Not's Quest Showcase (now with Interiors)

Not · Post by **Not** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 1:03 am

Okay so I've decided I want to do join this team. My original idea was to submit an interior design and hopefully become an interior designer for the team.

However; after some browsing and reading of various posts on these forums, I got the impression that you guys need more quest designers.

I personally like doing quests; I feel they are very flexible and theres many different things you can do with them. Moreover, they can be a bit of a challenge and I like going back and debugging, fixing things and essentially making them work.

So basically what I'm trying to ask is: what exactly would you like to see for quests (atleast as far as showcases go.) I read the guide lines on the forums, but they weren't too specific on what the quest should be about (length and events etc.)

I'm very familiar with doing dialog, I understand journal entries and how to correspond with them in topics and greetings etc.
I'll admit right now that I have little to no scripting experiance at all, but I've been reading up on Scripting for dummies v9 and I must say I really enjoy reading it and I'm starting to get the hang of scripting for Morrowind.

So yes, to get back to the question I was trying to ask, what sort of abilities should I demonstrate as far as quests go and is there any other area of modding that I could possibly do to help be a part of this great project.

Terrifying Daedric Foe · Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:32 am

Any area of modding is useful. However, you are correct that we are short of questers.

A quest showcase doesn't have to be too long. You should include scripts of some kind to demonstrate that you know how to use them. Having different options in the quest is good and you should make sure that your dialogue is grammatically correct, uses correct American-English spellings and fits into Tamriel.

If you want you to see what sort of quest is required for promotion you can look at my quest showcase.

Good luck and happy modding!

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:13 am

Yes, what TDF said is all good. Priorities are an ability to write quality dialogue that fits with existing Morrowind stuff, scripting is more of a thing that comes with more complex quest claims, and is easier to learn by doing than in theory. But if you can show a little bit of script literacy, that's all to the better.

It would be great to have more questers on board, and shortly we will have a bunch of little jobs for them too when Necrom's NPCs are finished up, which will be a great way to get practise.

Not · Post by **Not** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:21 pm

Thanks for the helpful responses both of you. It's much appreciated. I'll go ahead and start making my showcase.

I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do already so it should be good. As far as actually working for this team goes, I just more or less want to help out with things that need to be done, not so much coming up with ideas on my own.

But hey we'll see how I do on my showcase before coming up with that. I'll try and have it uploaded within a week

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:01 pm

Good stuff, I'll take a look when you post it.

Not · Post by **Not** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:40 pm

I just uploaded my showcase. As I stated in the comments section, it's pretty much done, but there's a couple minor bugs that I just can't seem to get rid of but I'll mention them further down after the description of the showcase.

This quest showcase starts in Sadrith Mora. Upon entering Dirty Murie's Cornerclub you will encounter a new NPC there (Ralena Dreloth.) She'll state that her family ring has been stolen and she'll want you to get it back. She'll tell you that a Bosmer named Aligoth stole it and is was just recently hired on as another one of Neloth's mercenaries. You can choose to accept or decline the quest, should you choose to decline you can always change your mind later.

Now thats just to get you started with the quest. There are a number of ways that this quest can play out:

You can head on up to Tel Naga, find the ring in a "locked" chest, and then give it back to Ralena.

You could also find the ring and give it to Aligoth, make a deal with him and kill Ralena.

You could decide to avoid Aligoth altogether and just find the ring and give it back to Ralena....then go back to Tel Naga and play "poke the bear" (you'll have a fight on your hands.) If you choose this path, Ralena will acknowledge that you killed him but you won't get anything extra for it.

You could decide to grab the ring, confront Aligoth, kill him and then take the ring back to Ralena, who will be grateful for her ring back and reward you with an extra 100 gold.

Or finally, you could just decide to give the ring back to Aligoth, agree to help him (in return he promises you a very nice enchanted sword) and then simply kill him afterwards for the sword. Be warned though, no good deed goes unpunished, should you choose to do this, that "very nice enchanted sword" you find on his body might be a little...disappointing, you'll see what I mean

That being said, there are a few minor bugs that I just can't seem to get rid of, which is why I posted it here, I really am at my wit's end.

Bug #1: Should you choose to help Aligoth and kill Ralena, she will not force greet you like she's supposed to, and you won't get the necessary journal entry upon her death.
I've put the force greeting into the Greeting 1 category, I have the script commands right, and still nothing happens. I've tried global scripts, I've tried rearranging the script I had on her, but no matter what I do I just can't get the journal to update like it's supposed to.

