q2-33-Imp

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q2-33-Imp

Post by Why »

Claim type: Quest
Claim ID: TR_q2-33-Imp (#2521)
Faction: Imperial
Parent claim: TR_2-37-Ind (#100)
Claimed by: Parted User
Status: Not Available (Progress: 50%)
Location: 1:(3645, -1859):0
Files: TR_q2-33-Imp_Rats_1.esp; TR_q2-33-Imp_Rats_2.esp; TR_q2-33-Imp_Rats_3.esp

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East Empire Company, Helnim, quests for Merro Galvix (Mero1, Mero2)

Not part of the main Lorus line. If faction membership is still restricted due to q2-19-Imp not having been completed yet, just make the quest open for anyone, we can add conditions for the starting dialog later.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14_Q ... y=CJHct5cI
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Rats
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Post by Rats »

Boom, claiming!

I've been eyeing this quest for some time now and I'd like to give it a shot.

Both quests will be done as they're outlined in the google document. As for Mero2: I think that after finishing the quest the Jorval's militia should get some new supplies added to their inventories (e.g. restore health potions, better weapons) so that it actually makes a difference whether the supply ship arrives Helnim or not.
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Post by arvisrend »

Just a general remark: You should think about the failstate for the second quest, i. e., what happens if the bandits have already killed relevant NPCs on the boat before the player has eliminated them. If you are looking for a place where to introduce a lot of different outcomes, it's probably here (depending on who has been killed).
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Post by Why »

Grant!

Now that you mention it, I was thinking, is it at all possible to add a negative amount of things to a merchant's inventory so that they respawn, or is that a CS-only kind of thing?
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Post by arvisrend »

Maybe you can play around with ownership variables on merchant containers?

Why edit: listen to this guy, he's smart
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Post by Rats »

Updating. The first quest is done. Added new topics for Merro about Caedan Jorval and the Governor to enhance the quest. The dialogue might need a check, otherwise the quest is pretty basic and should work fine.

Haven't started the second quest yet, but I've got the NPCs created and the EEC ship interior made. I'll start working on it asap.
arvis wrote:Maybe you can play around with ownership variables on merchant containers?

Can you do that with scripts? Change the ownership of things?
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Post by Why »

Yes, you can set a chest to be owned by an NPC if you select their name in the Owner dropdown box, and if you then select a global variable in the Global Variable/Rank dropdown box, the ownership will be set to nobody if that variable is set to 1, and return to the NPC when set to 0. At least, that's how I think it works, you might have to verify it and experiment a little. I know it works for beds in inns, I'm not actually sure if it'll properly add and remove items to or from the list of things for sale in a merchant's inventory, but it's worth a try.

You're amazingly fast by the way!
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Post by Rats »

arvisrend wrote:Maybe you can play around with ownership variables on merchant containers?

Why edit: listen to this guy, he's smart
I'll do that. Thanks for the tips guys!(You truly are the head of scripts, arvis.)

I wouldn't say I'm that fast, the first quest is just really basic. I can guarantee that progress with the second one will be much slower... :)
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Post by arvisrend »

Something tells me that as soon as that ship would get moving, the barrel that's lying horizontally would start rolling to and fro, the potions would fall from the shelf, and the candle would fall from the table, setting everything on fire. But then again, all ship interiors in Morrowind are like this and noone cares, so good job!

By the way, as far as I know, you can link the door out of the ship to wherever it should be linked; this won't make your file dirty.

Dialogue looks great so far.
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Post by Mortimer »

arvisrend wrote:Something tells me that as soon as that ship would get moving, the barrel that's lying horizontally would start rolling to and fro, the potions would fall from the shelf, and the candle would fall from the table, setting everything on fire. But then again, all ship interiors in Morrowind are like this and noone cares, so good job!
Didn't you know Tamriel has Jupiter level gravity? That's why everything hits the ground the second you drop it.
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Post by Rats »

My idea behind the horizontal barrel was that the captain of the ship knocked it over and rolled it to barricade the door during the attack (yes, one empty barrel).
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Post by Rats »

For the Mero2 quest I've come up with three different possible outcomes. I'll run them by you before doing anything:

1) SUCCESS, in which the Company supply ship makes it to Helnim. The prerequisite is that either the ship's crew (two crew members + the captain) have survived the bandit attack, or that your militia companions are still alive, so there are enough people to man and steer the ship. You can choose to stay on board for the remainder of the voyage (a week or so passes), or you can walk back to Helnim. Merro Galvix will thank you and give you a reward. The Helnim militia will receive new gear.

