Map1 Fix reports [Momo's quest-fixing round]

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:24 pm

I want to use this thread to keep you informed about what I am currently doing on map 1 and ask for your advices and permissions. Now I am coming through exterior cells one by one:
- Fixing errors I find
- Detailing where necessary (Dwemer ruin cell with 37 refs? Too bad)
- Making sure the different claims and regions blend one to another smoothly.
- Adding wildlife
- Adding hostile encounters. I have replaced non TR_DATA Roamers with TR_DATA Roamers. Now there are 4 clans of 5 members, but the script is written so that the Roamer appears only when PC reaches certain level. Then I am adding regular outlaws and Runaway Slaves with unique names (I want to ask if you have some ideas for Runaway Slave script that would set their AI - Hostile if you are Telvanni, friendly if you stan well with Twinn lamps, suspicious otherwise). I also plan to include hostile Telvanni mages who went nuts into Telvanni Islands wilderness. Each region will have its specific encounters then.
- Adding non-hostile encounters. Some NPC'S in wilderness (mostly scouts) will give you information about wildlife in the region, possible encounters, local area (some directions to caves) and the region in general.
- There are some really nonsensically placed interiors like eggmine in the middle of unaccessible area, with no road or transport for the mined eggs, so at least some connection is being build there.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:27 pm

Here is my first request. I am really not very fond of this area northeast of Firewatch. The AI textures and flora do not really fit and look incoherent. There is also lack of details and the area is quite messy IMO. Should I perhaps replace the AI with WG and make the transitions more obvious?

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:32 pm

Yes, let it flow with the surroundings. Good idea, Theo, to make this thread. If you're done with it it can also be used by the other fixers. I'll rename the thread when you're done and someone else begins.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:23 pm

This all sounds very good. One slight exception is the nuts Telvanni mages, who we don't want to see littering the place. That'd be very weird. They should be extremely rare at most.

Two questions:

are you handling bug reports that have been coming in in the error reporting threads, hints and spoilers forum, etc? It would be good to get a clear answer, so that the next fixer-to-be knows whether these fixes still need to be made or not. Remember that there are still one or two game-breaking bugs lurking (in particular, though for Data, your spellbook fix, and the (for this file) cleaning of TG(vanil) dialogue)

if it's not too much trouble, and no offense, could you perhaps post the dialogue you intend to implement here, so that I or someone else can have a look at it for grammar etc. I mean no offense, but in fixing Map 1 to its current state, yours were the quests and dialogue that required the most in this respect. It would be good to head such things off now.

Re: the slaves, it is impossible (for reasons known only to Beth) to check the player's factions by scripting. You could probably do something with globals, but we try to avoid implementing those. (Also, why would the slaves know if the player was a member of the very obscure Twin Lamps, or the not entirely public Telvanni)

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:53 pm

1) Well - no crazy mages then.
2) I am not handling those errors so far. I will do that in a final stage, once I have fixed the most blatant issues and once there are enough error reports gathered. I would welcome very much though, if somebody updated a thread in this forum, keeping in it relevant bug reports. So far the reports are scattered around the public forums, some may be repetitive, some really silly, some being caused by the moders not using proper resources etc. If somebody could search, select and organize those it will be much easier for the fixer to follow them.
3) Rather then posting pieces of texts in this forum, I will give you a list of entries and topics, I have modified. I am not changing the dialog too much, though. I have added few more NPC's to GS exterior as requested, I am doing changest to Highway robbery and adding new topics for non-hostile wilderness NPC's.
4) Probably the slaves should act as regular outlaws though.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:22 pm

Theo hang on, you'll get your error report list.

Gez · Post by **Gez** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:25 pm

Theo wrote:Then I am adding regular outlaws and Runaway Slaves with unique names

The idea for runaway slaves was that they were generic sword-fodder, like the Sleepers, Berserkers, Smugglers, etc. Giving them unique names detract from this original design. In fact, they should be placed as ninja monkeys (leveled encounter spots). Though you may place a few unique ones here and there.

Here's the quote:

For reference, here's a list of (hostile) generic NPC groups in Morrowind:

Morrowind.esm:
-Dreamers

Tribunal.esm:
-Dark Brotherhood members

Bloodmoon.esm:
-Berserkers
-Fryse Hags
-Reavers
-Smugglers
-Werewolves (show up as insane lunatic idiots during dayhours)

You'll notice Bloodmoon was especially rich in cannon fodder NPC, given the gameplay requirement of providing werewolf with a renewable source of NPCs to kill.