Bug #2: If you choose to kill both Ralena and Aligoth for whatever reason, it doesn't give you the journal entry for that either. Again I've tried global scripts, I've tried changing up the local scripts, looking at other scripts that do the same exact thing and still it won't give you the necessary journal update either.

If someone could take a look at this showcase, keeping the two bugs in mind, and offer any feedback, that would be terrific. The only reason I'm even submitting the showcase with the bugs in it is because I've tried everything to fix them and was hoping someone on here might know of a possible fix.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:58 pm

Okay, had a brief glance over.

First things first, on scripts: with regards to your bugs, both are because you're using the command GetJournalIndex without specifying which JournalIndex you want to 'Get'. It should be GetJournalIndex "MyQuest" >= 30, or whatever.

What tutorial/source are you learning from? You do a couple of slightly odd things, like a bunch of times using StartScript to start up a script which simply contains a journal update then shuts down. You could delete that script, and instead of StartScript, just put straight in your Journal command.

On other fronts, your grammar and writing style are a bit off. Are you a native English speaker? A few recurring errors: %PCName, %PCRace etc. should be preceded by a comma when used to address the player, like any other name. E.g. "What do you want, %PCName?" Other than proper nouns (people's names, place names, Elder Scrolls race names: Bosmer not bosmer) capital letters should only come at the start of a sentence.

Unfortunately, such problems tend not to be the kind of thing a showcase can fix. On the other hand, we need questers, and I've had to fix far worse dialogue for this mod before. Just be aware of whether you think those are errors that you'd be able to take care of yourself in future?

One tiny thing, is that your apostrophe (') key seems to be unusual, and produces a slanted ' compared to the regular straight vertical one. Compare your dialogue to vanilla to see the difference.

Anyway, to move on from here, I think this quest is nicely complex for a showcase, and your writing's decent. If possible, I'd like to see another file, with a new smaller quest (can be far more linear) focusing on trying to minimize errors in dialogue whilst keeping the tone appropriate, and using some basic scripts without those interesting quirks!

Not · Post by **Not** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:02 pm

Thank you for reviewing my Showcase BC! The feedback is greatly appreciated.

To answer your first question; yes I'm a native english speaker. However, that won't be much of an issue in the future because one of my best friends happens to be an English major in college so I'll just have him help me out as far as dialog goes. (You'll see a much better improvement as far as dialog goes.)

About the StartScript commands, I'm fully aware that I could easily have just done as you said and specified the Journal entry in the local script, but as I said in my earlier post, I could not get the scripts to work for whatever reason (before the *facepalm moment* of not specifying the proper Journal index.) So I tried doing really short global scripts to see if that would work instead. Obviously that wouldn't work because I wasn't specifying the JournalIndex, but I didn't realize that until your last post. So yes I'll fix that up right away.

I will however, leave the global script that removes the enchanted sword as that is the only one I know of that is actually needed. (MSFD v9 states that if you use a RemoveItem command with a script that is attached to the specified object, it deletes the object the script is attached to and thus crashes the game.)

Also, my apostrophe (') key I think is okay. I'm pretty sure what caused that is me typing out the entire quest dialog and journal indexes in MS Word as a rough draft and then directly copy and pasting them to the CS. I'll just stop doing that altogether and it should be fine.

Finally, thanks once again for the feedback, it's really appreciated. I'll probably update this current showcase with the scripts the way they should be (sort of an OCD thing I guess you could say) and then I'll make another
showcase, this time a little bit smaller.

On second thought, I'll just remake another showcase from scratch, because this script does not work at ALL, you'd think it wasn't even attached to the proper NPC (it is.)
Begin Not_SC_RalenaScript

short nolore
short doonce

If ( OnDeath == 1 )
Journal "Not_SC_FamilyRing" 80
endif

If ( doonce == -1 )
return
endif

If ( GetJournalIndex "Not_SC_FamilyRing" > 55 )
If ( GetJournalIndex "Not_SC_FamilyRing" < 70 )
If ( GetDistance Player <128 )
ForceGreeting
StartCombat Player
SetFight 100
set doonce to -1
endif
endif
endif

If ( GetDeadCount "Not_SC_Ralena" > 0 )
If ( GetDeadCount "Not_SC_Aligoth" > 0 )
If ( GetJournalIndex "Not_SC_FamilyRing" < 130 )
Journal "Not_SC_FamilyRing" 130
Return
endif
endif
endif

end

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:48 pm

Right, that's all good to hear. I look forwards to your next submission, then.

