[PC_q2_GC03_Journal] Fortune of a Traveling Merchant [Denis418]

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Violet
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[PC_q2_GC03_Journal] Fortune of a Traveling Merchant [Denis418]

Post by Violet »

PC_q2_GC03_Journal "Fortune of a Traveling Merchant"

Quest description
The player finds a merchant outside of Anvil selling some common products. His name is Miles Catraso, who describes himself as a very famous and crafty merchant selling precious wares for high prices through cyrodill. Catraso will offer the player a very special deal, the helmet of the legendary remanite hero, Falco Essagan, and just for the small amount of 800 septims, a bargain for such illustrious item.

If bought, the player will realize that the legendary helmet is a scam, very poorly crafted with terrible usability. If the player decides to confront the merchant, Catraso will assure the player his items are only the finest in the empire, and the great merchant MIles Catraso would never sell a bootleg.

- Now, the player could just kill Catraso and get his money back. Or just forget about it and accept the loss. If the player has high disposition with catraso, the vendor will tell the truth: the helmet is a fake, and Falco Essagan is just a name he made up; and else, Miles Catraso is not the great salesman he said he was. Actually, he is a pretty terrible one. Poor business decisions ended up leaving Catraso and his family in a bad financial situation. Said situation led him to a point where he found himself obliged to head to Anvil to self his Ring, a family heirloom, with great sentimental value for him. Along the way to Anvil, Catraso was approached by a man, which after some conversation, offers the legendary helmet in exchange for Catraso’s ring; Catraso, thinking he just found a great deal, promptly accept it, just to later find out he bought a worthless item. Catraso has no choice, he cannot give your money back (arguing a "no returns policy") since he cannot go back home with no septims in his pocket.

He ends up offering a deal: find the man whom he traded the helmet with, and return his ring, after that, Catraso will return your money, and maybe some small extra amount with a certain amount of disposition. Luckily, Catraso has a clue of the man whereabouts, right after the trade, the man seemed to give up on his plans to reach Anvil and decides to return home, leaving the Gold Road and heading towards the coastline; Catraso didn't understand at the time, but after realizing the helmet is a fake he has a theory: he’s not the first fooled traveler, and the scammer is probably hiding on a cave on the region, somewhere along the Strid River, east of Anvil (Agi Bay Grotto, -116, -57). If the player accepts the deal the quest gets is pretty streamlined from here, he finds the cave, fight the bandit and retrieves the ring. Head the back to Catraso and get his money back, and maybe even an extra reward. The Catraso's ring could have a huge penalty Mercantile debuff, a nod to the inability of Catraso as a vendor, since he is always wearing it, and an explanation to his subtle ability to sell the player a helmet that is clearly a bootleg.


Notes:

You will need to make the NPCs (both Catraso and the bandit in Agi Bay Grotto), as well as place some slaughterfish and the like in the grotto as well.
You will need to make both the helm and the ring, though they don't need unique models or anything.

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

I would like to claim this dramatic quest for my showcase
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

Violet
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Post by Violet »

Claim granted as a showcase. Good luck and sorry I didn't see it sooner.

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

No worries!

Thanks to the communal efforts on discord pc_quests this thing has finally been finished.

The merchant stands near the statue of Talos and slightly west of it.
There are several ways to finish the quest:
1. Confront the merchant about the helmet (needs 75+ disp) and tell him to keep the money. No reward.
2. Help him to retrieve the ring from the villain and just exchange it for your money. Reward: refund, a book.
3. Help him to retrieve the ring from the villain and tell him that the ring is cursed. Reward: refund, a book and a lesson in mercantile (+1).
4. Steal your money from the chest. It has no key, but instead locked with "a hidden switch".
5. Kill the merchant.

Things added (everything starts with PC_q2_GC03):
2 NPC
10 non-custom creatures in Agi Bay Grotto
2 items: a helmet and a ring
1 small chest
3 scripts attached to the merchant, the ring and the chest respectively.
Non-custom clutter in Agi Bay Grotto and around the merchant.

