Don's Quest Showcase

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(Reply #1) Posted on Mon, 2023-03-06 12:42

Donnerino

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Hello! This is my quest showcase submission which is an original quest set in and outside the town of Darvonis as a part of the redone Sundered Scar region (m3). As of now, I am aware that the greetings apart of the quest are in the wrong place but I've been told that it may be outside of the scope of a Showcase review, I have been taught by viol on discord how to properly set the greetings and will avoid this mistake in the future.

Scripting is not my specialty whatsoever but thanks to folks on the discord I believe the scripts within this quest work well enough now after some playtesting, and I now have a better if basic grasp of how it works. If there are any issues at all, scripting, dialogue, etc, I am all ears and I am eager to learn and to get better with the CS.

This misc quest is very simple. A Cartographer, named Tirill Vants, staying at Darvonis has been working on making a new map of the region for the Imperial Legion and has been using an older map as a comparison to help his work progress (I've been told this sounds like a nice small nod to the Sundered Scar rework, and I quite liked that angle, so I leaned into it). The only issue is that Tirill lost the old map, and the player goes on to discover that the Innkeeper sold the map to a Nord with the Fighters Guild who is now out in the wild trying to dig up non-existent treasure. The player's job is to get the map from Kunster, the Nord in question, either by killing them, bribing them, or persuading them.

Whichever way the player chooses, they bring back the map to Tirill and receive their reward, with an option to keep the money that Tirill could give the player to pay off the Nord, upsetting Tirill.

I also want to say thanks to everyone for helping me out on the discord and for the encouragement, as well as for dealing with my constant daily questions on how to do somewhat basic things.

The outline and documentation for this quest can be found here, mind, this is my first time using the CS and making a quest, so the documentation may not be accurate. I've tried my best: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10_8ssmFkXy_48IgESsd0lCssiPcm_a7wnF_kpwlg3_A/edit?usp=sharing

Quest ID: TR_m3_Da_SimpleCartography

For Reviewers: The Quest begins in Darvonis by talking to Tirill Vants outside the Inn at the western entrance into the town. He will direct the player to then talk to the Inn Keeper inside, who will then direct the player west into the wilderness to look for a Nord named Kunster.

Attachment	Size	Date
Update 7: Various Fixes	27.5 KB	2023-04-07 14:43

(Reply #2) Posted on Thu, 2023-03-09 07:02

pralec

Joined:
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6 hours 41 min ago

Thanks for your showcase! This is a nice little quest that seems mostly functional, it just needs some touching up and minor reworks. Please have a look at the style guide if you haven't already: https://wiki.project-tamriel.com/wiki/Writing_and_Dialogue_Guidelines

Here's my initial feedback:

The writing is a little chaotic. This is a function of your punctuation usage, your word choice, and the amount of different things you're trying cram into one dialogue entry. KISS applies to dialogue as well. I recommend going over everything and trimming out whatever isn't necessary. Make it orderly before your make it characterful. Remember that while dialogue in Morrowind is ostensibly the spoken word, it needs to be easily read by the player, so readability trumps making it feel like spoken dialogue.
Your dialogue organisation is odd. You've got the earliest dialogue option at the top, and later dialogue options below. This is not the best way to do it, as TES3 searches for the first applicable dialogue from the top. It's better to get used to having the progression of the quest go from bottom to top.
There's some editorialising going on in your journal entries. The journal should never put thoughts into the character's head (like "I should do this" or "time to do this"). Keep it factual.
You need to give the player the option to put off the quest, when Tirill asks if they can search for the old map.
I'm not a fan of the extraneous topics. If it's important information, find a way to drip-feed it into your other dialogues in the main topic. Also is Tirill part of the Cartographer's Guild (is that a thing?) or the legion? Better to just make him a legion surveyor, imo.
The publican is missing a script.
The scripts on the other two guys are missing some important variables. Look at the NPC scripts that generic NPCs use for an idea of what variables are needed on an NPC.
If you want this to pass as a showcase, you need to demonstrate some more complex scripting. Perhaps having Tirill disappear after the quest is complete.
I don't know about the option to return the gold to Tirill if you use another method to get the map off Kunster. Perhaps it's the fact that Tirill just knows that you haven't spent the 200 gold. Maybe he could ask you if you needed the money, and the player can lie for a litte extra gold.

That's it for now. I haven't had time to do a full review so more stuff may come up later, but I think that's enough for you to go forward with on your next version.

