q1-77-Tel

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:27 pm

I do, the drunken knight (a misc quest of Ranyon Ruhn) had TR_m1-Hasilius Brahn, who passed out regulary.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:07 pm

I checked out Hasilius, and the script that knocks him out is for all intents and purposes identical to the one I wrote for the Hermaeans. It doesn't work for me. For some reason known only to my handful of NPCs, setting or modding fatigue levels does not make them pass out. They fall over and stay that way if they're in combat for any length of time, but they won't do it until they're hit. I'm just about out of ideas. I hate it when a tiny part of a project that should take five seconds turns into a huge fiasco!

I'll stop pulling my hair out over this for now and come back to it in a bit. No sense letting the quest grind to a halt because of a minor bug. If any passersby know a surefire way to knock out NPCs without involving combat, please post it. It would make my day.

Lud · Post by **Lud** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:35 am

Use Addspell, with a major fatigue-damaging spell, don't see why it wouldn't work.

Post by **Gnomey** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:01 pm

Generally I find that giving the NPC 0 fatigue has no effect. After all, if the player runs until exhausted in Vanilla he won't fall down. Setfatigue always does the trick for me, though. You could also try using negative values. I have no idea what would happen, but it's worth a try.

Lud · Post by **Lud** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:05 pm

I'd guess that it's probably necessary to give them negative fatigue, instead of just zero. That's what knocks nyou over in combat.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:49 pm

I have tried negative values, from -1 to -50. No results. It's driving me up a wall. I've moved on from it, in any case. I'll come back to it when I get that far in the implementation process.

Update for the day:
Erushara is cloned, and the door is placed and scripted; it works like a charm. Fedaves' personality is gradually taking shape (it takes a LOT longer to write interesting unique dialogue than I thought), and groundwork is laid for the first few tasks, though nothing is playable just yet. I still need questions. I've been brainstorming and haven't been able to come up with anything that doesn't suck.

Are there any unused NPCs that I could either completely revamp or delete and replace with the crazy Hermaean? It doesn't matter where he lives, as long as his house is poor.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:30 pm

There's the odd farmer's hut around the place that could be easily replaced without being annoying. Or better still, the guy could hang out in some underused Ancestral Tomb somewhere.

Hemitheon · Post by **Hemitheon** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:06 pm

How bout creating a curse that drains fatigue like 500 points?

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:29 pm

Maybe Halaran camp in the northern parts of Gahvan Isle (The island of Port Telvannis) would be a good hideout for a crazy ex-hermaean. I don't know if the current residents are currently set to hostile, but if you place someone in that camp, you better make them all peaceful. A barbarian character like mine would rush in and kill everyone before he realises they were needed in a superduper quest later.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:46 pm

I love those guys! They're peaceful, unless whoever made that pilgrim hostile got to them as well.

They're too cool and nomaddy for a batty Hermaen to be living with, though, IMO.

pacificmorrowind · Post by **pacificmorrowind** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:42 pm

I did a quest (not in TR) that had a guy be always passed out, but I can't remember the script I used. Are you making sure to clean your save of the refs to the guy before testing each new script? WOuld you upload that problem script or a WIP or txt with the problem script, and let me have try at fixing it? (not to imply that you are no good at scripting, just fresh eyes sometimes help)
Pacific Morrowind

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:44 pm

I never save while testing a mod. Ever. My test save is in Seyda Neen with a level 1 character that is dependent only on Morrowind.esm and a very clean and extremely helpful plugin called Pandy's Cheats.esp. The save is not dirty. I'm beginning to suspect my problems have something to do with the fact that his Wander value is 0. I'll try raising it to see if he falls over when he tries to walk. Like I said, though, this little bug is on a back burner right now.

Edit: I was right. I set his wander to 8 and he tipped right over the first time, but the next time I came back he was doing an infinite pass-out dance where he got almost down to the floor then popped back to his feet and did it again. I'll try a wander of 16 or 32 so he has room to fall down.

Update for the day:
I'm almost done with Fedaves' dialogue, though I have noticed something irritating. Many lore topics (Temple, Tribunal, Vivec, etc.) are not NoLored as far as I can tell. I made Fedaves a NoLore NPC so he would have responses only to the lore topics I want him to have, but when he says any of the aforementioned words, up pops a hyperlink. Is this a TR thing or vanilla? Or am I just stupid about what NoLore actually does?

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:35 am

I'm pretty sure it's bethseda's work. Maybe you can immediately remove the topic in the result window. That works with adding a topic, maybe with removing a topic too.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Tue Jul 15, 2008 4:00 pm

In case it is TR adding some TR_Temple explanatory dialogue (which I did add in), get someone to fix the relevant entries in TR_Data, by adding the NotLocal NoLore = 0 filter.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 4:16 pm

Who exactly would this "someone" be?