For fast travel between quest objectives it is convenient to coc to these interiors:
"Valcha farm, barn" - Miles Catraso stands south from it, on the bent of the road.
"Miris' Shack" - a fisherman shack. Both fishermen give directions to Agi Bay Grotto. If you kill the villain, they'll express their satisfaction.
"PC_i2-06 Agi Bay Grotto" - the grotto with the villain. It is possible to steal the ring from the stool without him noticing or killing him.
Attachments
PC_q2_GC03_Clean.ESP
(25.36 KiB) Downloaded 69 times
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

Dev Shah
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Post by Dev Shah »

Reviewed! Sorry it took so long! The scripts look perfect, and the dialogue is quite nice too, just needs a few touch-ups to make it fit in with Morrowind. Also some playtesting notes.

Playtest:
Spoiler
-The bridge should be a bridge when he's giving directions to the grotto.(Since there's a bridge near where he's standing too)
-It doesn't make much sense why you should need to ask the fishermen, the dialogue should make it clearer that 'information' the fishermen gave him was that a thief lives there, if that makes sense.
-I would just skip any mentions to the chest and/or a button. That implies that some additional content is there, while it actually reduces the content if you steal the gold. So, just putting the gold there in the back end and having a failsafe should be enough.
-Even if you choose being rude, just asking for money, he asks you to find the scammer. Prolly needs a new journal entry for this..
-The disposition check is too high, 60 might be a better one.
-It'd be cool if there is a choice when he firsts asks you to find the ring that's something on the lines of "Do you mean this ring?" if you have it.
General:
Spoiler
-Item(anything that isn't a script, global or Journal) ID's need to have PC_q2-GC03_Name instead of PC_q2_GC03_Name.
- > End PC_q2_GC03_MerchRing ; You don't need to write the quest id after end(as you correctly don't use in the other two scripts)
- It's good practice to add `Addtopic "Topic name"` in the dialogue result where the topic is first introduced.
-While I appreciate the effort to make the dialogue a bit unique, contractions like T is and T''was are never really used anywhere. Similarly, the more casual voice is also not used for generic dialogue. So this'll kinda create a dissonance between generic dialogue and quest specific dialogue. If you really want to use such contractions, and I really recommend to just not use them, you should make sure they have PC_NoLore, which will omit the generic dialogue. (If you need more info on that, feel free to ask in discord)
-I would also advocate for trying to better emulate the sort of writing style that Morrowind has, which is an odd mix of dry, informative, and gloomily whimsical for the most part (obviously different quest devs had different tones and there's nothing wrong with us having different tones as well, but there should be a general throughline that feels connected just like with vanilla). -Violet, on a similar note.
-Scammer is a very modern word, and isn't used anywhere else. Some alternatives might be swindler, crook, charlatan(this sounds kinda posh, though) or just plain old thief.
-Using Catraso's Family Heirloom everywhere feels shoehorned. You can easily fix that by changing it to "Catraso family heirloom"(also note the capitalization). Then it'll just be a family heirloom rather than him referring to himself in the third person. Oh, and use `the` Catraso family heirloom in dialogue.
-For the choices, I suggest they don't show much personality, because that might not match with the personality of the player character. (For example in topic 'helm...' "Ah, friend...", for a PC that doesn't care about the money, but also doesn't care about the npc has no real fitting dialogue. If the last choice was just "Keep the money.", it'd be instantly better.)
-Some more greetings would be nice. For example, "Did you get the Catraso Family Heirloom?" when that part is going on.
-I've already cluttered the specific dialogues section as is, so in general, you should use proper punctuation inside the [] for actions too.
-For the journal, i'd refrain from using things like "It sure is tempting." or "This is starting to be irritating." for reasons similar to the choices. You want the player to feel tempted or irritated without expressly saying that in the journal.
-The helm has a high enchanting compared to the other stats. For reference, Iron Helmet has 25 while the fake helmet has 250