Now, for Tamriel Rebuilt, we can't use Dreamers much (there are a few Sixth House bases on the mainland, but they're necessarily incredibly rare), we can't use Dark Brothers (they're tied to the Tribunal mainquest), and we can't use most of the Bloodmoon guys except maybe on Map5. We could use the smugglers, I think.

For our own cannon fodder factions, we already have the roamers. We could design other factions, true... But let's be serious: not a rival faction of outlaw wizards. Not on the Telvanni lands. What we could use for Map1 could be feral and frightened fugitive slaves. Khajiits and Argonians, with their slave bracers and primitive weapons, hiding in caves and attacking anybody who trespasses.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:04 pm

And here is the list: http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=20124 . Ill update it as often as I can. The topic is locked, to prevent someone posting in it. If there are errors you can't fix, you probably can post them here or pm them to me.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:02 am

Thanks.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:03 pm

Did someone mention about changing the name Darconis from the roadmarkers to Helnim?

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:24 pm

Ooh yeah, good point.

And Gez, I thought the result of that discussion was that we decided that we wanted to keep canon-fodder to 'Morrowind' levels, and thus would only do the Roamers?

Lud · Post by **Lud** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:01 am

I have a suggestion for Roamers. Make it so that they don't simply attack on sight. Give them a fight value of 40 and a script like this:

Code: Select all

Begin TR_m1_Roamer

short isMap1Bandit
short DoOnce

if DoOnce < 1
   Set isMap1Bandit to 1
   Set DoOnce to 1
endif

if isMap1Bandit < 2
   if GetDistance, player < 100
      Forcegreeting
   endif
endif

end

Then filter dialogue for them, based not on ID or faction but on the local variable TRmap1Bandit. You can then give them dialogue so that they will ask you for money in return for being allowed to go unscathed. (Change TRmap1Bandit to 2 when the player has paid, etc) For those in groups, Setfight commands on the leader's companions can be used.

This way low level characters don't get too molested. Make it so that if you don't have the 100 or so gold they ask for, they'll just take everything you have.

I'd prefer not to see loads of high-level baddies roaming around map1. Please ensure that map1 is no more challenging that Vvardenfell, unless the player seeks out extra challenge. (ie: in dungeons, etc)

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:03 pm

Ooh, yeah. Other key thing: Gah Ouadaruhn must become Llothanis. I would also advise the changing of all GOs to Lls.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Sun May 18, 2008 9:21 pm

Hi Theo, how is this going? I would love an update.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Mon May 19, 2008 11:21 am

I was just about going to post one. I am still doing the map 1 detailing. On a following map you can see how I progress:
The green areas have been fairly detailed already and need no touches from me. The yellow ones still needed some detail and are being worked on by me. Sometimes it was just adding more rocks and flora, but the area SE of Bal Oyra was quite bad...
It was made by many modders in no-restriction era and the quality variead a lot. The neighbouring cells didn't flow smoothly one to another (there were even AI textures in the valley) and the whole area was unaccesible with illogical interiors (like an eggmine with about 10 miners and 3 guards in middle of nowhere) so I added some access paths. I had to move some illogical interiors too and have some notes about them. (Will probably make some thorough check for them). I tried to keep original modder's intention for this area, but I had to remove some repetitive feature creating statics, retexture here and there and sometimes even change the terrain. I am sorry to mess with somebody's works, but this is how it goes at TR and I am not even one tenth such 'scraper' as Kebra (and I know some of my work on map 3 calls for change badly too). If somebody feels I have spoiled his work, there is still an old file and the old content can be remerged to the new one. This will be open for discussion.
The red areas will require a lot of detailing. I am unsure about the blue ones. I didn't check them properly yet, but some little work will be needed too.

Now for the dots:
Dark Blue - Roamers.
Orange - Runaway slaves.
Purple - Other hostile encounters (will be more).
Light Blue - Non-hostile encounters (will be more).
Brown - Unique monsters (will be more).
Green - Events (mainly quest locations, but other places of interest). There are more already, but I cannot recall all of them.

I am also adding wildlife.
Once I am finish, I will start fixing the bug reports. This will be done much faster, if you keep them in one thread for me. I do not want to hurry with this, it will be finished before all remaining map 1 questlines. Which means probably earlier then in the end of the summer.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Mon May 19, 2008 2:05 pm

You did some good work, I presume, and your pace is good too at the moment. Thanks!

