[PC_q2_BC02_Journal] Murder on the Crossroads [Moyglass]

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Violet
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[PC_q2_BC02_Journal] Murder on the Crossroads [Moyglass]

Post by Violet »

PC_q2_BC02_Journal - Murder on the Crossroads


Quest description:
A merchant named Arahn Kimoi was found murdered in his manor, upon getting the latest rumor, the player gets the "Arahn Kimoi" topic added, and they can unravel the mysteries of his untimely death. The suspects are: Medina Sirolus, who didn't get along with Arahn and was seen threatening to "ruin" him. Ramus, Arahn's former servant who was fired for reasons he'd rather not discuss, and Brescis Telettain, who had on numerous ocassions refused to sell his business to Arahn, and Arahn was supposedly attempting to put out of business (and replace with his own) in retaliation. The player can talk to all of these witnesses, as well as the Halgerns and Nerilius Ludos - the guard captain - to get clues for. This eventually leads to the player discovering that an outside force had assassinated Arahn, a force that had contacted the Dark Brotherhood to carry it out. The player goes to the location of the meeting place, where the Dark Brotherhood member were to have been waiting. The meeting place is a room in Gosha Inn (the other one, not the one that's up for rent - but the renting function isn't implemented at this time I don't think). You can ask Foroch to unlock the room for you, considering there are others who've done the same, he doesn't question it. Open the door and find the Dark Brotherhood member dead, likely assassinated. The quest ends there, with no way of knowing who was responsible for this assassination. Though if a player is a member of the Cyrodiilic Brotherhood, they can then follow this quest up with the Dark Brotherhood's own investigation, leading to a semi-high profile individual in Sutch who is affiliated with the Kali Mes. Talking to Thelius or Nerilius will give you your reward, depending on which you decide to go to, depends on your reward.

These are the following quest paths:

Path 1. Get the rumor about Arahn, then talk to Nerilius to start the quest. Investigate the suspects (Brescis, Medina, Ramus), to get the main gist, speaking to Brescis' apprentice - Ris gra-Kerrar, Thelius Halgern, and his wife Salonia, may also yield some valuable information. If you speak to Thelius, he'll ask that you bring the DB member to him, accept, and head to Gosha Inn. Find the murdered assassin, loot his corpse, bring the murder weapon back to Thelius for your reward.

Path 2. Get the rumor about Arahn, then talk to Nerilius to start the quest. Investigate the suspects (Brescis, Medina, Ramus), to get the main gist, speaking to Brescis' apprentice - Ris gra-Kerrar, Thelius Halgern, and his wife Salonia, may also yield some valuable information. If you speak to Thelius, he'll ask that you bring the DB member to him, decline or accept, and head to Gosha Inn. Find the murdered assassin, loot his corpse, bring the murder weapon back to Nerilius for your reward.

Additional Notes:
You shouldn't 'need' to speak to Thelius, or even so much as enter Halgern manor at all, to complete the quest. The DB member should be in the room (dead) once this quest is started, you will need to make the npc yourself. Arahn's corpse is already made, don't forget to attach a new script to it for this quest claim. A rumor going around afterwards about dark brotherhood assassins from Kvatch might be interesting in Brina Cross and/or Gosha Inn (or one rumor for each) after you finish the quest, but is strictly unnecessary. You will need to make the DB member corpse.



The latest rumor relating to the quest is already implemented. Please make sure to add a journal condition to it in order for it to stop appearing once the player finishes the quest (feel free to add an additional rumor if you want about it, but any additional latest rumor dialogue is entirely optional and should only be added if you feel that it significantly enhances the experience. Sometimes less is more).
"Did you hear? Arahn Kimoi was found dead in his manor last night! I here talk of assassination, but Lord Halgern and Nerilius Ludos are trying to keep a tight lid on the situation."

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Moyglass
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Post by Moyglass »

I'm going to attempt this as my quest showcase

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Moyglass
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Post by Moyglass »

Ready for review
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Violet
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Post by Violet »

Reviewing!

First off, I really like how the quest turned out. I was worried that the quest would've become more complicated than it needed to be, or too simple for it to be fun to experience, but you struck a nice balance and did a good job handling it. There were some issues, as there always is.