Specific Dialogues/Journal:
Spoiler
-Topic "Agi Bay grotto" ,"It was a good place to catch fish since it gets trapped in there after the storm." The second it should be they.
-Topic 'help of falco...' entry one "[He puts money in a small chest]". , money->the money, and there should be a full stop after 'chest'
-Topic 'helm of falco...' entry two "enaugh"->"enough" and the second gold check is moot, since the dialogue will only fire if the first doesn't.
-Same topic entry three, "Oh, Talos, why..."->"Oh Talos! Why.. " A note: Talos is never used like this in vanilla. I'm not against it, but perhaps "Oh, the nine!", or "Oh gods!" might work a bit better.
-Same topic entry four, "I'm loath"->"I loath" and "Would you take it with you? Just 800 gold." might be better as "Take it for just 800 gold." for a more salesman-like flow.
-Same topic "Yes, spardon me for that. ...." spardon should be pardon.
-Same topic "Ah, friend... You're an honest person and I confess..." this might flow better as "Ah friend, I shouldn't lie to you. I must confess...".
-Same topic "What? You say it's worthless!?..." is not filtered to the id
-Same topic "It seems the money you paid was stolen. ...", 'It seems' is a bit unnecessary, and adds uncertainity that isn't there. This is *really* nitpicky, though.
-Same topic "That's splendid! I have asked the locals about this man....", "fishermen farm"->"fisherman farm"
-Topic "Catraso's family heirloom", "The money was stolen from me. It seems our deal ends here." won't ever fire because the one on top of it is filtered to > 80(and thus will always fire above this one)
-Same topic "Yes, It is! It's my ring."->"Yes, my ring!" flows better.
-Same topic, first entry, " How is your item or service can provide value to them?"->"How can your item or service provide value to them?"
-Journal 20 should have finished checked, and journal 30 should have restart so the quest is removed from the list if you choose to not buy the item.
-Journal 70 "Catraso was telling a truth."->"... the truth."
-Journal 100 "I have decided to retrieve my money from Catraso myself."->"I retrieved my money from Catraso' myself." because the action is already done by the time the journal is written.

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

Uploading for safekeeping. FIxed all the pointed out things. But somehow broke the greetings and the quest won't start at all.
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PC_q2_GC03_FstReview_3.ESP
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There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

Made all the fixes. The quest works fine. Only some topics won't appear. But it isn't noticeable for a player. Also, on some reason, the quest won't work on OpenMW
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PC_q2_GC03_FstReview_3_Clean.ESP
(29.51 KiB) Downloaded 55 times
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

Done, I guess. Should be clear.
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PC_q2_GC03_FstReview_3_Clean.ESP
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There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

- The Greeting that introduces the "Helm of Falco Essagan" topic should have a AddTopic "Helm of Falco Essagan" result
- The NPCs need their classes changed to T_Cyr_....
- When the player purchases the helm, the dialogue results block needs to be changed to the following:

Code: Select all

player->removeitem "gold_001" 800
"PC_q2-GC03_CatrasoChest"->additem "gold_001" 800
removeitem "PC_q2-GC03_Fake_Helmet" 1
player->additem "PC_q2-GC03_Fake_Helmet" 1
journal "PC_q2_GC03_Journal" 30
ModDisposition 5
Goodbye
- "Helm of Falco Essagan" topic: Choosing "I won't. Give me back my money" or "Keep the money." both cause incorrect "Catraso family heirloom" entries to appear. This might require additional filtering via local or global variables.
- "Helm of Falco Essagan" topic: "Please, find the man who sold me that helmet and ask him to return [my] Catraso family heirloom.
- I'd rename the local scripts to be the same name as the object they're attached to, but with a _sc suffix

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

Uploading wip. Fixed the minor issues noted by Rakanishu. Still need to address the second and fourth point
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PC_q2_GC03_ThrdReview_1.ESP
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There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

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Denis418
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Post by Denis418 »

Alright, I fixed everything. I couldn't replicate the incorrect "Catraso family heirloom" entry to appear when you press "I won't. Give me back my money". But I changed the other incorrect one, played with conditions and I think it's fixed. Everything seems to work fine. Ready for review.

Only I still can't run it on my OpenMW install. But that might be my ini settings messing up.
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PC_q2_GC03_ThrdReview_2.ESP
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There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

Works just fine in OpenMW for me now. Congrats, I'm promoting you to quest dev.

Violet
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Post by Violet »

After one last playtest for myself I'd say this is more than Ready For Merge.

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Post by Violet »

And merged.

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