EDIT: Scroll down for my newest file! This file was a total screw up, but the next one is much better (in my opinion).
Cheers!
Hey! My first quest! YAY!!!
Moderator: Lead Developers
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GreenH4X0R
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- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:39 am
Hey! My first quest! YAY!!!
Last edited by GreenH4X0R on Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:14 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Hello,
Thank you for submitting a file for a showcase. It's great to get eager people who want to help out, especially with quests.
Your spelling and grammar is very good and your file is mostly clean. One thing I noticed is that is you changed Sellus Gravius - not sure why.
On a whole I'd have to say your quest is far too linear and simplistic to get a recommendation just yet. I know everyone starts somewhere, and this is a good entry point, but TR needs to show a little more skill in their showcases. Once you've tackled the dialogue, head onto making about 2 or 3 scripts which produce some clever results - check out the other scripts in people's showcases for an idea about what you need to do.
There was a problem starting the quest. Fargoth says "Can I ask another favor", but there is no option for me to click on the topic because it's not there. This is because in the first entry, it says the journal (FARGOTH_QUEST) must equal 10 to get the introduction. This is impossible since we haven't started the quest yet. Just remove the journal requirement and we'll be able to start the quest.
In saying that, you'll need to reorganise the dialogue then. Typically in questing, the introduction and dialogue which has smaller journal indexes go at the bottom - dialogue works one a first priority basis - if something is at the top, the character will always say that by default. You seem to do that okay with other topics, but with others such as 'the thief' you have a bunch of inaccessible options which don't really work.
On a side note, this quest can't be finished if you've already killed Tanisie Verethi in the cave because her corpse is gone.
In general, I think you need to go back to and revise some of the basics of dialogue. Use this guide:
http://tommyshideout.net/files/srikandi/DialogueTut/
It helped me a LOT, and I think it's the best method to learn.
Uh yes, so, thanks again for your interest. You'll need to show more innovation within your quest design, dialogue, and scripting. Do the tutorial above and I promise you'll learn a lot about Morrowind dialogue.
Looking forward to your next file!
Thank you for submitting a file for a showcase. It's great to get eager people who want to help out, especially with quests.
Your spelling and grammar is very good and your file is mostly clean. One thing I noticed is that is you changed Sellus Gravius - not sure why.
On a whole I'd have to say your quest is far too linear and simplistic to get a recommendation just yet. I know everyone starts somewhere, and this is a good entry point, but TR needs to show a little more skill in their showcases. Once you've tackled the dialogue, head onto making about 2 or 3 scripts which produce some clever results - check out the other scripts in people's showcases for an idea about what you need to do.
There was a problem starting the quest. Fargoth says "Can I ask another favor", but there is no option for me to click on the topic because it's not there. This is because in the first entry, it says the journal (FARGOTH_QUEST) must equal 10 to get the introduction. This is impossible since we haven't started the quest yet. Just remove the journal requirement and we'll be able to start the quest.
In saying that, you'll need to reorganise the dialogue then. Typically in questing, the introduction and dialogue which has smaller journal indexes go at the bottom - dialogue works one a first priority basis - if something is at the top, the character will always say that by default. You seem to do that okay with other topics, but with others such as 'the thief' you have a bunch of inaccessible options which don't really work.
On a side note, this quest can't be finished if you've already killed Tanisie Verethi in the cave because her corpse is gone.
In general, I think you need to go back to and revise some of the basics of dialogue. Use this guide:
http://tommyshideout.net/files/srikandi/DialogueTut/
It helped me a LOT, and I think it's the best method to learn.
Uh yes, so, thanks again for your interest. You'll need to show more innovation within your quest design, dialogue, and scripting. Do the tutorial above and I promise you'll learn a lot about Morrowind dialogue.
Looking forward to your next file!
"Thank you to the Makers of Rules. To the Breakers of Backs. To the sincere Autocrats. To the false Democrats. To the Builders of Walls. To the Painters of Lines. To those who Tattoo Numbers. To those who point fingers. To those who count their greed. To those who split by colour. To those who smile their lies.
Thank you so very much."
Thank you so very much."
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GreenH4X0R
- Member
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:39 am
Thanks for that. In part, I just needed someone to point me in the right direction. I'll take a look into that site, and I found this thing called "Morrowind Scripting for Dummies" which seems to be helpful.
I didn't know what you wanted in terms of complexity of quests, so thanks for that advice, too.
I THINK I accidentally clicked on Sellus Gravius, based on what you said.
Thanks again! I already have an idea for a quest that would require scripting, too!
EDIT: I think it's worth noting that it's a stupid idea to ever change a file after playtesting and not playtest again. That's probably why the quest didn't work.
I didn't know what you wanted in terms of complexity of quests, so thanks for that advice, too.
I THINK I accidentally clicked on Sellus Gravius, based on what you said.
Thanks again! I already have an idea for a quest that would require scripting, too!
EDIT: I think it's worth noting that it's a stupid idea to ever change a file after playtesting and not playtest again. That's probably why the quest didn't work.