2) PARTIAL SUCCESS, in which you successfully defeat the bandits, but only the captain is left alive. In that case, the ship has no other choice but to seek emergency anchorage in Alt Bosara and wait there for reinforcements. Since Alt Bosara is a Telvanni town, the supplies are likely to be confiscated again. Maybe there could even be Telvanni officials waiting at the docks telling you that the shipment won't be moving anywhere anytime soon. Merro Galvix will be disappointed, but gives you a small reward for defeating the bandits.

3) FAILURE, in which the whole crew (including the captain) gets slaughtered. With no one alive on board you have no other choice but to abandon the ship and leave it adrift. Merro Galvix will be greatly disappointed and you will receive no reward.(This outcome shouldn't occur too easily, basically only when you decide not to fight the fight, or if your character is low level.)

Sound good?

Oh, and btw, I've looked thru some old posts on Helnim. What's the status of Helnim Gambit questline? Abandoned or..? Because these Merro Galvix quests just scream Helnim Gambit.

//edit: and sorry for double post
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Post by Haplo »

Helnim Gambit resurrections for the win!
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Post by arvisrend »

Doesn't the captain lock himself in the cabin? In that case, he should survive however badly you fight, unless you leave the scene. You don't need to overcomplicate that with timers (and scripts that move NPCs and have to check whether they are alive...). Other than that, it's a cool design!

I wish I could say something about the status of the Helnim Gambit, but that is tied to the status of Helnim itself, and that is in limbo afaik. On the other hand, if you would join us on IRC, we would tell you about the Almalexia Guild-of-Mages plans which include a similar Imperial vs. Dunmer war of nerves; that is probably the closest thing to the Helnim Gambit to be implemented soon.
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Post by Why »

I like the captain in the cabin idea. Having an NPC around to give the player some clues as to what to do is good. I'm imagining convincing the guy to unlock the door from the inside through the use of positioning and forcegreet scripts on the door but as arvis pointed out, that might be too much trouble for too little effect.

Ignore the Helnim Gambit for now. That idea is quite impossible to implement in the town's current situation. Though I do like the whole multiple different endings to quests in this area thing, which might still be of use later.
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Post by Theo »

Recently, it is not Helnim, but Firewatch, which is quite dull in terms of the quests. Also the Firewatch guild quests are of varying quality.
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Post by Why »

I'm inclined to relate the Firewatch quest situation to the bigger "Map 1 is of questionable quality compared to our later work" issue. Which means I'm reluctant to revisit it until the project as a whole does. Let's work forward, not backward.
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Post by Why »

Hi Rats, how have you been?
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Post by arvisrend »

Theo, feel free to open up a new thread for this, but I personally think of the Firewatch guild quests as relatively good (particularly the Fighters' one).
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Post by Rats »

Slowly doing progress. I've uploaded a new esp. It changes the dialogue in Mero1 and gives you the basic structure of Mero2 quest. This is still very much a WIP and the Mero2 is utterly unplayable but you'll get the idea how the quest is going to be.

I think that the biggest thing to be done is optimizing and trimming the plurality of scripts that exist at the moment. I have a lot of scripts where I know I could do with just a few. Especially making a whole variety of statics/activators/NPCs/doors disappear and appear between locations is giving me bit of a headache, but I'll get there. :)
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Post by arvisrend »

Minor remarks (I had no time to test this yet and won't have until the end of next week):

Why 2 separate "if ( destination == 0 )" blocks in script TR_m2_q_33_Destination?

