New Roa Dyr quest: Drinking, stealing, ranting. Dunmerius's showcase

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Dunmerius
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Already posted this text here: https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/asset/new-roa-dyr-quest-drinking-stealin..., as I did not know about this forum topic, anyways, here it is:
I've made the quest, I told about here: https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/asset/roa-dyr-drinking-stealing-ranting-....
Concept has been changed a bit, though. For the quest to run correctly, the prison guard in Roa Dyr, Watchtower, lower level should be deleted. There is a known error pop-up when approaching Rilsoan bridge, but this is the Mainland.esp problem, as I've had the same experience without my questmod checked. It's my first quest ever, so this can be called as a showcase, kind of)  
 

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Binary Data Drinking,stealing,ranting.ESP39.38 KB2020-09-14 18:40
Binary Data Clean Upd_Drinking,stealing,ranting.ESP55.65 KB2020-10-10 13:28
Dev Shah's picture
Dev Shah
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PLAYTESTED ON OPENMW and CHECKED IN THE CS

Hello, I checked your showcase out more or less thouroughly, but I am not a reviewer, just decided to check it.
Please don't be alarmed by the wall of text, this is just to document all the things so it's easier to fix.
Please ask if you have any questions or stuff.

->In Game Stuff/While Playtesting

 

->Scripts and objects etc.

 

->Dialogue

General
-Women should be Woman everywhere because it's a single woman.(Not pointed it out everywhere)
-"I've" doesn't feel good in journal entries. Even when sometimes it is gramattically correct, it really seems off.
-Just an advice, Journal entries should be more or less plain to let the player decide how they want the PC's attitude to be.
-You have both their designations(Prisoner/Guard) and names. Names are generally good in journal entries, as they help the player remember if they are coming back to a previous quest midway.
-Please punctuate everything properly, it can be really hard to find those little errors after reviewing.
-Grammar is really important for Quests to feel good, so please take some care about that. There are some websites for grammar checking, and if you want, you can contact me if you have any problems and I'll try to help you.
-Journals should be in past tense generally.

Down below are most(I might have missed some) grammatical errors and stuff in your dialogue

 

Once again, please don't get overwhelmed and ask if you have any questions or something!

Take care!!

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Dunmerius
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Thanks for the review, a really detailed and convinient one. However, I have some issues to adress/explain here
->In Game Stuff/While Playtesting

-Marlene the name sounds too mordern for me, but that might just be me.

Maybe, but this name as well as an NPC is already included in Aanthirrin main release.

-Outright rejection if you fail to help them seems too harsh, maybe give the player a second chance to play the quest?

Well, I think, that it fits quite naturally, if you take into consideration that: a) Guard: is a representetive of a House Indoril, that's more of a traditionalist house on it's own and doesn't really tolerate outlanders, also she is extremely irritated by another outlander. b) Marlene is drunk and quite pissed off by the fact that her family amulet was stolen and she was locked down, so when you reject her, after she's told you her long story, she won't be happy to hear that by any means.

-There is no dialogue for if you get the Journal on Marlene.

Well, I don't think that it is a big deal, as you have to present the proof to the guard, not to here. But some extra dialogue regarding proofs is needed for Marlene indeed

-Minor thing, the door on the cell isn't unlocked, and if you wait inside the watchtower, Marlene somehow disappears if you get out and come back.

Another thing from the mainland. I'll have to fetch some sort of an unlock script for the door, as I can't change .esp with .esp. I hope, I'll find the way around here.
->Scripts and objects etc.

-Same with the smuggler pilgrim, have a choice to kill him before even talking to Marlene, then stumble to Marlene for the reward.

It would be kind of odd, as for me. Like you're hanging around in the middle of nowhere, loot the cavern, kill the NPC with some strange loot, player might just sell or leave there and then you find her as the prisoner and be like "Oh, is that's yours?". Normally, you would have to free her first, in order to do that, you'll have to hear her story, move by the scriptrails in other words. Plus, it's said that the story happened just hours ago, when you could stumble at the thief days before finding the amulet's owner, so that kind of breaks the immersion here.

self made noble sounds a little bit Hyperbolic to me.

Thief is a bit arrogant, as you may tell, so for me it fits into his character, dunno, that's more of a subjective stuff.

I didn't understand the moral consolation part, as he toyed with the foreign scum, not the other way around
fun seems more appropriate.

Maybe toying isn't the right word here, as I wanted to say that her lockdown feels like a consolation for all that suffering he experienced, whilst getting her disposition, in order to sneak the amulet in a right time and place.

In terms of grammar, punctuation, any other issues I didn't adress here, I do agree with all the stated. I'll upload an updated version soon.
Thanks for your time!

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Dev Shah
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Hey! Yes most of this stuff is pretty subjective, these were mostly my opinions! I hope I have explained your issues well. The ones I didn't comment over are the ones I completely agree with.