Topic "Arahn Kimoi"

"Ah this is the weapon that was used to kill Arahn I presume? Unfortunate that the assassin was killed I'm sure she would have had some interesting things to tell us. Anyway you have served me well, take this shortsword in exchange for the assassin's. I hope that it will serve you well friend." - this line doesn't actually do anything. Somewhere in there the resultbox is messed up, preventing the weapon exchange, disposition increase, and journal update. Thereby making it impossible to complete the quest the Thelius Halgern route.

Trying to speak to Medina Sirolus first for some reason crashed the game for me. Idk why (probably just Morrowind being Morrowind), just thought I'd mention it here. Speaking to her last worked perfectly fine and I don't see a reason why it would do that in the cs.

Topic "Argonian Adventurer"

"Yes she approached me a few days ago and asked me some questions about Kimoi Manor. I figured she must have been a thief and took it as a chance for revenge against my former master. I still had a key to the manor so I sold it to her. Unfortunatly the robbery must have gone wrong. I never intended for anyone to get hurt..." - Ramus doesn't mention Gosha Inn here, but in the journal entry that this line updates to (index 55), it treats it like he does. Also typo: "Unfortunatly" -> "Unfortunately",

"Ah yes she told me that someone would come by asking for her though I thought it would be just one. Her room is upstairs on the right, I'll unlock the door for you." - Foroch's line here doesn't actually unlock the door. This part may need to be done in PC_Anvil itself, I'm not sure. I would also put a comma either after "Ah" or after "Ah yes", depending on how you want the sentence to sound (Ah... Yes she told me vs Ah yes... She told me).

"What? She's dead? Oh dear this will be bad for business." Should have a comma after "Oh dear" imo.


Topic "Latest Rumors"

"Did you hear? Arahn Kimoi was found dead in his manor last night! I here talk of assassination, but Lord Halgern and Nerilius Ludos are trying to keep a tight lid on the situation." is doubled, oddly. One of them is at the bottom which addtopics and sets the journal, the other is within the proper "BEGIN/END BRINA CROSS" placeholders, and simply is set to appear at any point below Journal Index 105 with none of the other things. The one sunken at the bottom should be deleted and its resultbox should be applied to the one within the Brina Cross area.


File is not clean, the following lines are dirtied:

Latest Rumors:

"I hear Antonius Medericus and Lady Sigorn Lacorius of Thresvy hate each other. They are competition, [...]."

Greeting 5:

"Well met. Titus Corilex is the name. I manage shipments for the East Empire Company -- [...]"

BEGIN COUNTY ANVIL
BEGIN ANVIL
END ANVIL
BEGIN BRENA CROSSING FORT
END BRENA CROSSING FORT
BEGIN BRINA CROSS
END BRINA CROSS

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Moyglass
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Post by Moyglass »

Here's the fixed version of the quest.

The weapon exchange seems to be working, I had a typo in the ID of one of the weapons. Hopefully that works.
I didn't get any crashes on openmw or vanilla so hopefully that was a once off.

I fixed the typo and now Ramus mentions the Gosha Inn in his dialogue prompting the journal update.

Not sure about Faroch and the door. It works in Openmw not in vanilla but I use the same technique for opening a door earlier in the quest and that works fine for both. Changing the door ID in the sectionfile and matching it to the resultbox Id might work or just adding a script to it.

Deleted the duplicate rumour and added results to the first one. Changed the reward slightly - The name and enchantment of the sword.

Thanks for taking the time to review it!
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Dev Shah
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Post by Dev Shah »

Reviewed!

I loved how you implemented the quest. Almost no loose ends, and just the right tension to always have my interest. The review is mostly nitpicks and feature requests :D

