Meritocrat's Showcase

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:53 am

Hello, TR team.

I've been following this project for a while now, and thought of joining. Unfortunately, when I first saw it, I knew about as much about modding as I knew about FuglafjÃƒÂ¸rÃƒÂ°ur. But not to long ago I finally decided to pull myself together and learn about the construction set. Since I had traded away my PC version of Oblivion for my cousins xbox 360 version, I got into Morrowind moding(thought I might still have gotten into morrowind due to the voice acting of oblivion). Learning the basics of quests, items, dialog and npcs was pretty simple, but I used forever to learn even the basics of scripting.
Anyway, yesterday I finally managed to get together my humble little quest, witch I have added for you to enjoy.

You start the quest by asking around Balmora for rumors. Part 2 will hopefully be up sometime during the next decade if I can figure out the scripting.

(By the way, sorry for adding the dialog in "Greetings 1". I was following a tutorial and got a little carried away.)

As for what I can do. I will probably be able to do some scripting if I have to, and interior's does not seem to hard either. But my favorite is quests, factions and dialog. I even have a few in-game books brewing in my mind.

EDIT: It think it is clean now. Fixed the script and some of the dialog. Unfortunately I didn't fix the grammar and style issues though. If I saw them I probably wouldn't notice them.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:59 am

Welcome to TR, Meritocrat! It's been a while since I've done a quest showcase, so I'll download your file and take a look around. It's always good to have another quester aboard.

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:14 am

Did someone say quest showcase?

Just to note: at least some scripting knowledge will be required for you to be promoted for quests, since most TR quests involve it in at least some way. However, we're here to help if you're having any problems so feel free to ask away.

Welcome to TR. I look forward to seeing Faalen's review

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:25 am

questreviewget

I'm back. I didn't test this file in-game because there are things I spotted in the Enchanted Editor and the CS that need fixing first.

Cleanliness:

This file is very dirty. It contains the 72 evil GMSTs that get saved to all files that are made with only Morrowind active. You can prevent this by making your plugins dependent on the expansions as well. You can also clean them out with a program called TESAME which is available here on the site. Anything with the heading GMST should be deleted from your file. The rest of the dirtiness comes from dialogue. Every new entry you make in dialogue automatically marks the entries above and below as changed even though you didn't change them. The only way to clean this out is to go into TESAME and check every entry one by one and delete the ones you didn't create. It sucks and takes forever, but it's absolutely necessary. I'm also not sure why you need a new faction. It only has one member, so his dialogue could just be filtered to him. The simplest way is always the best way. The rest of the things present, like cells and whatnot, I'm assuming are correct. To be safe, though, look through every entry in TESAME and clear what you didn't mean to change. It's very easy to accidentally add something to your file and never notice.

Dialogue:

I'm assuming from your dialogue that you are not a native English speaker. That's fine, especially since your dialogue is so often very creative and witty. Almost everything has errors in grammar and style, but that's nothing a thorough reviewer can't fix up in a claim. It's good that you know dialogue doesn't go under Greeting 1. To be clear, quest-related dialogue belongs under Greeting 5 and generic dialogue under Greeting 7.

There are a few logistical problems with your dialogue. I see you've added an entry under all of the main lore topics that says "I don't talk about this". If an NPC doesn't have anything to say about a topic, it's best to make them NoLore to help prevent clutter in dialogue. I also found it very strange that the same NPC who says "I don't talk about this" to everything else will readily tell a complete stranger that he is an illegal assassin and Daedra worshipper when asked about his trade. There should be some kind of condition on that type of dialogue.

There are several technical issues with your dialogue as well. Under your greetings, you have a "TalkedToPC >= 1" filter on the entry "You were sent..." and a "TalkedToPC = 0" entry right below it. A better way to do this is to put the "=0" entry above the ">=1" entry and remove the ">=" filter. It functions the same but is cleaner.

You've chosen the topic name "help" for use in this quest. It's generally a very bad idea to use a short, common word for a quest topic heading. Instead choose something more specific, maybe including an NPC's name or part of a unique sentence. Under this same topic, there are entries that talk about the NPC Ileva Retham in the third person, but they are filtered so she says them. I think this is a mistake.

Under the topic named "Ileva Retham" you have some unnecessary journal filters. When a piece of dialogue is filtered for "Journal = x" that's all you need. You've included a "Journal < 100" filter on several entries, but it doesn't make any difference. I understand you're just trying to be careful, and that's great, but this will save you unnecessary work in the future.