(Reply #3) Posted on Thu, 2023-03-09 20:06

Donnerino

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1 month 1 week ago

The writing is a little chaotic. This is a function of your punctuation usage, your word choice, and the amount of different things you're trying cram into one dialogue entry. KISS applies to dialogue as well. I recommend going over everything and trimming out whatever isn't necessary. Make it orderly before your make it characterful. Remember that while dialogue in Morrowind is ostensibly the spoken word, it needs to be easily read by the player, so readability trumps making it feel like spoken dialogue.

Thank you for the criticism. I will have to consciously adapt my writing style in the future and fix my heavy use of commas. I have gone over every bit of dialogue and simplified and shortened them as best I think I can. I will take the advice to put readability first over characterization to heart for future quests. I do go a bit overboard sometimes.

Your dialogue organisation is odd. You've got the earliest dialogue option at the top, and later dialogue options below. This is not the best way to do it, as TES3 searches for the first applicable dialogue from the top. It's better to get used to having the progression of the quest go from bottom to top.

Understood. When I was reading through the wiki tutorial it seemed like it was done from early to later, but I suppose I screwed up at some point in understanding that. It does still work though despite that, I will keep to a bottom-to-top method in the future, that's my bad.

There's some editorialising going on in your journal entries. The journal should never put thoughts into the character's head (like "I should do this" or "time to do this"). Keep it factual.

Fixed.

You need to give the player the option to put off the quest, when Tirill asks if they can search for the old map.

The player now has the option in a choice dialogue to tell Tirill no and not accept the quest. I thought originally that chasing down the main topic meant a form of consent to take the quest, but I agree there should be an option.

I'm not a fan of the extraneous topics. If it's important information, find a way to drip-feed it into your other dialogues in the main topic. Also is Tirill part of the Cartographer's Guild (is that a thing?) or the legion? Better to just make him a legion surveyor, imo.

Fixed. The Cartographers' Guild secondary topic has been deleted. I thought it would be an interesting way to introduce a tiny bit of lore and why they're here exactly, plus I was toying with the idea of making some kind of Cartographer's Guild faction and quest line. The idea is that the legion contracted out some people from the guild to work on the new map. He now says he's a legion surveyor.

The publican is missing a script.

The scripts on the other two guys are missing some important variables. Look at the NPC scripts that generic NPCs use for an idea of what variables are needed on an NPC.

Thanks to help from Jackimoff, I think I have added the proper scripts to the Publican, this includes also changing the ID to the door closest to the ramp up to the second floor and applying the rent script to both that and the bed. I've also added the variables needed to the other two. Sorry that I overlooked that!

If you want this to pass as a showcase, you need to demonstrate some more complex scripting. Perhaps having Tirill disappear after the quest is complete.

Tirill (and Kunster) now disappear if the player leaves the cell after the quest is complete.

I don't know about the option to return the gold to Tirill if you use another method to get the map off Kunster. Perhaps it's the fact that Tirill just knows that you haven't spent the 200 gold. Maybe he could ask you if you needed the money, and the player can lie for a litte extra gold.

If the player agrees to take the money from Tirill, then kills or convinces Kunster, Tirill will now ask about the whereabouts of the money they gave the player. The player may lie, or give back the money.

If the player lies in the case of convincing Kunster, Tirill believes the player just paid them off in the process of convincing them. The Player needs about a disposition of 55 or so to convince Kunster, so if they can do that, they can probably lie to Tirill with no problem.

If the player kills Kunster and lies, Tirill will call out the player's lie (since the map is ripped and has signs of a struggle and all) and just let them keep the money, but the player will not receive any other rewards.

(Reply #4) Posted on Tue, 2023-04-04 10:03

Donnerino

Joined:
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1 month 1 week ago

Quoted from Discord
I convinved the Nord to give me the map, and then when I tried to return it to the other guy the choice options just cycled back to the initial choice where you accept or refuse the quest. So that's broken and needs fixing. Also the writing still isn't quite in the right style. It needs to be informative before it's characterful. As an example, the map guy acts all surprised when you talk to him the first time. This just makes the ultimate request that heasks of the player confused. What does his distraction and surprise have to do with the content of the quest? He's lost a map, and needs the player to find it. That should be the focus.

The dialogue bug has been fixed. The issue was that two choice dialogues were at the top and being selected first, added a journal filter to prevent this from happening. Thanks, Pralec!