On scripts, one helpful way to troubleshoot is to introduce a MessageBox at each key stage of the script, so that in-game you instantly know which part is not running properly (the part which doesn't show up a messagebox).

Just by glancing I couldn't immediately say what's the problem with your script, but traditionally one would go for ( doonce == 1 ) rather than -1, and your GetDistance check should have a space between < and 128.

Not · Post by **Not** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:58 am

Well I bet you probably forgot about me, but I'm back

I apologize for the long wait, had some HD issues, which are now taken care of. Anyways, on to the showcase.

This showcase revolves around two lovebirds in the Redoran Canton of Vivec. When you go to the Redoran treasury via the Redoran plaza, you'll notice a new NPC there right away.

An Imperial, Marcus Portius is in love with a Breton woman named Gionetta Marie. He'll ask you to deliver a love letter for him,(he works in the redoran treasury and just doesn't have the time.)
You can choose to accept or decline, should you decline you can always go back later.
Once you accept, you are given a letter from Marcus, and tasked with delivering the letter to Gionetta Marie, the Breton woman who can be found in the Redoran Waistworks.
After accepting the letter, you will most likely be forcegreeted by an arrogant prick/moron of a Nord (no foul language is used in actual showcase.) He says he should be the one to court Gionetta and not Marcus. He made a forged a letter to look like Marcus's. You can choose to accept decline, if the latter, he'll attack you.
Once you find Gionetta Marie in the waistworks you can choose to give her either Botta's forged letter or Marcus's letter.
I won't bore you with too much detail from there, other than that I did do a fair amount of scripting and from what I can tell, they all work, which I'm very proud of. (No globals whatsoever.)

Some additional notes that you should read before hand.

0. There is one MINOR bug in the quest itself. If you deliver the letter Marcus wrote to Gionetta, the journal is supposed to update and disable the npc marcus once you leave the cell (Redoran Treasury). However, because it's a local script, once you leave the cell the script stops running. Simply walk back into the cell right after exiting and everything will fix itself. I decided to leave this one alone because you weren't a big fan of my quirky globals last time (I don't blame you) and so I'm afraid to do another global for this showcase, even though it'd be a minor 2 line or so fix.
1. Botta the Beast's scripts enables him near the exit of the Redoran plaza only after the journal hits a certain entry. He will also force greet you if you get close enough, however it is not required. You could go through the entire quest line without ever have talked to him.
2. I worked really hard on my grammar for this one and addressed the issues you had with my previous showcase. I believe I've improved. However there was one thing I wasn't sure of and no one in irc could figure out either. I don't know if it's Marcus's letter or Marcus' letter. I decided to go with Marcus's because everyone in irc seemed to think that looked better.
3. While this showcase does offer multiple outcomes with a couple different paths. It is very small and linear. I'm fully aware of this, having made it like that on purpose to go with what BC said my next one should be like.

Hope everything goes well. sorry for the long err....summary...readme? Well whatever, I'm sorry for this being so long. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:54 pm

This is a nice little quest, and we could definitely use your help in getting the last few miscs finished off for our next release!

My few little comments:

- couple of grammar and spelling errors ('out of my site', an uncapitalised I, etc.) but nothing a proofreader wouldn't catch.
- try to avoid giving emotions to the journal 'that Nord was really arrogant'
- in the dialogue of the boys, don't always call Gionetta Marie by her full name, especially when the speakers are supposed to have a thing for her. (e.g. 'Gionetta Marie deserves to be happy' sounds a bit weird)

In terms of scripts, this seems fine - and if it's a question of avoiding a bug, feel free to use a global as long as it suitably StopScripts itself. But just make sure the other options are always exhausted first.

In this instance, you would probably normally want to have that journal announcement on a separate, global timer anyway - rather than just have the player be reminded of the meeting the second they leave the room. So yes, in this instance a global would be fine.

As a general rule (one I could probably do with reminding of myself now and then) it would also be helpful to add a little bit of commentary to your scripts: usually just one comment at the top to say what it does (unless painfully obvious) and a little note by any particularly clause-heavy or confusing blocks.

Are you aware of TR's naming conventions? They're a bit complicated these days, but it's all in the sake of clarity. If you're not, I'll run you through them and then recommend you for promotion.