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:29 pm

I don't really know. Ideally it'd be Haplo, who's the guy in charge of merging stuff into Data, and this relies on not merging, but editing Data (which can only be done by someone with access to the 'base' Data .esp (Hap)).

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:30 am

Well, that's clear as mud.

I see this going one of two ways:

I finish my dialogue, make a list of unwanted topics, and humbly request that Haplo dig through and alter them for the entire mod in a way inconsistent with Bethesda's standard (vanilla also has non-NoLore Temple dialogue)

-OR-

I don't make Fedaves a member of the Temple. He won't have any faction-related functions, and I can most easily set up the dialogue to sound like he's a member. It won't make a bit of difference from a gameplay standpoint unless the player is console-savvy, in which case they're not interested in immersion in the first place.

Frankly, I'm inclined to go with the latter.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:49 pm

yes, the latter is the better one. You do know that we use the separate TR_temple faction? That maybe could have solved it but I guess you tried that already.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:53 pm

He is a Curate in the Mainland Tribunal Temple. Both TR_Temple and Temple factions have dialogue relating to the Temple and the Tribunal that is not filtered by NoLore. Most of it has class filters, though, so I may just change his class in name (he's a monk right now). Either way, I'll fix it on my end instead of creating more work for someone else.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:18 am

Update for the day:
I have completely finished all of my pre-quest to-do list (NPCs, background scripts, non-quest-advancing dialogue, interior linkage, etc.) and have begun the process of implementing the quest itself, step by step from beginning to end. A playable WIP, up to around the point the player arrives at Ansura-Heramas for the first time, can be expected from me in the next week to ten days, though due to a busier-than-normal work schedule, that's an estimate rather than a promise. Because I am in the active quest-building stage, I have a couple of needs:

Firstly, I humbly request as large a brainstorm as possible on the specific questions that Dral wants answered. The time for "maybe this" and "how about that general topic" has passed; this dialogue is being written right now, and I don't want to use placeholders that will all need to be changed later. I'll contribute to the brainstorm, obviously, but I will not proceed with questions that haven't been looked over and agreed upon by as many eyes as possible.

Secondly, I need somebody in literature to write the ex-Hermaean's journal and associated riddles. I don't know the procedures in the Lit forum. Do I just go there and post a thread with the request? Or should I PM Nanu, since he knows the department better than I do?

I'm still very open to any ideas or suggestions anyone has. If you pass by this thread and feel you have something to contribute, please do so. The more minds, the better on a job like this.

Progress is being made. I'll be bumping the bar to 10% sometime in the next couple of days!

(EDIT: One month on the site for me!

)

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:10 am

You just make a thread in the literature forum, requesting exactly what you want. This is why you can better do it instead of me.
Regarding the questions, I won't open a brainstorm thread in public because the people responding should know who Dral is and what his motives are. I still think that "How can I permanently maintain a pocket world?" would be a good question.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:18 am

Pushed the bar to 10%. I'm far enough along that I think an "official" progress mark is warranted.

Keep in mind that I need answers for these questions, too. I agree that a question about pocket worlds would be relevant, but it strikes me as too literal/definitive and not philosophical enough for this quest. Of course, depending on the wording and Hermy's response, anything's possible. I'm kicking around a few ideas of my own, but they're not nearly well-formed enough to post yet. I'll write them up when they're more than ethereal mist.

Post by **Gnomey** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:39 am

That reminds me. I just wanted to mention that I would like it if Dral's comments were short and to the point, rather than full of double meanings. I sort of imagine him as someone too impatient for using fancy words; he just wants to know something so that he can continue his research, and doesn't want to bother with trying to unravel the answers provided. In short, he expects Hermaeus Mora to give him straight answers in reply to his straight questions, though it is quite likely that that won't happen. Let the other councillers give the player lengthy speeches full of double-meanings.

Edit: I might as well re-post a few questions that I wrote up before:

1. Would an artifact created using a broken piece of a blade fashioned wholly from the essence of a Daedric prince be as powerful as an artifact made wholly out of the essence?
2. What rituals would be involved in the creation of such an artifact, if any?
3. Will the artifact contain any base qualities which are, perhaps, related to the prince from whose essence the artifact was created?

