Nordfriesländer's Quester Showcase

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Nordfriesländer
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Nordfriesländer's Quester Showcase

Post by Nordfriesländer »

This is my little quest mod I made for a showcase as a quester for Skyrim Home of the Nords.

The story is quite simple. An ancient prophet called Soren was resurrected by Hermaeus Mora to bring divine knowledge over Skyrim but nobody believes him.
Your quest is to help him by retrieving an old dwemer box that contains the dwemer's ancient knowledge which Soren needs to prove himself.
After you have retrieved the dwemer box from Kjorgnir Barrow and given it to Soren, two days will have to pass. Two days having passed, Soren has proven
himself in Merduibh and every villager there will praise him. He will ask you after that for a favour to give a note to a monk called Jurgorn who you can
find in Dragonstar West. After you have given the note to Jurgorn, you will get 50 gold coins as your quest reward by Soren.

It's a quite easy story and quest that one could use as a beginning of an entire interesting questline.

To begin this quest, go to Merduibh and talk to Soren who stands in that old ruin there. He is wearing a robe with 50 percent chameleon to make him appear more
'saint-like' and uses archaic pronouns like thou and thee in his speech to underline him being an ancient prophet.

Please dont mind some minor grammar mistakes I have done in this mod, I am not a native English speaker... but feel free to correct me

-Nordfriesländer
Attachments
prophet_soren.ESP
(13.32 KiB) Downloaded 44 times

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

Hi there.
I hope some of the people here or on the TR board will have a look at your showcase soon.

In the meantime, you can join our discord channel, if you want.
https://discord.gg/RZX5mYz

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

Welcome! I'll review this and provide some feedback.

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

You've got a good handle on quest development. These critiques are mostly focused on learning Project Tamriel standards and conventions. Please fix the following and reupload:

- Dirty dialogue to be cleaned: 11902278414830501420 in Greeting 5 ("BEGIN HOLD 1 - FALKREATH")
- Good ID naming. If a script is on an object, it should be the object ID followed by _sc. If it's a global script, then it should also end in _sc.
- The journal entries should be modified such that the player can accept/reject the quests without having the quests stay in the player's journal. It typically works like this:
Index 20: "I agreed to help NPC do X" (Restart flag)
Index 10: <something about meeting the NPC in a location> (Finished flag)
Index 0: Quest Name (Quest Name flag)
The player should generally be able to return to the NPC to accept the quest if they originally rejected it (if it makes sense in context).
- Please add a new journal index (100) that accounts for the player killing Soren and ending the quest. This will require a new local script on Soren and an OnDeath check that only fires if the player is on the quest (0 < Journal State < 70).
- Greetings and dialogue should be ordered such that the entry with the highest journal filter is at the top of the dialogue list. Ex:
"Dost thou have the artifact?"
"I greet thee, %PCName! Bring me the artifact!"
"I greet thee, %PCName! I have been waiting for an encounter with thee!"
- It's good to see Greeting 5 entries that cover the first quest, but please consolidate "I greet thee, %PCName! Bring me the artifact!" and "Dost thou have the artifact?" into a single entry that covers multiple journal states to reduce Greeting bloat.
- "I greet thee" in the Greetings needs a bit more variety.
- The second quest needs Greeting 5 entries in the same style as the first.
- Replace all "Sky_qRe_DSW5_Journal == 20" checks with an "Item Sky_qRe_DSW5_dwemer_box > 0" check
- The "Not ID" dialogue filter shouldn't be used in a Greeting since the game has to run through tons of NPCs and checks. Same goes for the "Dead" filter. It's better to put a cell/group-filtered entry like "Have you heard of Soren?" below all dialogue filtered specifically for Sky_qRe_DSW5_Soren and remove the "Not ID" filter.
- Cell/group-filtered entries need to have two dialogue filters:
"Local Sky_Hold == 0" (for the Reach) & "Not T_Local_NoLore == 0"
- When introducing a new topic in an entry, add an "AddTopic topic" line to absolutely make sure that the game recognizes the new topic.
- Script Sky_qRe_DSW5_box: It's a local script (attached to an object) so no need for "stopscript "Sky_qRe_DSW5_box". We're actually getting rid of journal updates when picking up items to be more like vanilla, so this script isn't necessary. Still, this is good to see for scripting familiarity.
- The journal should only include things that the player has observed or heard, not their character's thoughts about what to do. If the player agrees to go somewhere for an NPC, then it's OK to write "I agreed to do xxx." Suggestions like "I should hurry back to NPC" should be removed or replaced with something more objective.

Nordfriesländer
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Post by Nordfriesländer »

Thank you for the feedback, I fixed the esp
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prophet_soren_fixed.ESP
(23.59 KiB) Downloaded 21 times

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

Almost there.

- General note: TES3, PT, and TR all use American English spelling ("favor" instead of "favour"). You don't need to correct it here, just something to remember for the future.
- Script "t_scvamp_dreams_sky" is dirty.
- Script "Sky_qRe_DSW5_Soren_death_sc" should be changed to this. All of the local variables (except T_Local_NoLore) are needed for every SHOTN NPC:

Code: Select all

begin Sky_qRe_DSW5_Soren_sc

short NoLore
short Sky_Hold
short Sky_Control
short Sky_ControlQ
short T_Local_NPC
short T_Local_NoLore

if ( OnDeath )
    if ( GetJournalIndex Sky_qRe_DSW5_Journal > 0 )
        if ( GetJournalIndex Sky_qRe_DSW5_Journal < 70 )
            Journal Sky_qRe_DSW5_Journal 100
        endif
    endif
endif

end
- Entries in "favour" topic need to be rearranged from biggest journal index to smallest
- Entries in "Kjorgnir Barrow" and "Soren" topic need "Local Sky_Hold == 0" and "Not Local T_Local_NoLore == 0" filters because they're cell-filtered.
- Delete the item filter in "Dost thou have the artifact" Greeting. Otherwise, the NPC will give a non-quest greeting if the player has started the quest, but doesn't have it yet.

Nordfriesländer
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Post by Nordfriesländer »

Ok, I fixed the .esp again (hopefully for the last time) :D
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prophet_soren_fixed_again.ESP
(14.27 KiB) Downloaded 21 times

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

Some more things:

- "note?" topic doesn't check for whether the player has the note in their inventory.
- "succeeded" topic needs to link to "favour" because right now the only way to get it to appear is to leave and reenter dialogue with Soren.
- The Greeting 5 conditions needs to include state 5 (declined).
- Soren needs a Greeting 5 entry for journal state >= 45. You can just change "I greet thee, %PCName!..." to be <= 5.
- Dwemer box script should be deleted (it also should be OnActivate == 1).

Nordfriesländer
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Post by Nordfriesländer »

I let it remain that the succeeded topic doesnt lead directly to the favour topic since I intended that the second part of the quest is more or less hidden but I fixed the rest. I playtested the quest and it should be bug free by now
Attachments
prophet_soren_fixedthirdtime.ESP
(16.42 KiB) Downloaded 18 times

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Rakanishu
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Post by Rakanishu »

Looks good. Promoted!

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