You have a couple of entries filtered with "Sex - Male" and "Sex - Female". It's obvious from the text of these entries that you intended for them to be spoken to either a male or female player character. However, the "Sex" dropbox refers to the speaker, not the player. If you want to filter dialogue for the player's gender, go to the Function/Variables section and use "Function - PC Sex = x". 0 is male, 1 is female.

You have two identical entries under "Ileva Retham" for when she is dead. One is filtered for her being dead and the other is filtered for the journal entry that says she's dead. This is unnecessary. One or the other would suffice. It would be better to keep the "Dead" filtered one because it's less likely to be cheated. Or, better yet, put both conditions on one entry. In any case, you don't need the duplicate.

The topic name "prey" is a little generic, but probably isn't a problem. It is still strange for an NPC to discuss illegal Daedra worship with a stranger.

Scripts:

Your scripts, while functional, have a handful of mistakes that are common with beginners.

In the script "BH_IlevaKilled", you've used an "elseif" after an "endif" command. This is not right. When checking for two states of the same variable, in this case the journal progress, use "elseif" instead of "endif". That's what it's for. Just delete the "endif" line and push the "elseif" block up against it.

In that same script, you have an unnecessary block with the "controlvar" variable. The "activate" command can just be placed in the same block with the "OnActivate" function. That is both easier for you and more efficient for the game to run. The way it's written works, but it takes an extra frame of processing to execute.

Finally, every time you have a "disable" or "enable" command it's written in a way that it will execute every frame. This is extremely inefficient and can actually slow the game down. Every time you use a "disable" command, place it inside a block with the condition "if ( GetDisabled == 0 )". Similarly, every time you use an "enable" command, place it inside a block with the condition "if ( GetDisabled == 1 )". It's no big deal that you didn't know this. Just make sure to do it in the future.

General Impressions:

You have very original ideas and obviously want to improve. I like what I see here, and I think you can only get better with time. I especially like the little touches, like when the NPC is badmouthing Orcs and says "Oops, I'm sorry" if the player is one. That stuff is great and is usually missing from modders' work. Try this file again, keeping in mind what I said above. I look forward to your next attempt.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:16 pm

Thanks for the review. I'll try to fix it and release it again. Sorry for the dirtiness. Aside from a couple of tutorials this is my first mod, and you're right I'm not a native English speaker. As for the genetic dialog and why I created a whole faction, the plan IS to add a full joinable faction of the lunatics. Just gotta figure out some scripting first.

On the scripting, thanks for the help. But don't you get the journal update every time you try to loot her if you remove the controlvar? But then again, you're the expert.

Anyway, I'm going through it now and trying to clean it up.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:20 pm

I don't remember exactly what the script looked like, but if your "controlvar == 0" condition comes before the "OnActivate" condition and under "OnActivate" you update the journal, activate, and set controlvar to 1, there shouldn't be a problem. To be safe you could add another condition to check whether the update has already happened. In fact, it might be better to check journal progress instead of using a new variable.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:36 pm

Faalen wrote:I don't remember exactly what the script looked like, but if your "controlvar == 0" condition comes before the "OnActivate" condition and under "OnActivate" you update the journal, activate, and set controlvar to 1, there shouldn't be a problem. To be safe you could add another condition to check whether the update has already happened. In fact, it might be better to check journal progress instead of using a new variable.

You're right, a journal progress check makes much more sense. Thanks. By the way, did you check the cleaned up version of the mod?

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:46 pm

I did not. It's best to post new files in a new post, otherwise they'll be overlooked. You can delete the old file and place the new one in its own post to make sure it's seen.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:17 pm

Faalen wrote:I did not. It's best to post new files in a new post, otherwise they'll be overlooked. You can delete the old file and place the new one in its own post to make sure it's seen.

There you go

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:48 pm

None wants to review my fresh and clean mod? I demand ATTENTION!

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:49 pm

I demand PATIENCE! There are showcases that have been waiting longer than yours. We are all very busy people. Generally waiting a week before bumping is the standard practice.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:38 am

What about now? You may have noticed that I'm impatient?

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:08 am

Our Questers are few, and their duties many. Don't expect the response for a quest showcase to be as quick as that of a showcase for a fast moving department, like interiors.

Being impatient is not going to make you many friends around here.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:22 am

I am rather occupied with other things right now, but I'll try and do a review of as many questy things as possible sometime soon, perhaps this next weekend. I'll put you on that list.

Please have some patience, if that's okay.

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:38 am

I'll take a look at it now. Will edit this post with a review in about an hour or so.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:45 am

Cathartis wrote:Our Questers are few, and their duties many. Don't expect the response for a quest showcase to be as quick as that of a showcase for a fast moving department, like interiors.