Not · Post by **Not** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:13 pm

I may need to get brushed up on the naming conventions. I think you guys have a tutorial on that in the tutorial section of your website. I can always go look at them too.
Thank you for the feedback on the quest, i'll make sure to watch out for thlse mistakes.
Thanks also to the feedback on the scripts. However, i really cant take full credit for them. Why, whiterabbit, Andres and arvisrend really helped me out as far as syntax goes.
As far as the remaining quests go for map3, ill gladly help out with whatever I can, but i wont stop there. I plan on staying awhile.

But thanks so much. Sorry for the horrible grammar and spelling on tbis last post, Im stuck using my smartphone atm.

Why · Post by **Why** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:16 pm

Read http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=21296 !

I played through the quest and I like your style. I was a bit disappointed to find out there wasn't actually any real content in the love letters but that's fine. I'd recommend against using %PCName as much as you do - for instance, my character is called Savassi Indalen, and it's kind of weird to have NPCs say her name in full all the time - vanilla avoids overuse of %PCName too.

I chanced upon a bug while playing through. After Gionetta asks you to return to Marcus, and you confront Botta, if you kill the Nord the journal is updated to 103, which means Marcus won't have the option of talking about his important letter. Always playtest all possible paths in your quest to avoid such things. Nevertheless, the premises of this quest are good, your scripts seem good though I'd much rather see the NPCs moved instead of duplicated, and small errors like that would be picked up during review and are easy to fix. Nothing we can't help you with and you can't learn while working on actual claims.

All in all I believe you've demonstrated sufficient skill in both writing and scripting and while I would have done things differently in places, you should be ready to take on actual TR quest claims. Just remember not to be shy and always feel free to ask for advice on IRC if you need any. Making quests is hard, hence why we encourage people to ask for help, even for showcases, in this department.

Promoted for AI/Quests!

Congratulations, looking forward to working with you! Now to bug Trig and Haplo to give you that modder tag.

Not · Post by **Not** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:30 pm

Thanks for the promotion. I'd like to get started right away. Just let me get caught up and familiarize myself with the claims process and everything first, then i'll go ahead and get started right away

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:45 pm

On the letters, I actually thought the "at a glance" line in the real love letter was nicer written than any love letter between two unknown misc characters could ever have been!

Not · Post by **Not** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:51 pm

Well.....In my defense, I ended up making a 200 line love poem for the npc. It rhymed and sounded pretty good, but i figured that was overdoing it so i cut it out at the last second lol

Why · Post by **Why** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:04 pm

Take your time and see how deep the rabbit hope that is the private forum goes. And if you have questions you should probably hop onto IRC - there is quite a bit of outdated information in there. Also thank you BC for your excellent work as always!

Not · Post by **Not** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:24 pm

Okay I'm finally on an actual computer and not a smartphone. This should make typing/posting MUCH easier now.

Basically, I'm way ahead of you, and going through the private section and making sure I understand before I proceed. I really need to famiarize myself with the rules for claims, how to claim one, etc.

I'm also going to sign back onto irc when I get the chance, and hopefully I'll be able to talk to you about this and see if I'm missing anything.

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Tue May 01, 2012 7:21 am

Congratulations on the promotion, Not. Welcome to the team.

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Tue May 01, 2012 7:35 am

You're Not... Welcome!

Terrifying Daedric Foe · Tue May 01, 2012 3:52 pm

Congratulations.

Not · Post by **Not** » Tue May 01, 2012 4:31 pm

Thank you, Andres.

@Nemon: I'm Not.....Grateful!

TDF: Thanks for sending me your showcase download, it helped out quite a lot. Much appreciated.

Not · Post by **Not** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:17 am

New showcase!

This one is an interior showcase, it's a 2x3 standard hlaalu house with a 2x2 basement.

The man living here has a passion for alchemy, and while he's certainly not the greatest alchemist, he's not half bad either, and really loves to practice with it. He's pretty good with keeping up the place, but he really needs to learn to organize his work table.

One thing worth mentioning, I was trying to decide if you were allowed to use the de_table_10 table or w/e for de_p interior, and seeing as how it was found in caves and Koguruhn, TF said it was okay. Oh and, lighting isn't my strong suit so I guess I'm hoping I did well in that department.

coc "Not's Showcase Cell"

Laheja · Post by **Laheja** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 12:48 pm

Nice interior

, will probably use it as example when I start making my own interior showcase.

BTW Leon forgot to mention or did not notice that in ground floor "misc_com_wood_knife" next to table is floating.

Not · Post by **Not** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:30 pm

All fixed

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:05 am

TESAME: Relatively so.
There are some books, that I assume are mostly just closed versions of previously existing ones.

