about the origins of Mabrigash and the Ghost Snake, the spirit that they worship. In addition to which, they would also teach you some of the mysteries of the Ghost Snake, so you would also have the opportunity to be like a Mabrigash, and steal men's vital essences.
To begin: Talk with Kausha Mantashpi in the Ashamanu Camp, which is on a small island to the west of Tel Aruhn. It is the camp where Arlowe and the Banhammer is.
To unlock the quest and the rest of the content, you need to be a Dunmer woman, who is a member of the Ashlanders faction (Which can be achieved by completing the "Meet Sul-Matuul" vanilla quest, or by console commands). These witch-warriors do not trust outsiders, and especially not male outsiders, after all.
The mod is also available on the Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/49358
| Attachment | Size | Date |
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 The Mystery of the Ghost Snake.ESP | 11.96 KB | 2022-01-16 23:28 |
2016-01-26 02:09
7 months 1 week ago
Hey Alice! Someone qualified to review your quest will be around shortly, but in the meantime I recommend you join the projects Discord where most of our activity happens.
Hi! Thank you for the suggestion, I've joined your Discord.
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
Welcome to TR! The quest is very nice overall, most of the review is just minor technical things and stuff related to TR.
Scripting-
-You don't need to use endif if you're using elseif/else afterwards. Also, here you can just use else instead of elseif.
-The slave needs the `nolore` variable too. (All other slaves do, and he doesn't need to know about local area and stuff.)
-It'd be great to see a little bit more complicated script for the showcase, like enabling the slave after a few days, or a timer.
Playtest-
-The dialogue makes it seem like you can get any non prominent male dunmer. I'd either change it a bit so the player is railroaded a bit more towards the single slave(sidenote: the player's journal preferably shouldn't be the thing that railroads) or make it so that the player can get more people. The latter will be a lot harder though.
-Though not strictly needed(not needed at all for the actual showcase), some dialogue/custom greetings for the mabrigash and maybe the slave after the quest is complete would be good.
-The dialogue and the lore of it is really good.
-Some failsafe journal entries to end the quest if the player kills the mabrigash/slave would be great.
Dialogue-
-Journal index 10: "She told me that even though I'm an outlander, I'm a Dunmer woman, who was adopted by the Ashlanders, and that I have appeared in a vision to her, therefore, I am given the opportunity to be initiated into the cult of the Ghost Snake."
IMO it'll flow better if it's split into a couple of sentences.
Greetings
-"You are an outlander, so normally, I wouldn't talk with you, however, you have appeared in a vision for me, as one chosen by the Ghost Snake for a great task." would also be better if it's split into two sentences.
-For the choices in the same greeting, I like the expressive choices, but they have a downside: like what if the player didn't want the opportunity to accumulate more knowledge, but just wanted to be a part of the Mabrigash? IMO the choices should be a bit less certain in why the player is accepting/rejecting of the offer. Alternatively, these choices would work if the knowledge part was a bit more in focus.(i.e. maybe focus on the mysteries part more in the introduction or make it so that she entices you with the topic "my knowledge" first)
-"Very well. The initiastion of every Mabrigash..." iirc mabrigash is capitalized for the faction as a whole, but not for a single person.
-There are a few more places where splitting into different sentences, or changing the sentences a bit to reduce commas will flow better. (This is a bit nitpicky, but it's important in morrowind because all the intonation is decided by commas and periods.)
- IMO it'll be better if buying the slave was handled inside a topic. Just greeting someone that they don't have enough gold for a slave is a bit jarring.
- "Our new slave has arrived. ..." There should be addtopic "my knowledge" in the results
Topic 'my knowledge'
-"The Ashlands are a rough place, food is scarce, and we live in danger because of the blight, and because of our conflicts with other Ashlander tribes and the settled people. The only way we can survive is by doing what our ancestors have done: after all, it worked for them, and we are still here." would be better as "The Ashlands are a rough place. Food is scarce, we live in danger because of the blight, and because of our conflicts with other Ashlander tribes and the settled people, the only way we can survive is by doing what our ancestors have done: after all, it worked for them, and we are still here."
Misc-
-Since this isn't a TR related quest, I recommend you look at https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/resource-trmainland-cs-id-guidel... for future reference.
-For TR quests, greeting 0 is almost never used. Instead, either greeting 1 or greeting 5 is used depending upon what you want to do. It's fine for this showcase, but I recommend taking a look at https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/guidelines-quests-and-dialogue for info on which greetings should be in which tab, if you haven't already.
Feel free to ask if you have any doubts or problems!
Take care!!