I've also gone through the dialogue again as asked to trim it to only be the more important bones rather than trying to overly characterize things (while trying to at least keep it from being too generic).

(Reply #5) Posted on Wed, 2023-04-05 12:06

pralec

Joined:
2022-04-18 15:48

Last seen:
6 hours 41 min ago

Comments on the latest version:

Ok nice job stripping the dialogue back, now we can add the context back in. Why is Tirill asking the player for help?
On that topic, I reckon Tirill could have a Forcegreeting for if the player passes close by. Basically - hey, you, can you help me with my problem? It should only fire once. Try to work out how it's done, take a look at some other forcegreeting in the game (I believe there's one on a guy in Arvud. If you get stuck, ask for help in the discord.
Tirill needs greetings for while you're on the quest. At the moment he just defaults to commenting on %PCName's outfit. Something like "hey did you find the old map I told you about?"
Why does Tirill refer to the bartender with a gender non-specific pronoun?
It's generally not good form for topics to drop from important characters. Tirill doesn't have dialogue for "the old map" after you agree to go fetch it, but before you speak to Kunster
Details - Kunster should probably be facing away from the player's expected angle of approach
Kunster's first greeting "Who're you?" is a comma splice. Needs some different punctuation between "in my way" and "the old map". Probably a full stop.
Same with his response to telling him the map is useless. Comma splice. Here's what a comma splice is: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-splice/
Weird response when I say the map was stolen. How does he infer from that that the markings don't mean treasure?
Weird response to when I lie about the money. Something about giving the money and leaving it lie on his corpse? Not sure what this is supposed to mean, or if it's the right response. (After doing the path where I fight Kunster, seems like there's the same response to this question whether or not I fight Kunster. Should probably either give different responses, or rewrite the dialogue so it's applicable to either response.)
If I pickpocket the map and bring it back to Tirill - no response. This needs to be a viable option. You can filter dialogue to the player having items in their inventory using the Item filter.
When I give him back the money, I don't actually give him back the money. He just gives me another 150.
If I get the map off K through friendly means, and then kill him after, the journal says the map is torn but Tirill acts like it's clean. K dying should probably only update the journal if he has the map in his inventory (GetItemCount is your friend). Have you seen this page? https://en.uesp.net/morrow/editor/mw_cscommands.shtml

(Reply #6) Posted on Wed, 2023-04-05 13:53 (Reply to #5)

Donnerino

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Ok nice job stripping the dialogue back, now we can add the context back in. Why is Tirill asking the player for help?

Kept the dialogue roughly the same since it already informs the player well enough, as to avoid me going through this issue again.

On that topic, I reckon Tirill could have a Forcegreeting for if the player passes close by. Basically - hey, you, can you help me with my problem? It should only fire once. Try to work out how it's done, take a look at some other forcegreeting in the game (I believe there's one on a guy in Arvud. If you get stuck, ask for help in the discord.

Added.

Tirill needs greetings for while you're on the quest. At the moment he just defaults to commenting on %PCName's outfit. Something like "hey did you find the old map I told you about?"

Added.

Why does Tirill refer to the bartender with a gender non-specific pronoun?

Tirill now refers to the tender as he/him/etc.

It's generally not good form for topics to drop from important characters. Tirill doesn't have dialogue for "the old map" after you agree to go fetch it, but before you speak to Kunster

Tirill will now ask if there's been any progress made.

Details - Kunster should probably be facing away from the player's expected angle of approach

Kunster's first greeting "Who're you?" is a comma splice. Needs some different punctuation between "in my way" and "the old map". Probably a full stop.

Same with his response to telling him the map is useless. Comma splice. Here's what a comma splice is: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-splice/

Weird response when I say the map was stolen. How does he infer from that that the markings don't mean treasure?

Kunster is now a well-behaved NPC.

Weird response to when I lie about the money. Something about giving the money and leaving it lie on his corpse? Not sure what this is supposed to mean, or if it's the right response. (After doing the path where I fight Kunster, seems like there's the same response to this question whether or not I fight Kunster. Should probably either give different responses, or rewrite the dialogue so it's applicable to either response.)

The choice dialogue bug is now fixed thanks to that bit of choice dialogue wizardry you taught me.

If I pickpocket the map and bring it back to Tirill - no response. This needs to be a viable option. You can filter dialogue to the player having items in their inventory using the Item filter.

I neglected to appease the more thief like players among us. The quest will now check if you have the item for the dialogue specific to this path incase they stole it.