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Mon May 19, 2008 6:16 pm

Looks like a great survey of map 1. It'll help a lot.

Post by **Haplo** » Tue May 20, 2008 12:20 am

I'll third the comments, it sounds like you've gotten a lot done; I can't wait to check out the finished product!

Gez · Post by **Gez** » Tue May 20, 2008 10:04 am

The runaway slaves should be hiding in caves, not standing around in broad daylight.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 9:58 pm

Hi Theo, the first part of the imperial cult is done and I would like to merge it with your file so that it can be properly playtested. It will also give us a new backup file. And how is is going by the way?

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:20 pm

Progress is very slow, due to conferences, exam periods and stipendiary application deadlines. However I expect to do a lot of work during holiday. The current file is in a somewhat messy state, so merging some files with it is bit risky, but if it is for purpose of testing only, I think no harm can be done.
Note the changes to interiors and theirs locations on Northwest cap east of Bal Oyra. The whole area has been improved there down to Baelkashpitu. Once I am done with exterior work and monsters, I will look through interiors, NPC'S and the fixes will be applied at the very end.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:42 pm

Then I think it would be better if we playtest it in its original thread and let steady eddy fix it himself before we merge it. Thanks for the WIP and the update!

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:03 pm

All looks good, and your work on Baelkashpitu is impressive (though remember to leave some boring ruins

). Are there any other areas that have been really dramatically improved?

One note: "Mad captain Sedgwick" should become "Mad Captain Sedgwick", and should have a Greeting 1 madman's rambling with a goodbye, in case the player calms him and speaks to him (unless you already did that and I missed it).

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:45 pm

Thank you for your positive feedback. All that remains to be done in means of exterior fixing is the two red areas east of river Odai and checking of the blue areas. (Though isles of arches is pretty impressive i still want to place some monsters in there). There is one more daedric ruin there and I will look to it that it is sufficiently boring (well - I would say rather use word 'standard'). I wouldn't touch Baelkashpitu if it was not the most boring daedric ruin ever - the whole cell had about 20 refs !!! The same goes for the dwemer ruin in the southern mountains.
I also think testing the quests with the old file would be good idea, before they are fixed and finished, I am sure I will be able to provide more coherent version for merging.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:51 pm

Personally I like the Isle of Arches being a very deserted place, with only crabs and the occasional ghost or two. Very eerie. I say leave it as it is.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:54 pm

Theo, could you make/add some signposts for Tel Mothrivra at the road south of Ranyon Ruhn? You should add them especially near Alt' Bosara markers, because Alt' Bosara is furtert from map 1 then Tel Mothrivra.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:30 pm

I will look to it.

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:57 pm

Thanks for working on this Theo, and thanks for all these updates. I'm downloading the file you have uploaded.

Just a question: what do you think about the area around Nassudan (can't tell you the cells names actually, will post again later eventually)? I feel that area a bit undetailed, that's the only part of Map 1 that I actually feel as a "modded area" actually... differently to the rest of the map, which often reaches Bethesda's quality.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:44 pm

Update. Darconis is now Helnim and Gah Ouadaruhn is Llothanis and next time somebody decides to change ingame names somebody else will have to do it (I corrected about 250 entries). All but the red areas should be detailed soon now. The outlook of finishing this until end of August is quite realistic, I believe.

@Osiris: Nassudan? Is it the Velothi tomb north of Firewatch, where an orc is trapped in FG quest? The whole area is quite well detailed, but particularly around this structure I had to add few more trees. The Telvanni islands regions and the northwestern cape (Azura Coast regions] are excellently detailed in fact and need no touch from me.
Have you been to the peninsula east of Gah Ouadaruhn (eh Llothanis)? I think that one was particularly bad.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:13 pm

Theo's got it right on detail levels. Nassudan was great, IMO, just the right mix of bleak and rocky; while that GO/Ll(BTW, did you fix initials, Theo?) bit is terrible.

Oh, one personal request for a fix:

For the topic "Firewatch", could you change the generic response (that mentions 'Helnim') from calling Firewatch the second biggest city to calling it the biggest city; and also change the filters so that only Imperials, or members of IL or IC will talk about it (this will require a couple of copies, so that not just Imperial ILers talk about it, for instance). (It's a really bad 'list breaker' subject anywhere else, 'cos everyone talks about it)

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 8:36 am

Theo wrote:Update. Darconis is now Helnim and Gah Ouadaruhn is Llothanis and next time somebody decides to change ingame names somebody else will have to do it (I corrected about 250 entries).