Being impatient is not going to make you many friends around here.

Alright, I'm sorry. I'll try to be more patient.

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:47 am

May as well make it a new post then. Here's the review:

In-CS Review

File:

File is clean.
Naming conventions shows good practice (although you will need to switch to TR naming conventions when making quests for us. There are instructions for this in a stickied post somewhere).
This file is dependent on the Unofficial Morrowind Patch. Please only make files dependent on Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon (and TR_Data if you want, although I don't see why you would really need it for a quest showcase).

Dialogue:

I'm afraid I was lazy and only read through one topic (your journal entries). Your writing style is good, but there are a fair number of typos here, mostly little things. Some of this could be picked up by a spell checker, others just by proof reading. We don't expect everything to always be typo free (we all make mistakes), but try to keep it to a minimum. Please check the rest of your dialogue for similar errors.

Hunting Witch Hunter Hunters:
"One of the citizen of Balmora" - citizen should be plural
"outside the local Temple" - Temple should only be capitalised when referring to the faction. The building is just a normal noun. Bethesda do this though..
"I appears Ileva has been stalket by someone" - first word should be "It", typo on stalked, also should be "has been being stalked"?
"and she want my help" - wants
"I was adviced to talk" - advised
"he is appearantly part of the" - apparently
"she owe me something" - owes

Style:

Two of your journal entries have little rhetorical questions on the end: "Perhaps I should just leave him alone?" and "Perhaps I should read it?". You want to avoid telling the player what they should do - the journal should just be a record that the player can refer to when they've forgotten something.

The humour was pitched about right, but you can't have that kind of dialogue in every quest.

The latest rumours entry about her should be filtered so she doesn't say it.

Faalen has noted the unnecessary dialogue filters and the topic name. Whilst there's no need to change them, worth keeping in mind for future work.

Is there really any need for a new faction? Unless this is part of a larger mod or something, it should probably go.

Scripts:

BH_IlevaKilled
This script contains an OnActivate command. when a script contains something like that, you need to include a MenuMode check. Something like this at the top of the script:

Code: Select all

if ( MenuMode )
	return
endif

Also, in the first block of this script

Code: Select all

if ( GetJournalIndex BH_FindHunter < 40 )
	if ( GetDisabled == 0 )
		disable
	endif
elseif ( GetJournalIndex BH_FindHunter >= 40 )
	if ( GetDisabled == 1 )
		enable
	endif
endif

The elseif condition is the opposite of the original if condition, so you can use an 'else' instead.

BH_remusEnable
The two blocks of this script can be combined with an 'else' command in the same way as noted above. Also, remember to add the GetDisabled checks.

In-Game Review

She repeatedly offered me the quest and gave me multiple notes if I kept selecting the 'help' topic. Make sure the entry is filtered to prevent this.

When I refused the quest, she immediately disappeared. If you want to make an NPC disappear, either do it when the player isn't there (i.e. do it on CellChanged) or make the NPC cast a spell so it looks like they're teleporting away.

When initially given the quest, it wasn't clear from dialogue what I was supposed to do. The only hint came from the journal entry. As I noted above, the journal entry should never give instructions or hints. I'd say change the dialogue so she hints that you need to ask around in the Eight Plates.

I received a script error on activating the woman's dead body. This is because there is no journal ID specified in the GetJournalIndex check:

Code: Select all

if ( OnActivate == 1 )
	if ( GetJournalIndex < 100 )
		Journal BH_FindHunter 100
		Activate
	endif
endif

Her dialogue was hilarious. But again, you can't have this sort of thing in every quest (although it's fine every once in a while)

Overall, I love the detail here. The quest has a great feel to it, but there are a few issues with filters and and other technicalities. Fix up the errors listed here and double check everything for spelling and I'll recommend you for promotion

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:04 pm

Thanks for the review. I think(hope) I've fixed what you mentioned now. And yes, I plan to make a larger mod, which hopefully explain why I made a full faction.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:35 pm

Another week, another bump

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:36 pm

Hi, sorry for the lack of re-review. I'm not at home at the moment, thus no access to the CS or Morrowind. I'll try to take a look at this when I get back if no-one else has reviewed it before then.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:54 pm

Another week have gone by. Well, I suppose I should continue on the mod and get something fresh on the table. Just a quick question, how do you make a script that cause something to attack you in your sleep ÃƒÂ la the Dark Brotherhood attacks for Tribunal, and is it possible to make it work only in the wilderness.

