ImaginaryDave`s showcase

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:50 am

This is a simple low-level quest that takes the player exploring the town of Sadrith Mora. To begin, you should pay a visit to Anis Seloth, the local alchemist.

Spoilers.

There are a few ways to do this quest. All that is necessary is talking to Angaredhel. This will give you a lesser reward, though. I made Neloth optional because the player needs to fill certain requirements for him to listen to the player. If the player already meets the requirements, then all is simple. Alternatively, you can go to Neloth`s mouth, who does the shopping for him. Muriel Sette is a dead end and the player does not actually need to even talk to her. If I recall right, I also added some dialogue to other NPCs about the quest, but it should vanish once the quest is completed.

End of spoilers.

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:10 am

Mortimer wrote:One thing that strikes me about the journal entries though is something you'll want to avoid in the future, and that's telling the player what they should do or think. Remember - the player plays the quest not the other way around. Starting a sentence in a journal entry with "I should" is the wrong way to go about it.

Whoops! This is from another thread, but I am guilty as charged. I felt that it was necessary at one point because the player would be left slightly confused as to what to do. Anyway, you can decide for yourself if it was warranted or not.

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:38 am

Okay, I just noticed that the game reads hard stat instead of flat, so the fortify intelligence potion does nothing to change Neloth`s mind. I thought about replacing it with a check where Neloth talks to you if you have a "lucky charm" from Seloth, but decided to just cut this part.

So here is the version of the quest with the broken part cut out.

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:49 am

Fixed a minor oversight... should have playtested this before posting.

I only now found the edit button. Forgive me, I shall make use of it in the future.

Why · Post by **Why** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:33 pm

Hey, welcome to the forums! Great to see another quest showcase. I'll try to review it later today!

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 6:45 am

Someone in the chat room mentioned that there was no script in this so I decided to use an idea of an alternative way things could turn out.

This does not actually change anything in the quest itself. If you look closely around Pierlette`s shop, you might spot something odd. Also, once the quest is complete, you should definitely pay her a visit.

Edit: As it turns out, the part of the quest I cut out was in fact not broken, I just didn`t remember editing the intelligence requirement that high.

It is still possible to use a fortify intelligence potion and get Neloth to listen to you, provided the potion is strong enough. Seloth will just not have the option to give one to you and there`s no journal index regarding it.

Why · Post by **Why** » Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:04 pm

All in all this is a solid first try at questing. Some things that caught my eye though:

Your file isn't clean. Certain entries have been altered, or haven't been cleaned, like the "Good day. I'm Thaeril, publican of The Covenant here in Tel Mora..." one in Greeting 7 and the entries for Neloth, resulting in Neloth speaking about himself in third person. Double check your wording and such, so that you don't end up with sentences like "If you are working for work, ..".

Pierlette actually turning out to be infected with corpus was a fun little twist, but not something I'd OK in an actual quest claim. It seems rather random, and not something I'd sacrifice a merchant for.

As I said, this is a good beginning. I'd like to see a bit more advanced stuff though, this is pretty much a purely dialog based quest, with little bits of script sprinkled in. In order for me to promote you I'm going to need to see a bit more, preferably with AI settings, object positioning, the like. Please think about it, make up a nice little story in which you can show off some more complicated (but not overly so) scripting, and post it here so we can discuss it. Feel free to throw out some ideas, I'd love to comment on them (here or on IRC) and help you get a good design going before you start to actually build your quest in the CS. You clearly have the basics of dialog down (though keep an eye out for the tone of your texts, the more like vanilla, the better, in these sort of quests) so I definitely believe you've got what it takes to become a quester here!

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Tue Aug 21, 2012 10:08 am

I cleaned the .esp yesterday before leaving the irc, but I guess that doesn't matter anymore.

Since this was a dialogue quest, I thought I'd make an adventure one next.

I thought of a quest involving a follower and Boots of Lightning Speed, kind of like that one quest in vanilla Morrowind, but with a different story. I scrapped this one pretty quick, because I, as a player, do not enjoy follower quests at all. Secondly, boots of lightning speed probably aren't okay in an actual quest claim ( but if they are, I might add them one day).

Fetch this, kill that sounds a bit simple. Maybe an ambush or a betrayal once you complete your objective?

Combat on water ( water walking ). Sounds easy, no scripts.

A khajiit with 9 lives. Might get a little annoying for the player, having to kill the same kitty cat over and over. I get the feeling this only needs a simple script. The way I imagine it is that this would happen in a cave with the khajiit as the bandit ringleader. You would need to defeat him 9 times while you progress deeper and deeper towards their chest of treasure.

A quest that involves killing Fargoth.

And finally... naked amazons! The bartender of the House of Earthly delights is low on dancers and looking for new talent. Wait, that's horrible. Scrap that.

Edit: Okay, I just thought of something and you'll be in for more than a surprise story-wise. Don't know yet if it requires me to do any amazing scripting, but it should include a fight between AIs and a follower. Not sure exactly what you want to see, but I think this is somewhere along the lines of that?

Edit again: uploaded the cleaned version of my original quest. And yeah, I accidentally named it competitition.

The following is an idea for a fighters guild questline in TR mod.

The town in which the fighters guild is situated in is also home to a Camonna Tong guild hall. The criminal syndicate wishes to get rid of the outlanders in town and plans to use the fighters guild as a tool, although they do not completely trust them. The player will be left unaware of this at the beginning and be given some hints along the way.

First quest. Player is instructed to take the several pieces of cheap heavy armor from the fighters guild chest and deliver it to the local blacksmith to be converted into scrap metal. Then we will have the player give it to a Camonna Tong member, with no explanation of what will be done with it. When the player has progressed further on, he can learn upon questioning the Camonna Tong member or the guild stewardess that the scrap metal was for slave bracelets. But initially the player will be left clueless, with his coinpurse a 400 septims heavier.

To be continued...

ImaginaryDave · Post by **ImaginaryDave** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 12:44 pm

Why was very eager to look at my showcase so I'm posting it here, even though it's nowhere near finished or even cleaned.

Quest starts at Caldera. Find Dro'Shavir's house. I will say, however, that no information on what to do next is given. I will later add a topic about the knight to a bartender or something who will give you directions. You should look for a nearby ancestral tomb. I think it was called Vandalen or something.