When I give him back the money, I don't actually give him back the money. He just gives me another 150.

Tirill is no longer as generous as before.

If I get the map off K through friendly means, and then kill him after, the journal says the map is torn but Tirill acts like it's clean. K dying should probably only update the journal if he has the map in his inventory (GetItemCount is your friend). Have you seen this page? https://en.uesp.net/morrow/editor/mw_cscommands.shtml

Kunster's death script now checks if he has the map on him before updating the journal.

(Reply #7) Posted on Thu, 2023-04-06 13:48

pralec

Joined:
2022-04-18 15:48

Last seen:
6 hours 41 min ago

Ok Don, another more thorough review down. Unfortunately we aren't quite done, as some of the fixes I asked you to put in have introduced new bugs (it is ever the case). Nice work on the ones you have resolved, though. Most of the dialogue is much improved, and the things that you've implemented have worked.

I can get two maps if I pickpocket Kunster and then talk to him. If he doesn't have the map, he shouldn't be able to give me the map. If I ask him about it while he doesn't have it, and he hasn't given it to me, his response to me should be that he doesn't have it. Either he could accuse the player of stealing and attack, or he could think he dropped it somewhere. Up to you. Latter is probably better.
If I ask about the map after finishing the quest, Tirill still asks me if I have anything new about the map. There needs to be some kind of capstone response filtered to the journal end state like "thank you so much for retrieving my map" or, if you make him mad, "don't remind me." That kinda thing.

These are details that I observed which are not critical, at this stage in the review (if these were the only issues it would be a pass from me) but because we have the two major sense-breaking bugs above you may as well address these two. These are more about good questing practice than bugfixing.

Include the topic name in the quest specific greeting. It's nice when the NPC serves you up the link you need to click on, rather than having to scroll through the topics list.
Go back through every dialogue and clean it up. Some still have the wrong pronoun (inkeep refers to Kunster as both they and he in the same sentence, Tirill refers to innkeep as they when you come out of the bar)
The continue in the topic with the innkeeper needs to be a Continue.
Tirill has the same greeting in the forcegreeting and his regular greeting if you turn down his offer. He should probably recognise that he's already hailed you, and not feel the need to give his whole spiel again. This is as easy as filtering another greeting to the DoOnce that gets set when the ForceGreeting happens ( but put that greeting below the greeting for when you've accepted the quest, obvs).

(Reply #8) Posted on Thu, 2023-04-06 14:49 (Reply to #7)

Donnerino

Joined:
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Last seen:
1 month 1 week ago

*Inhales*

I can get two maps if I pickpocket Kunster and then talk to him. If he doesn't have the map, he shouldn't be able to give me the map. If I ask him about it while he doesn't have it, and he hasn't given it to me, his response to me should be that he doesn't have it. Either he could accuse the player of stealing and attack, or he could think he dropped it somewhere. Up to you. Latter is probably better.

Kunster now recognizes if he has the map on him or not when bribed or convinced. If your disposition is below 55, he will attack assuming you stole it. If not, he'll just be confused that he lost it.

If I ask about the map after finishing the quest, Tirill still asks me if I have anything new about the map. There needs to be some kind of capstone response filtered to the journal end state like "thank you so much for retrieving my map" or, if you make him mad, "don't remind me." That kinda thing.

Tirill now will say thanks or be angry depending on if you scammed him or simply brought the map back.

Include the topic name in the quest specific greeting. It's nice when the NPC serves you up the link you need to click on, rather than having to scroll through the topics list.

Convenience: Added.

Go back through every dialogue and clean it up. Some still have the wrong pronoun (inkeep refers to Kunster as both they and he in the same sentence, Tirill refers to innkeep as they when you come out of the bar)

Pronouns: Respected.

The continue in the topic with the innkeeper needs to be a Continue.

Capitalization: Done (at least, I think that's the problem?)

Tirill has the same greeting in the forcegreeting and his regular greeting if you turn down his offer. He should probably recognise that he's already hailed you, and not feel the need to give his whole spiel again. This is as easy as filtering another greeting to the DoOnce that gets set when the ForceGreeting happens ( but put that greeting below the greeting for when you've accepted the quest, obvs).

Tirill now asks if you changed your mind.

(Reply #9) Posted on Mon, 2023-04-10 11:45

pralec

Joined:
2022-04-18 15:48

Last seen:
6 hours 41 min ago

Nice work Don. Recommending for promotion.

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