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:35 pm

Really sorry, I'm completely rushed off my feet at the moment - moving houses, dealing with job stuff, and trying to prepare for my viva. That supposed free time never happened. I may have some time this weekend, but that's by no means certain.

Again, apologies. It's a small department, so sometimes there are times when all of us are just really busy in real life. I hope you understand

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:01 pm

No, I understand, really grateful for the work you are all doing.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:30 pm

Sorry I haven't posted for so long, I've been taking a long brake off Morrowind.

I have been working on a the next part of my mod. It's far from done, but I've sort of overwhelmed myself with too many loose ends, but it should be possible to see where I'm going. I thought I might as well upload what I have as I have a few things in particular I need help with:

1. What is the best way to count votes in-game? I tried looking at the "Mages Guild Monopoly" quest, but it didn't seem to work.
2. I can't get the ForceGreeting to work properly.

There are other bugs too, most which I could probably solve myself, but if someone have the time to take a look at the rest of the mod, that that would be nice.

Why · Post by **Why** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:42 am

I had some trouble opening your .esp, and can only repeat:

MMMowSkwoz wrote:This file is dependent on the Unofficial Morrowind Patch. Please only make files dependent on Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon (and TR_Data if you want, although I don't see why you would really need it for a quest showcase).

You can use Wrye Mash to remove the dependency. That being said, I've recently been promoted to do quests, but have never actually reviewed one. I'll try to give you some feedback, but don't expect too much of me. I'll edit this post once I have some results.

Edit: I've given your file a quick look, and would like to point out a few things.

All your greetings are in the Greeting 1 section. Generally speaking, Greeting 1 should be used for Extremely Urgent Greetings only, not day-to-day things. I haven't looked through all your greetings, but I've seen enough greetings that should better be placed in the Greeting 5 section, which is used for (nearly all) quests.

You created the topic "help". This is a problem in such that it conflicts with existing Bethesda topics, such as "help me" which might cause it to show up unlinked in dialogue. I believe this happens when you first greet the Witchhunter in front of the Balmora temple. Either create very specific topic names (like NPC names and things like "that slave in the corner" and such), or use topics that already exist in the vanilla game.

I've spotted an altered vanilla dialogue line in the topics "hound meat" and "scrib jerky". Please make sure your file is properly cleaned. As far as I can see other instances were cleaned properly but it wouldn't hurt if you went through them again.

I found a couple of minor errors in your dialogue, consider double checking. Nobody is perfect, but try to keep spelling and grammar errors to a minimum.

In your file you demonstrate good knowledge of dialogue and you show that you understand scripting. From what I see in the CS though (I've only played the very first part of your quest) your questline is very elaborate. I think it would be way easier if you created a shorter quest with at least two possible outcomes in which you demonstrate your knowledge of scripting, as that is, I believe, the basic requirement for promotion. As it is now, your quest is just too elaborate for me to review. There are others who have way more experience in reviewing than me though, and they could probably give you more advice and might even be able to give you a full review. Your greetings are something I think definitely need fixing before you can be promoted though. Most if not all of your greetings should be moved to Greeting 5, and I know of no easy way to do this except copying them by hand. That's another reason why I'd suggest making a new, smaller quest if you want to be promoted.

Reading up, I realize MMMowSkwoz and Faalen have already addressed many of the things I mentioned, so I fear my post is not particularly helpful. I would want to suggest though, that instead of expanding your quest you should focus on fixing the issues at hand, starting with the ones MMMowSkwoz and Faalen have pointed out. I understand you want to expand your quest, but by making it larger without fixing it you're only making it harder to review it.

I'd like to add that I enjoyed reading your dialogue, it's really entertaining at times. Keep up the good work.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:27 pm

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to fix what you pointed out.

Why wrote:All your greetings are in the Greeting 1 section. Generally speaking, Greeting 1 should be used for Extremely Urgent Greetings only, not day-to-day things. I haven't looked through all your greetings, but I've seen enough greetings that should better be placed in the Greeting 5 section, which is used for (nearly all) quests.

I should mention that, while some of my greetings are placed wrong, and I should fix that, most of my NPCs are the kind of people who don't care if you have 10000 gold on your head or even if you are a vampire.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:49 pm

(I don't know if this is the right forum, but I posted it here since it's related to my showcase. If this is the wrong forum then I'm sorry.)

Merged to showcase thread - Nemon

I've been working on and off on my Morrowind showcase for a while now. Its a long time since I worked on it and I'm having some trouble getting started. But there are two things in particular I'm having problems with.