 

Well, I think, that it fits quite naturally, if you take into consideration that: a) Guard: is a representetive of a House Indoril, that's more of a traditionalist house on it's own and doesn't really tolerate outlanders, also she is extremely irritated by another outlander. b) Marlene is drunk and quite pissed off by the fact that her family amulet was stolen and she was locked down, so when you reject her, after she's told you her long story, she won't be happy to hear that by any means.

Well yes, but you are still their best chances at getting rid of their respective problems. Maybe you could add some penalty to show they are annoyed?

Another thing from the mainland. I'll have to fetch some sort of an unlock script for the door, as I can't change .esp with .esp. I hope, I'll find the way around here.

I meant unlocking the door afterwards, but I'm not sure if and how you can do that.(Maybe an unlock in the script of the door if it is an activator could work?)

It would be kind of odd, as for me. Like you're hanging around in the middle of nowhere, loot the cavern, kill the NPC with some strange loot, player might just sell or leave there and then you find her as the prisoner and be like "Oh, is that's yours?". Normally, you would have to free her first, in order to do that, you'll have to hear her story, move by the scriptrails in other words. Plus, it's said that the story happened just hours ago, when you could stumble at the thief days before finding the amulet's owner, so that kind of breaks the immersion here.

Here maybe you could add some tidbit in the journal of the smuggler that indicates a little bit better where Marlene is? 
For the immersion breaking thing, that also happens when you listen to the rumors or just start the quest by talking to the guard, and then leave and all things act like they never changed. In my opinion, the few hours could easily changed to few days without any problems. And I kinda meant changing some part of the script when you kill the bandit first, it is pretty subjective yes.

Maybe toying isn't the right word here, as I wanted to say that her lockdown feels like a consolation for all that suffering he experienced, whilst getting her disposition, in order to sneak the amulet in a right time and place.

Well thanks for explaining! It isn't obvious from the start in the journal, that's why I wrote it, so maybe you could make it more obvious?

Take care!!

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Dunmerius
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Updated the quest. It might sound presumptuous, but I don't know how to improve it at this point(aside from grammar, maybe).

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Binary Data Clean Upd_Drinking,stealing,ranting.ESP55.41 KB2020-09-25 16:13
Dev Shah's picture
Dev Shah
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Dm'd you some little things on Discord.

Take care!!

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Dunmerius
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Updated the quest, fixing all the issues I've been told about in DS. Added the additional path, which needs Speechcraft>70. The newest version can be downloaded from my previous reply or from the showcase heading. If any updates occur in the future, I'll just update the heading to avoid spamming in this thread.

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Dev Shah
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Playtested on OpenMW.

-After you say I need some time to think to Marlene, "... but don't take too long, as I don't..."->".. but don't take too long. I don't..."

-In topic outlande woman for the guard, "...However, as I am just the executioner here, in order to free that woman I'll have to present some evidence... to make it believable to them."->"However,I'll have to present some evidence to the hall of judgement for them to release her, as I am just the executioner."
The way I wrote sounds a little better.

-The smuggler actually doesn't appear if you do't talk to the people that give you directions, but he should be there.

-"Indoril are so humble and law abiding"- as far as I know, the Villagers aren't really indoril, just normal Velothi people, but someone else can comment on it better.

-In the journal entry after you presuade the thief, "I must present the proof"->"I should present the proof"

-If you persuade the thief, then kill him, the journal entry " I found the thief's journal.."  also pops up, which doesn't make sense.

-outlander woman for the guard "You have utterly failed my request"->"You utterly failed in doing what I asked" for something like that. 

Take care!!

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Dunmerius
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Updated the quest. Fixed all the issues mentioned above.

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Jani
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Reviewing

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Jani
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Tested and reviewed.

Generic notes for future quests:
1) Journal entries should be kept at an absolute minimum. Having such a large number for a relatively small quest means that a lot of stuff can break, nad it's hard to test every way of progressing through the journal.
2) Generally, topics shouldn't disappear while talking to an NPC. People usually make sure this does not happen by having dalogue entries in a topic for every journal stage.

Stuff that needs to be fixed:
Every topic that needs an "addtopic" on introduction to avoid bugs. Simply being mentioned in dialogue is not enough.
The robe in Massanud is floating. Consider bleeding it slightly into the table.
In latest rumors, the dead filters are inconsistent.
Greeting 1 entries seem to have fallen. They need to be next to the other TR m3 entries.
Greeting 1: StartCombat also needs SetFight 100
Thief's location: needs an entry for no book found
In the NPC scripts, "OnDeath" should be avoided because it can get bugged. Try switching it to "GetDeadCount > 0", which also needs some kind of filter to only trigger once (e.g. local variables like DoOnce)

Merge notes: Delete the guard in the watchtower

Generally, these are minor issues, so I'll let you do them on your own time, in the claims browser. The dialogue also needs another round of review, as I've found some bad phrasing here and there, but nothing serious. Recommending for promotion. Congrats!
 

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Jani
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