Fits exterior: Yes
Northmarker set: Yes
Loading errors: No

Review:
- I would never place a hatch somewhere that I would have to cross over on a daily basis. Sounds a bit hazardous.
- One small bed, but dinner is served for two?
- ingred_ash_salts_01 on the tray is very slightly misrotated, 0.3 points at that.
- ingred_dreugh_wax_01 has the same problem, 0.2 points here though.
- Same problem with ingred_ectoplasm_01.
- And ingred_fire_salts_01. When you place a solid surface like the tray, rotate everything to the surface level of the tray. Quite easy to just double click the tray and copy the rotation from there.
- Same for ingred_frost_salts_01.
- ingred_void_salts_01 also suffers from this.
- misc_com_wood_fork floats slightly. Not something that is noticeable ingame, but still something to avoid.
- Not_SC_AlchemistsFormulary costs 25 gold less than the open version of the book and teaches Heavy Armor.
- Not_SC_CakeDiamond costs 150 gold less than the open version the same book and suddenly no longer teaches Alchemy.
- Not_SC_DinnerGame costs 800 gold more than the open version of the same book and no longer teaches Alchemy.

Comments A nice enough little house. No glaring errors that would be too difficult to fix.

You have my recommendationÃ¢â€žÂ¢, Notling.

SamirA · Post by **SamirA** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:30 am

Andres Indoril wrote:- I would never place a hatch somewhere that I would have to cross over on a daily basis. Sounds a bit hazardous.
- One small bed, but dinner is served for two?

Really Andres?

I've not looked at this but if the "hatch" is a trap door it would sturdy and perfectly fine though certainly not the usual. Also, can this person not entertain guests? Just because there is one bed means only one is eating there? Maybe the two people just like to cuddle and chose a twin bed.

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:38 am

Those were more along the notes of comments than errors. :p

But still, Not did mention only one inhabitant and with such a static world, we would never see the NPC host guests often enough to necessitate dinner to already be served to them. :p

SamirA · Post by **SamirA** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:53 am

Not true, it could be displayed in dialogue... which is noted in the comments one would leave when they finish a claim.

There are several reasons one could do that one is all I am pointing out. The hatch one is probably more of an issue.

Mainly I just wanted to give you a hard time

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:59 am

The hatch one is really easy to fix though. Leave the hatch as is, nudge the wallscreens to leave another path to the bed.

Not · Post by **Not** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:31 am

Thanks for the response guys!

So after looking at Andres' post, I realized that's a lot of errors, and being that that has been my third review, looks like I'll be going to the drawing board again

I shall have to post back when I get my next design in.

Edit: No wait, those reviews were all recommendations....and there were only two. Wow I need to learn to count xD

SamirA · Post by **SamirA** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:37 am

Not, you have been recommended twice now for interiors promotion. You do not need to submit another showcase and that is a small list of errors.

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:50 am

Stop being so silly and accept that you are good at this

Not · Post by **Not** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:27 am

Well after the Head of Interiors and Head of Reviewers told me that it passed and that there was no need to put up another showcase, I figure I'll upload it, and hopefully this will be the final version, even if it did get a recommendation first time go

Not · Post by **Not** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:48 am

Well thanks for the approval, Leon. I just wanted to touch it up a little bit. As far as the cell name goes, you could have just looked at the data file details and see what cell(s) were edited. But yes, thank you for the vote of confidence

Edit:

Thrignar Fraxix wrote:Stop being so silly and accept that you are good at this

Alright alright fine, I'm good at making interiors. Happy? :p

Post by **Haplo** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:28 pm

How could all of you miss the blatant style-mixing?! Not's interior has both pink AND yellow arrow markers! unacceptable...

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:58 pm

So that you don't think I promoted you without looking at this

ingred_scuttle_01 is floating on one side, and squishy things such as this can bleed somewhat

Member Promoted for Interiors

Why · Post by **Why** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 11:40 pm

Congrats, well-deserved. Just don't place Kwama Cuttle on people's plates again.

Not · Post by **Not** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 12:03 am

Thanks Why, and yeah, I don't know what I was thinking lol. Ah well, the HoR looked at it, and all he found was scuttle, so I'm happy

SamirA · Post by **SamirA** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 12:52 am

Oh would you look at that. I had no clue this was going to happen... Seriously Not, you should trust me by now haha.

Tamriel Rebuilt

Not's Quest Showcase (now with Interiors)

Not's Quest Showcase (now with Interiors)

Not's Showcase (Quests)