1. What is the best way to count "votes" you get from quests(think "Mages Guild Monopoly")
2. I can't get ForceGreeting to work. (for the NPC "BH_Elak")

I've uploaded the file. Its not nearly complete yet, but if you do take a look at it, please mention bugs you find.

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:56 pm

1. Use a global variable.

It probably would have been better to put this in the showcase forums or if you already have a showcase thread, then you could have placed it there.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:24 pm

Andres Indoril wrote:1. Use a global variable.

It probably would have been better to put this in the showcase forums or if you already have a showcase thread, then you could have placed it there.

I have made a global variable, I just can't get it to update properly.

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:31 pm

Look at the countMonopolyVotes script and see what you can learn from that.

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:40 pm

Post the related scripts with explanations of what they're supposed to do and we'll take a look.

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:29 pm

Merged to showcase thread.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Fri Feb 05, 2010 10:51 pm

Sorry for the delay, I'm very on and off about Morrowind.

First of all, I've tried many things to get the votes to count properly.
In Mages Guild Monopoly they use the following script:

Code: Select all

set mageMonopolyVote to 1

However, when I use that I can't get it to work properly. I have been thinking that it may be the following script that is the problem

Code: Select all

begin BH_BjarnirScript_01

Short NoLore

if ( OnDeath == 1 )
	Journal BH_FindHunter 35
	set BloodhoundVotes to 1
endif

if ( GetJournalIndex BH_FindHunter >= 35 )
	if ( CellChanged == 1 )
		if ( GetDisabled == 0 )
			Disable
		endif
	endif
endif

end

Essentialy, if the character of this script is not killed, an identical NPC(supposed to be the same) will appear at another location and is supposed to give you a vote.

Code: Select all

begin BH_ElakScript

short greetonce

if ( GetJournalIndex BH_CrazyOrc < 15 )
	if ( GetDisabled == 0 )
		Disable
	endif
endif

if ( GetJournalIndex BH_CrazyOrc >= 15 )
	if ( GetDisabled == 1 )
		Enable
	endif
endif

If ( GetDistance Player <= 256 )
	if ( greetonce == 0 )
		ForceGreeting
		set greetonce to 1
	endif
endif

end

The problem here is that first of all he appears before he should. I can probably fix that by myself if I try, but haven't gotten around to it yet because I've been stuck with another issue, which is that he won't greet me when I approach him.

Do anyone have any idea of a solution to these issues?

Oh, and Nemon, Bergensi sum

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Fri Feb 05, 2010 11:13 pm

What is the relationship between the journal entries "BH_FindHunter" 35 and "BH_CrazyOrc" 15? Without knowing that, it's difficult to see how these scripts affect each other.

I assume "BloodhoundVotes" is a global variable? What other events in the game affect this variable (i.e. do any other scripts/dialogue results set this variable to something?)

I see no reason why the NPC from the 2nd script would not greet you.

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Fri Feb 05, 2010 11:36 pm

MMMowSkwoz wrote:What is the relationship between the journal entries "BH_FindHunter" 35 and "BH_CrazyOrc" 15? Without knowing that, it's difficult to see how these scripts affect each other.

I assume "BloodhoundVotes" is a global variable? What other events in the game affect this variable (i.e. do any other scripts/dialogue results set this variable to something?)

I see no reason why the NPC from the 2nd script would not greet you.

There is no relationship, they are technically unrelated quests.

The other events are mostly dialog pieces that also end different quests. The context is that these different quests lead to success in a larger meta quest. It is essentially votes required to get a promotion in the faction. You will need a vote from the guy you have the option to kill if you let him live, so to simplify the dialog of the guy you get the promotion from, you get one vote if you choose to kill him.

As for the exact script I've tried, I first tried the script used in Mages Guild Monopoly

Code: Select all

Set BloodhoundVotes to 1

And when it didn't work, I tried

Code: Select all

Set BloodhoundVotes +1

Which didn't work either, and now I'm out of ideas.

Actually, I've been thinking of making a new showcase mod from scratch. I just feel this have become a little big(I worked on it for too long without testing, and now I've overwhelmed myself with bugs).

MMMowSkwoz · Post by **MMMowSkwoz** » Sat Feb 06, 2010 12:46 am

Code: Select all

Set BloodhoundVotes to ( BloodhoundVotes + 1 )

Meritocrat · Post by **Meritocrat** » Sat Feb 06, 2010 12:56 am

MMMowSkwoz wrote:
Code: Select all
Set BloodhoundVotes to ( BloodhoundVotes + 1 )

Thanks

Tamriel Rebuilt

Meritocrat's Showcase

Meritocrat's Showcase

Modding help