The straight answers might be:

1. The artifact would surpass any other similar artifact, but the material used to create the rest of the artifact cannot be brought to the same strength as a blade of pure god essence. In the hypothetical situation of having the artifact employed against the god whose essence you are using, he would be hurt due to the presence of his essence, but depending on the materials used to make the rest of the artifact, the artifact might disintigrate.
2. As the essence was already crafted into a solid object, few rituals will be required. The Ritual of Bonding, the Ritual of Holding, and the Ritual of Honing. The difficulty would no doubt lie in ensuring the consent of the concerned god, who surely wouldn't support such a creation, and who will likely be angry at its creator as a result.
3. The broken artifact which you mentioned, formed of god essence, contains such enchantments, and as they surpass the enchantments usually employed by your kind it would be difficult for you to remove them. Thus the broken piece will still contain those enchantments, and your artifact will in turn recieve them, after you perform the Ritual of Bonding. Alteration of the enchantment is simpler, and is quite likely to occur during the Ritual of Honing.

Or short answers, which would also work if you want to make Hermaeus Mora act disdainful, would be:

1. No.
2. The Ritual of Bonding, the Ritual of Holding and the Ritual of Honing would be involed in the artifact's creation. Seeking the consent of the prince whose essence you are using would be advisable.
3. Yes.

As to complex answers, if you want them, I'll have to get back to you on that.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:27 am

Dral's dialogue is very short, to-the-point, and thoroughly condescending, I assure you. The dialogue topic most of the quest information has wound up under is "little task", to emphasize that Dral is really somewhat bored by the whole thing.

Those are all excellent, factual, and practical questions--this is the problem. They would be great if finding the answers were an incidental part of the quest. In this case, however, the finding of the answers and the player's having to remember them is the whole kit-and-kaboodle. To put it simply, they're too direct and difficult to recall. I really like the subject of the questions, though. If they could be phrased more simply, and the answers more in the form of a riddle, they'd be perfect. I know Dral isn't interested in mind games, but Hermaeus Mora certainly is, and if the answers are far more cryptic than the questions, the contrast between knower and seeker would be fantastic.

I appreciate the contribution. Anything to help ease the load on my mind is more than welcome.

Post by **Gnomey** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:14 pm

Yep, I was thinking that you would like Hermaeus Mora's answers to be more complex. I'll get to work on that.

(If anyone else wants to do it, by the way, be my guest).

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:59 am

Just a couple of quick syntax questions:

What's the capitalization standard for "Daedra"? I see it both ways, but I can't figure out a system. Is it personal choice whether or not to capitalize it or are there rules that I'm just not getting? It isn't a huge deal, but I like to be consistent. As of right now it's "Daedra" rather than "daedra" in all of my dialogue.

What's the capitalization standard for "Temple"? I know the faction is always capitalized, but if the word refers to the building rather than the organization would it be "temple"? Right now in my dialogue it's lowercase when referring to the building.

Daedra is plural, isn't it? The singular would be Daedroth, but I avoid using that term since it's associated with the walking alligator of that name. What's the official stance on this? Can Hermaeus Mora be referred to as "the Daedroth" or should I stick to terms like "Daedra Prince"?

I'll be posting a WIP very soon. On playtesting recently, I found that Dral's quest startup dialogue is kind of clunky and difficult to navigate, and streamlining that is taking more time than it should. My biggest fault as a modder is getting too caught up on little things in lieu of the big picture. Nevertheless, I forge onward.

Hemitheon · Post by **Hemitheon** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:09 am

usually "Daedra" refers to a Daedric Lord. "daedra" refers to a minor being such as a dremora or scamp.

"Temple" is the faction, "temple" is the building.

I think "Daedra Prince/Daedroth" is at your own discretion. I've seen both used before.

Post by **Gnomey** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 1:39 pm

I think that Daedroth is supposed to be an outdated singular. Daedra is generally used in both cases: "There's a Daedra in my back yard and it's smashing stuff. There are lots of Daedra in my front lawn and they're also smashing stuff. They're doing a better job of it, though."

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:12 am

So, I've been doing way too much thinking and revising and rewriting of Fedaves' dialogue, and after much internal deliberation I've decided to scrap it. Even after all my effort, it was muddled, confused, clunky, and a general waste of space. While that means a big chunk of time has gone down the toilet, it's definitely good for the quest overall. I'd rather he be inconspicuous anyway; I don't want the player to think he's important until he becomes important. I've toyed with the idea of having him disabled until the quest starts, but I feel it would be somewhat unnatural to have an NPC appear out of nowhere in a well-lived-in space.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts.

Post by **Haplo** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:35 am

Gnomey wrote:I think that Daedroth is supposed to be an outdated singular. Daedra is generally used in both cases: "There's a Daedra in my back yard and it's smashing stuff. There are lots of Daedra in my front lawn and they're also smashing stuff. They're doing a better job of it, though."

There's a creature called the Daedroth, so I don't think that should be used. It would cause confusion. Not to mention I think we have Daedroth Hide Armor in TR_Data.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 4:50 am

This weekend will see a WIP posted, come hell or high water. I've fallen into a good rhythm of progress, and I should have at least through killing the vampires completely finished by then. I'm sure no one's nearly as anxious as I am about how fast I'm finishing this claim, but I work better under a deadline (whether arbitrary or not) so feel free to tell me I need to work faster.