Script TR_m2_q_33_doorscript disables the doors the first time you wind up near them. But what if by that moment, they already have been enabled by the quest, and now that you need them they get disabled and the quest doesn't enable them back? I fear you're overrelying on the scripts being executed in the right order.

Some of your scripts like TR_m2_q_33_EECShip0 have the same IDs as objects. Not sure if it's good. Certainly it's annoying when one tries to search the file for them. I don't even see what these scripts are attached to. Are they obsolete?

You could optimize TR_m2_q_33_GalbaScript by, e.g., moving the second getDistance check inside the first one (and using elseif). Where is Galba supposed to stand? (Probably not outside the accessible part of the cabin of a ship.) If it's anywhere near Helnim, you should optimize the hell out of these scripts. (Similarly for TR_m2_q_33_ManneScript, TR_m2_q_33_BoatswainScript etc.)

TR_m2_q_33_BanditSea1Script is even worse because it fires GetDistance once + GetDeadCount four times per frame. Can you put everything inside "if ( GetJournalIndex "TR_m2_EEC_Mero2" < 50 )" and "if ( GetJournalIndex "TR_m2_EEC_Mero2" > 0 )" blocks to make sure it doesn't run outside the quest, at least? But even then it'll probably need some optimizations if it's anywhere close to Helnim.

If you're going to need voice actors, please post this on the forum. It's better to know this ASAP since getting any could take quite a while.

These flaws left aside (I'll probably find more once I'll really look at it), you're doing a great job! Most people tend to dumb down a quest idea until they are able to script it in a couple dozen lines, but you're keeping the complexity and confronting the problems it creates. I like that.

I didn't look closely at the dialogue, but it's not like I'd expect you to suddenly unlearn writing it well. The wording "corrupt Fort Windmoth troopers who will be disguised as bandits" made me chuckle; you might want to hint at the irony in the journal. You keep repeating "The corrupt Windmoth troopers" too often in the journal; while Beth's journal entries aren't always well-written, I know that you can do much better. Add a period at the end of journal entry tr_m2_eec_mero2 50.
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Post by Theo »

arvisrend wrote:Theo, feel free to open up a new thread for this, but I personally think of the Firewatch guild quests as relatively good (particularly the Fighters' one).
Why is probably right. Map 1 will need complex makeover sometimes in the future. Thieves guild quest in Firewatch is terrible bore and unbalanced - go to random location, steal a random item (often impossible even with sneak at 100 = run from guards...) and again and again. Mages guild is so, so... Fighters guild is quite OK, I must admit. But lets not discuss it in this thread.

Probably some discussion as what to do with map 1 could be a good idea in advance.
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Post by Rats »

Dropping by to say that I'm slowly making progress. Christmas is nigh so I'll be busy with other things the next few days but I'll update a new file again asap.
arvisrend wrote:Some of your scripts like TR_m2_q_33_EECShip0 have the same IDs as objects. Not sure if it's good.
These scripts refused to run. I think it could've been 'cos of the same IDs. Thanks, arvis. I was going insane with frustration.
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Post by Why »

That's definitely what's been causing that yes. Happy holidays, nice to hear from you ^^
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Post by Rats »

Been going thru my scripts; figuring out what are obsolete and what aren't. Would've saved me a billion time units if I had just deleted the scripts whenever writing new ones to replace them back then, but no :)

I'll try to get a new file uploaded next weak.
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Post by arvisrend »

How's life going? No, you're not late; just wondering if you have anything new here to look at.
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Post by Rats »

Oh hai. Here's a quick new wip file. Hunted down obsolete scripts and did some script optimization (some of the horrid ones that fire every frame are still included, I'm afraid, but I'll see them thru eventually). There's some new dialogue too and whatnot.

I apologize for updating this so slowly. Then again, I'm progressing slowly too.

But I will. get. this. done.
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Post by Haplo »

Oops, it's been several months! Please give us a status report on this one, Rats.
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Post by Rats »

The two NPCing claims and the hoom sounds have kept me busy, so I've got pretty much nothing new here. I've discussed this claim with le Why who assured me that this isn't a very high priority. I promise that I'll get back to this after I've finished the other claims.