The Mystery of the Ghost Snake, version 1.2:
- Added a nolore variable to the male slave, he doesn't need to be an encyclopedia of the local area
- Prolonged the quest: you need to ask around more for finding a male slave, added unique dialogue to many vanilla characters (such as slaves, Twin Lamps members, slave traders etc.) concerning the "male slave" topic
- Added some new custom greetings for the male slave and the mabrigash after finishing the quest
- Fixed typos, made the dialogue flow better
- Added the "AddTopic "my knowledge" line to the result box for when the slave is delivered to the mabrigash to ensure that you would unlock the new dialogue topic, no matter what
I wanted to modify the script in the manner that you have described (using "else" instead of "elseif," omitting the "endif" before "else/elseif") but the script just didn't work that way. The only thing I could do is adding the NoLore variable to it. I'm a Linux user, so the most intelligent way of playing the game for me is OpenMW. OpenMW tends to have problems with scripts sometimes, so it might only be a problem on my end. Nevertheless, I hope that it is all right this way too. In exchange, I have added many new unique dialogue lines (even went beyond of what you required) to make the quest a bit more interesting.
I have also uploaded the new version to the Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/49358
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
Reviewed! Just one more pass should do it, I think!
-As I said in the previous review, something more complicated for a script will be good for a review. (An idea: Enable the slave only after 3 days have passed after buying him.) Feel free to ask on discord if you want me to elaborate/ need help with the script.
-All generic dialogue should have a NoLore check.
-The new dialogue is good too, but only the generic dialogue needs to be filtered for NotID.
-For the script, I misread it a bit due to indentation, my bad.
-Not necessarily needed, but it'd be better if buying the slave was done through topic "male slave" rather than the greetings. (So the player can talk to Savile about it rather than it just coming up unprompted.
-Greeting 0:"[The male slave looks around with caution, before he whispers to you.]..." No need for comma after Oblivion.
-Very nitpicky, but "All of my current merchandise is booked by others." feels a little too modern to me, home-delivery like. "I have none available for that." or something like that might be better.
-Some disposition decreases where the npc gets angry with the player might be nice to have.
-(From the last review)
> For the choices in the greeting, I like the expressive choices, but they have a downside: like what if the player didn't want the opportunity to accumulate more knowledge, but just wanted to be a part of the Mabrigash? IMO the choices should be a bit less certain in why the player is accepting/rejecting of the offer. Alternatively, these choices would work if the knowledge part was a bit more in focus.(i.e. maybe focus on the mysteries part more in the introduction or make it so that she entices you with the topic "my knowledge" first)
IMO this'll still make the quest better. If you don't think so, feel free to tell me why.
Take care!!
The Mystery of the Ghost Snake, version 1.3:
Things that I have modifed:
- Now a day will pass between purchasing the slave, and him being delivered to the camp of the Mabrigash, for the sake of immersion (A more complicated script)
- Removed the unnecessary NotID filters in dialogue, where applicable
- Further proofreading and stylistic corrections (including that comma before the word, "Oblivion" and making the dialogue of the slave traders less "modern")
- Disposition decrease for the male slave when you talk to him: he is supposed to hate you, as the one responsible for his captivity, after all
- Less expressive choices for either accepting or declining the proposal of the mabrigash, for the sake of roleplaying characters with different motivations and worldviews
Things that I haven't modified:
- I've tried adding the NoLore check for the generic dialogue about finding a male slave, but when I tested it, I've randomly chosen ten NPCs and none of them had the dialogue with that check. I feel that the existence of the Tel Aruhn slave market is a common knowledge, it shouldn't take going through ten settlements before finding an NPC who mentions it
- Honestly, it would be just too tedious to haul all that dialogue over that are triggered by greetings to separate topics, and then cleaning up the mess, that's why I haven't done it in the previous round either. But I hear you, in TR, quests shouldn't be triggered or advanced through greetings, I'll remember that.
Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/49358
2020-07-12 13:22
7 months 3 weeks ago
- You forgot to add NoLore to the new script :)
- A greeting with goodbye might be good after you reject the offer.
-As I mentioned in discord, the NoLore check works if you filter for "NotLocal NoLore = 0" (Note that this doesn't work for slaves, because all slaves have NoLore)
As everything else is perfect, I'm recommending for promotion.
A few things before you start questing though:
-I've mentioned this in the first review, but it doesn't hurt to repeat: Be sure to look at https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/guidelines-quests-and-dialogue and https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/resource-trmainland-cs-id-guidel... for TR conventions if you haven't already!
-All quest implementation is done through the claims browser (https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/claims/quests). After you get your roles, you can just request any claim that's unclaimed that strikes your fancy. (New claims will be added soon too!)
-For submiting quest ideas and books, go to https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/asset.
Take care!!
2017-10-08 01:57
1 week 22 hours ago
Promoted. Congrats!