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:40 am

You need to work faster.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 5:25 pm

What clan should the vampires in the tomb belong to, or doesn't it matter? Is there a way to make clan-less vampires that I'm not aware of?

Hemitheon · Post by **Hemitheon** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:31 pm

If you want Vampires who specialize in fighting: Quarra.
If you want Vampires who specialize in magic: Aundae
If you want Vampires who specialize in stealth: Berne

There is a way to make them vampires but it would require alot of rigging: create a new disease for vampirism and for vampirism power, then apply it to your NPCS.

EDIT: I would not suggest creating a new vampirism disease. If the player contracts it, there would be no way to cure it.

Lud · Post by **Lud** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:18 pm

Non-clan vamps do exist. I think you might be able to make a vamp without a clan:

UESP wrote: Though most vampires belong to one of the three bloodlines, there are five vampires that operate independently of the clans, and there are clan-less, generic vampires of no bloodline.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:25 am

I'm fairly certain that that only means certain vampires do not, whether by choice or force, communicate with the clans. All vampire blood belongs to one of the three clans, whether the carrier is acknowledged by that clan or not. That quote is worded differently/more accurately on the old UESP site to imply what I just said. Also, in the CS there are only three "Vampirism" spells, each clan-affiliated. In any case, it doesn't particularly matter. I'll probably make them Berne, and modify the script so they don't react or matter to the vanilla vampire quests. I'll also see what I can do about keeping them from being contagious; I'd like this to be an isolated vampiric incident rather than a game-altering moment.

If anyone can refute anything I've just said, please do so. A clan-free vampire would be the ideal solution, but only if there's a simple, built-in way to do it; I don't want to waste more time than I already have on things that don't need doing.

I'm still on track for a WIP this weekend, but don't expect to be wowed. I've taken a few more steps back than forward in the past two weeks, though I think the change is ultimately for the better.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:08 pm

There is a special TR_NPC_M1_Vampire_Berne script in TR_data that you can use, so you don't have to waste any time.

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:37 am

First WIP is up. A few notes, however:

This is not nearly as far along as I would have liked to be at this point. As I've said previously, a big chunk of time was spent on stuff that I cut out for quality reasons. What's here is solid, but there's not much of it.

Please be brutal in your reviews. Give me a breakdown of what needs to be improved/changed/removed. I want this to be a great quest, and I need input to make it that way.

Ansura-Heramas is a part of this file, but the quest doesn't get you there just yet. Even so, feel free to drop by and check out the NPCs in there, and let me know if one or more is doing a pass-out dance, and a fix for it if you know of one. The entrance is in Telvanni Isles Region 45, 17 (due east of Port Telvannis). The entrance is blocked by three menhirs in a cluster. Activate the center one to clear the doorway. (Note: if you open the doorway while testing the quest, you will break the progress. The door alters a global variable and does not reset it to its required state for the quest. This will be fixed when I get that far.)

The quest so far takes you to just after cleansing the tomb. When you return from that, no one has any further dialogue. I also have not yet built in the alternate path for Temple member PCs. This will be added when I do the next stage of the quest.

The questions I've used are the ones suggested by Gnomey. They are still up for debate, so please share any ideas you have about them.

IMPORTANT:
To begin this quest, you need to open the console and type in

Code: Select all

Journal TR_Q77_Dummy 10

This is the filter requirement for the quest's initial dialogue. Read the entry for (slightly) more information.
(EDIT: This is not the ID of the quest's journal entries. See my post below.)

This quest is dependent upon the public 2.0 of Map 1 and the latest TR_Data update.

I'm looking forward to anything and everything anyone has to say about this WIP. Don't worry about hurting my feelings; tell it like it is, so I can make this as good as it can be.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Aug 03, 2008 1:20 pm

I'll check the full thing later, but one note is that (sorry for not mentioning this earlier) the Journal entry should be TR_m1_HT_Dr3 (this number can increase if you want as the quest progresses).

(That's if this counts as Dral's Master quest, am I right Lud?) If not, it should be TR_m1_HT_[something relevant].

Faalen · Post by **Faalen** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 2:20 pm

The one you need to type in is just a dummy entry, used in lieu of the actual quest prerequisites. Since this isn't playable until after the MQ, and after a certain point in House Telvanni, and I don't know what those journal entries are, the quest startup is dependent upon a stand-in. The entry will be deleted and replaced with the actual prerequisites when the file is merged. My questline is under the ID "TR_m1_HT_Dr3".

@ BC: It was mentioned to me. I asked about it a page or two ago.