@Osiris: Nassudan? Is it the Velothi tomb north of Firewatch, where an orc is trapped in FG quest? The whole area is quite well detailed, but particularly around this structure I had to add few more trees. The Telvanni islands regions and the northwestern cape (Azura Coast regions] are excellently detailed in fact and need no touch from me.[/quote]

Yeah, I meant the area around that Velothi tower: especially the ground, and the hills immediately around it. I don't know why I have this sensation, but while the terrain shape looks well modelled, that area always seemed a bit bare to me.

I'm not saying it's bad, only that is one of the few areas where I can recognize Map 1 as a "modded landscape", if you know what I mean. Dunno why.
Ok for the trees idea, though.

Have you been to the peninsula east of Gah Ouadaruhn (eh Llothanis)? I think that one was particularly bad.

Yeah; I have visited every part of the map several times, and I agree on what you say.

A request: could you please add Kwama Workers outside the egg mines? Their presence is what makes me able to recognize an egg - mine from a smugglers' cave in vanilla Morrowind.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:16 pm

How is map1 coming along, Theo? (I'm just curious)

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:16 am

Not very well recently. There is not much to do left, but my pace is veeery slow, recently. I am currently checking interiors and placing the Kwama workers at the entrances of the mines. I hope I will be able to finish this until end of summer as I promised, but there are many things I have to do in RL - study for an exam and do about 50 exercises, prepare material for my own seminars and finish an article between deadline in September - It is possible I won't even have time to touch this whole August and even in September. Anyway, the final release of map 1 (Including Molag Bal quests) will be with this map and it will be flawless, I can promise.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:07 pm

If you aren't able to work on this in august, you maybe could give the file to someone else who wanted to fix things in map1. (Haplo, Lud, Gez probably wanted to improve the file as well)

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:14 pm

Well, I could do that. But first I have to put it together a little bit. OK, I will do that... Expect me to upload new version next weekend.

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:16 pm

Most of the fixing I plan to do has to do with dialogue and errors in speech and names as well as fixing any betacomment error reports, so it should be a relatively quick phase for me; I'll volunteer to take Map 1 next.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:03 am

As I promised here it comes.
What remains to be done:

EXTERIOR/ENCOUNTERS
1) Some detailing to the red areas.
2) Placing remaining slaves and encounters.
3) Checking and finishing wildlife distribution.
4) Fixing reported world errors (if they have not been fixed in the detailing stage).

INTERIORS
1) Checking them for quality and reported errors.
2) Listing them and describing their's purpose. Detailing them if needed.
3) Checking them for exterior fitting and distribution. Move some of them if needed.
4) Placing Kwama at entrances of remaining eggmines, other mines should be in accesible areas etc. Detailing surrounding exteriors if needed.

DIALOGUE
1) Fixing old dialogue as well as reported dialogue errors.
2) Fixing new dialogue. This includes topics 'Wildlife', 'Boethian mountains', 'Molagreahd', 'Telvanni Isles', 'local area', Local Greetings (non-town) and whole new dialogue of new NPC's in Gah Sadrith exterior I added.
3) Removing carefuly redundant dialogue.

QUESTS/SCRIPTS
1) Fixing reported quest errors.
2) Finding replacement for Highway Robbery. This quest not only doesn't work properly, but is confusing does not develop logically and breaks lore. Its basic idea is cool though can be salvaged if worked-out more properly. (I am willing to do this one, but as completely last step via regular quest claims - possibly legion questline).
3) Removing carefuly redundant scripts.

If you could do the parts in italics I would be extremely grateful.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:17 pm

Thanks a lot, Theo. You did a good job and you can continue later on if you want. Now, It is Haplo-fixing time.

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:51 pm

Man there is a lot of dialogue X-/. I'm through "Background" at the moment, and really dreading the little advice/secret, latest rumors topics...

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:55 am

It is unnecessary that you check all map 1 dialogue. It was done dozen many times already. Just go and fix reported errors and take a look at the new dialogue I included. This should be about 15 responses.

Map1 Fix reports [Momo's quest-fixing round]

Map1 Fix reports [Momo's quest-fixing round]

Re: Theo's map1 Fix-round reports