Hello, welcome to TR. Making quests is extremely difficult and tedious, but can be very rewarding when you finally manage to get things right and anyone willing to work on their questing skill is more than welcomed.
It is very important, especially with quests and especially in such large collaborative projects as TR, to make sure your esp file is not dirty. Which means it does not modify something it is not supposed to.
Construction sets automaticalally marks anything you even touch as changed. That is why it is important also to learn to use TESAME utility (downloadable from the mainpage of the project) to clean any file you submit for the project.
Simply open your esp file with TESAME and delete all entries you did not want to be changed (except textures - for some mysterious reasons CS o ften makes changes to textures and if you remove them, it breaks the file, so always keep a backup copy).
There should also be a stickied discussion with questmaking guidelines somewhere, so please take a time to read through it - it should help you to learn TR procedures much faster.
Hope it helps.
It is very important, especially with quests and especially in such large collaborative projects as TR, to make sure your esp file is not dirty. Which means it does not modify something it is not supposed to.
Construction sets automaticalally marks anything you even touch as changed. That is why it is important also to learn to use TESAME utility (downloadable from the mainpage of the project) to clean any file you submit for the project.
Simply open your esp file with TESAME and delete all entries you did not want to be changed (except textures - for some mysterious reasons CS o ften makes changes to textures and if you remove them, it breaks the file, so always keep a backup copy).
There should also be a stickied discussion with questmaking guidelines somewhere, so please take a time to read through it - it should help you to learn TR procedures much faster.
Hope it helps.
THEO
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GreenH4X0R
- Member
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:39 am
Okay... I'm done, so I'm just going to throw this at you for you to enjoy. I'm also tired, so if I write something that makes no sense, I'm sorry.
Go to Aleft and look for an object called "Old Dwemer Amulet" or something like that. Could have been "Old Dwarven Amulet."
Go talk to a Mage's Guild member, Telvanni house member, or simply go straight to Divayth Fyr.
The numbering order of the cranks is from left to right.
The amulet can teleport you to the ruins.
I'm not a interior or exterior designer, so don't complain about that.
I used Aleft because I know of no quest that uses those ruins.
I used Divayth Fyr because he's hard to kill and he's essential. It also makes sense that he'd be able to help.
Hopefully this makes up for my major derp with my last file. With my luck it'll just make me look worse and cause a blue screen. Maybe the blue screen will blue screen too. I'm ranting...
Cheers!
P.S. A big thanks to Why and Whiterabbit for answering some of my questions.
Go to Aleft and look for an object called "Old Dwemer Amulet" or something like that. Could have been "Old Dwarven Amulet."
Go talk to a Mage's Guild member, Telvanni house member, or simply go straight to Divayth Fyr.
The numbering order of the cranks is from left to right.
The amulet can teleport you to the ruins.
I'm not a interior or exterior designer, so don't complain about that.
I used Aleft because I know of no quest that uses those ruins.
I used Divayth Fyr because he's hard to kill and he's essential. It also makes sense that he'd be able to help.
Hopefully this makes up for my major derp with my last file. With my luck it'll just make me look worse and cause a blue screen. Maybe the blue screen will blue screen too. I'm ranting...
Cheers!
P.S. A big thanks to Why and Whiterabbit for answering some of my questions.
- Attachments
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- DwemerTele.esp
- I've tested this. In other words, it's likely filled with tons of bugs. If your computer explodes, hopefully it takes you with it so I can't be sued. Cheers!
- (25.4 KiB) Downloaded 94 times
Hey GreenH4X0R, I took a thorough look at your file and I'm quite impressed. Nice use of script (though in a quest claim I'd love to see more comments, it was quite hard to figure out!) and your dialog is quite nice too, it's a bit to-the-point but I liked it, especially for Fyr, though he also has his chatty moments. I found it to be a bit weird that any mages guild associate points you to the Telvanni saying dwemer goods are illegal. A possibly better solution would be to point the player to Edwinna Albert, the MG's resident Dwemer expert, who then points you to Fyr, something like that.
There are a couple of small issues though. For one, the scroll Fyr gives you doesn't show any text. This is because it lacks some specific layout coding. I'd highly recommend stealing this from vanilla. Also he surely requires a boatload of items. It did set a nice atmosphere though and I was grinning while I wizarded the items into my inventory with the console, but I can only assume it'd get frustrating rather rapidly if you were actually playing the game.
Regarding scripts, the idea behind them was really ingenious and I like it a lot. A small remark - rather thanI'd rather see you call directly, because in your script, that set jindex line will be executed every frame rather than just whenever it's needed. I'd say it results in a theoretical performance increase but that's kind of a moot point to make these days. It's a bit neater anyway, and should you ever drop a claim it will be easier for the next claimant to pick up your WIP file and continue working on it if we all use sort of the same standards. Also, when I tried to teleport to Galom Daeus, I ended up somewhere in the ashlands. I think this is because you didn't type out the entire cell name in your script.