That being said, if there's another quester willing to take this I'd be happy to give it away. The first quest 100 % complete and there's a good deal of the second one already made with some disorganized loose ends to tie up. I don't want to hog.
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Post by arvisrend »

Rats, is there a reasonable way to split off the first quest? It'd be VERY helpful to have one more EEC quest in the Mainland asap, since the currently present quests are not all playable with the rank they give the player.
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Post by Rats »

Here you go.
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Post by Haplo »

Rats is awesome. Here's a cheer for Rats. Huzzah!
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Post by arvisrend »

Reviewing the merro1 file now, which seems great so far. But please don't build upon TR_Mainland.esm! The esm is out of date (unless you have made your own) and doesn't contain the Lorus quests which you might want to reference.

I've loosened the "rank Steward" condition to "rank Steward or has finished the second Lorus quest", so that this one will be playable in the next release. And I've added ModPCFacRep 4 for the successful outcome so that the last Lorus quest is now playable as well.

Other than this, a few dialogue changes. The governor no longer treats the player as a servant during the quest. The guy at the entrance of Helnim Hall gives some directions to the EEC HQ.

Just to be sure: the file you are working on right now only contains the second quest, not the first one? Because if it contains the first one, it will have to be cleaned of it. If you want to reference to the first quest, maybe it's better to wait until it is merged, which should happen very soon.
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Free TR_m2_Mero1_quest.esp
Unfinished & uncleaned review version.
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Post by arvisrend »

Language advice needed: which of these are wrong/bad:

Unfortunately, the garrison are a bunch of drunks and oathbreakers who have let the Telvanni to turn the fort into a den of corruption. They do not care of the Empire or its citizens.

Hm. I have a new assignment, but based on your modest success so far I don't believe you are up to the task. Once you have risen at least to the rank of a clerk, I will give it to you; as for now, try to improve your skills and attain a more serious relation to your job.

Helnim is a town riddling with corruption" is this correct english?

Other than this, the review is done. I'll have to check after merge that dialogue hasn't been broken, so I'll try to merge this ASAP once someone has checked the three quotations above.

Oh, and @Rats: It's "Caedan", not "Caeden". Inb4 TR_Mainland does it wrong in a few places; this will be fixed very soon.

Great job!
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Free TR_m2_Mero1_quest.esp
Review version. If you're wondering how it has grown in size, I've added some new responses to Lorus' "assignment" dialogue when the player has finished Lorus1 but isn't a Clerk yet. Lorus now suggests going to Merro and doing his quest.
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Post by Haplo »

arvisrend wrote:Unfortunately, this garrison is filled with nothing but drunkards and oath breakers who have let the Telvanni turn the fort into a den of corruption. They do not care for the Empire or its citizens.

Hm. I have a new assignment, but, based on your modest success so far, I don't believe you are up to the task. Once you have risen at least to the rank of a clerk, I will give it to you; as for now, try to improve your skills and attain a more serious relation to your job.

Helnim is a town riddled with corruption
Emphases mine for corrections. I'm not sure about "attain a more serious relation to your job"... what is that supposed to mean? He doesn't take his job seriously? Relationship would be a better word, but even then it's not clear at all to me.
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Post by arvisrend »

It's now "Hm. I have a new assignment, but, based on your modest success so far, I don't believe you are up to the task. Once you have risen at least to the rank of a clerk, I will give it to you; as for now, try to improve your skills and learn to take your job more seriously.".

Thanks!
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language corrected
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Post by arvisrend »

The Mero1 quest is now in [url=http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=23677]the Mainland[/url], with one further bug corrected (you used the controlQ variable on Merro, but that one is already in use by the Flin Galore quest -- I've now replaced your controlQ == 2 by controlQ == 4, so please make sure not to use 4).

@Rats: should you need any help with rebasing your file on the new Mainland, let me know.
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Post by rot »

Moving to N/A since any progress on EEC is on hold till Helnim gets dealt with.
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