Naming of your objects is something important too. It'd have been way easier to find stuff if you had used some sort of prefix. Here at TR we use the TR and claim ID for prefixes - for instance, if you're working on the fictional claim q4-21-Mis, your objects, the prefix TR_m4_q_ would be used for all your objects, scripts and NPCs. I don't exactly expect you to go back and rename all your items though, just note it for next time.
So yeah, I liked your scripts a lot. If you flesh out the dialog a little more, fix that book, alter your scripts a bit like I described above, and promised to consider object naming next time, I'll be happy to include you in TR's quest team!
edit: Oh, one more small thing, I think you edited the Divayth Fyr topic without adding anything to it, could you clean that out using TESAME please?
There are a couple of small issues though. For one, the scroll Fyr gives you doesn't show any text. This is because it lacks some specific layout coding. I'd highly recommend stealing this from vanilla. Also he surely requires a boatload of items. It did set a nice atmosphere though and I was grinning while I wizarded the items into my inventory with the console, but I can only assume it'd get frustrating rather rapidly if you were actually playing the game.
Regarding scripts, the idea behind them was really ingenious and I like it a lot. A small remark - rather than
Code: Select all
...
set jindex to "player"->GetJournalIndex Tele_Dwemer
If ( jindex < 60 )
if ( onActivate )
...Code: Select all
...
if ( OnActivate )
if ( player->GetJournalIndex Tele_Dwemer )
...Naming of your objects is something important too. It'd have been way easier to find stuff if you had used some sort of prefix. Here at TR we use the TR and claim ID for prefixes - for instance, if you're working on the fictional claim q4-21-Mis, your objects, the prefix TR_m4_q_ would be used for all your objects, scripts and NPCs. I don't exactly expect you to go back and rename all your items though, just note it for next time.
So yeah, I liked your scripts a lot. If you flesh out the dialog a little more, fix that book, alter your scripts a bit like I described above, and promised to consider object naming next time, I'll be happy to include you in TR's quest team!
edit: Oh, one more small thing, I think you edited the Divayth Fyr topic without adding anything to it, could you clean that out using TESAME please?
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GreenH4X0R
- Member
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:39 am
For
I changed the other things you mentioned, with the exception of the Divayth Fyr topic (which didn't show up for me in TESAME), but I won't promise that I didn't make any other mistakes in the process. I don't think I made any other mistakes, in any event. I play-tested it again once I was done, but I didn't consider ALL possible paths.
Thanks!
Edit: I also added some more dialogue, just to explain the 4 kb size increase. Oh, and I'll remember the naming conventions from now on. Sorry about that!
I couldn't do EXACTLY as you asked for some reason. It bugged out when I tried to call "player->getjournalindex Tele_Dwemer < 60". I made it more efficient, though, as far as I can tell.Why wrote:
...
Regarding scripts, the idea behind them was really ingenious and I like it a lot. A small remark - rather thanI'd rather see you callCode: Select all
... set jindex to "player"->GetJournalIndex Tele_Dwemer If ( jindex < 60 ) if ( onActivate ) ......Code: Select all
... if ( OnActivate ) if ( player->GetJournalIndex Tele_Dwemer ) ...
I changed the other things you mentioned, with the exception of the Divayth Fyr topic (which didn't show up for me in TESAME), but I won't promise that I didn't make any other mistakes in the process. I don't think I made any other mistakes, in any event. I play-tested it again once I was done, but I didn't consider ALL possible paths.
Thanks!
Edit: I also added some more dialogue, just to explain the 4 kb size increase. Oh, and I'll remember the naming conventions from now on. Sorry about that!
- Attachments
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- DwemerTele.esp
- Read the above disclaimer. I'm simply too lazy to copy and paste, which makes NO sense because it'd be less effort than typing all of this.
Cheers! - (29.37 KiB) Downloaded 116 times
Hey GreenH4X0R, technically, your quest is pretty much perfect. It does lack a bit character-wise though. Sorry for not pointing that out earlier. None of the characters you've used have any particular depth in your story, and most of our quests here are character driven, so being able to write engaging and fitting lines of dialog for them is important.
I'd like you to flesh out Edwinna and/or Fyr more. How you do this is up to you - though I'd love to see, for example, something more complex like a conversation between the two, with Edwinna eager to learn from Fyr yet apprehensive to trust him, and Fyr the dismissive expert, only interested in his own amusement and the challenge of solving the puzzle. The two of them working it out together would be very interesting, I think, concerning their characters. I'll be on IRC in a couple of hours, then we can discuss it some more if you want.
I'd like you to flesh out Edwinna and/or Fyr more. How you do this is up to you - though I'd love to see, for example, something more complex like a conversation between the two, with Edwinna eager to learn from Fyr yet apprehensive to trust him, and Fyr the dismissive expert, only interested in his own amusement and the challenge of solving the puzzle. The two of them working it out together would be very interesting, I think, concerning their characters. I'll be on IRC in a couple of hours, then we can discuss it some more if you want.
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GreenH4X0R
- Member
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:39 am