Playtesting notes-
Spoiler
-Latest rumors: here->hear. And the last night part can seem a little off if you hear the same rumor after a few days.
-Topic Arahn Kimoi, "...We currently have three suspects however I'm not sure..." seems a little off to me, maybe ", but" instead of however?
-Topic Arahn Kimoi, Medina's first response, cutthrouts->cutthroats
-Same topic Medina's response to your choice, there should be a full stop after pfft,a comma or full stop( after '... help he can get', a full stop instead of a comma after useless and a full stop after 'murder'.
-Same topic Brescis's response to your choice needs a comma after Ris.
-Same topic, Ramus's last entry, full stop instead of a comma after Christophe, and maybe lose the "eh".
-Greeting for Thelius Halgern "How goes the investigation...", comma after death.
-Kinda nitpicky, but if someone says that I can confirm the whereabouts of them with someone else, I'd want a dialogue there with those who can vouch.
-Topic Arahn Kimoi, first response for Thelius, a comma after yes.
-The first response repeats every time you talk to Thelius. Not a big deal, but a shorter summary of what the player should do might work better.
-Topic Arahn's wound Ris's first response-> needs a comma after 'inn'
-Topic Arahn Kimoi last response of Thelius, needs a comma after killed.
-Full stop needed at the end of the Choice on "Yes this blade matches the wound on Arahn's body. Where did you find this?" in topic Arahn Kimoi
-In general, I would prefer a few more pauses, but the above is the minimum.
-The journal updates twice on the third suspect. It looks a little jarring imo, maybe have the "I've spoken to all three suspects" line fire only after dialogue ends? (Using a MenuMode check)
-You can already have unlocked the door in Kimoi manor before, even after the quest starts(I did it with 100 sneak). Easiest way to make it work better will be to change the dialogue so that unlocking isn't explicitly mentioned("you can go through the door now". Same thing for the inn door.
-I don't like that the wound's messagebox only appears after you're sent to investigate. It should activate before, while the dialogue only becomes available at the correct time.
-the greeting about the area being off limits also happens after you get the door unlocked.
-Just a suggestion: Maybe have the locations of the suspect in the journal as well, or have Nerilius say the locations again when you choose the topic.(Because the only way currently to recollect the location is to use the topic Arahn Kimoi in the journal, and that can be a little annoying.)
-I think you should be able to start the quest by talking to Nerilius as well. (Since he doesn't really reject you helping after you know the topic, only needs a disp check. So Nerilius telling you about Arahn with higher disposition seems apt)
CS-
Spoiler
-As said before, I'd like it if activating the body gave the topic and the update if the journal is >0, not 42. If giving the journal update breaks things, having that entry in a different id with same name will work.
-Not really a big deal, but generally you should use local variables like PC_control or DoOnce so that we don't have a lot of unique variables to shift through in the locals tab in the dialogue filters.
-As said before a
if ( MenuMode )
return
endif
check would be better for SuspectTracker script.
-Forcegreetings should be in greeting 1 so they don't get overriden by disease dialogue.
-Topic Argonian Adventurer shouldn't have A in adventurer capital.
-Topic Argonian Adventurer "Yes I can't remember much about her unfortunatly. ..." unfortunatly->unfortunately
-The dialogue in Argonian Adventurer "I think I remember seeing someone matching that description speaking with Ramus a few days ago." should be filtered to NotLocal PC_NoLore = 0. Same with Nerilius Ludos and Gosha Inn topics.
-Just as a precaution, you should add Journal > 0 check on Argonian Adventurer topic entries that don't have any check (so even if another mod adds that topic, it won't break your quest.)
-The top rumor is mistakenly filtered for __Dead Highwayman id
-Second entry in Topic Arhn Kimoi "...Here you should have the bounty for Arahn's murderer, spend this gold wisely." needs a comma after Here.
-"To tell the truth I believe that he may have been murdered. "->'To tell the truth, I believe that he may have been murdered.' I'm not sure if the former is gramatically wrong, but the second one sounds a lot better, atleast to me.(What I meant by needs pauses.)

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Post by Moyglass »

I've made most of the fixes. Only thing I couldn't find was: -The top rumor is mistakenly filtered for __Dead Highwayman id

I checked both rumors that I edited/added and looked through the rest of the dialogue but I couldn't find this.

I want to keep the journal update for searching Arahn's body the way it is. My reasoning being that you have been told to search the room so the PC would be more focused on picking up small details. Whereas a burglar wouldn't pay as much attention.

Also Thelius repeating his long dialogue isn't great but I want to keep it that way. If the player pays attention they might figure out that Medina had Arahn's ledger stolen and then gave it to Thelius.

Everything else should be fixed. I really hope I didn't overlook anything. I added two new doors they are right in front of the regular ones so they should be easy to replace on merge.
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Dev Shah
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Post by Dev Shah »

Reviewed again! Everything seems amazing, just a few more things(Some of which i forgot to check the first time around, sorry for that!) Should be pretty close to perfect now.

REVIEW
Spoiler
-So sorry, completely forgot the ID conventions in the first review, but anything other than globals, scripts and journal ids needs to have PC_q2-BC02_name rather than PC_q2_BC02_name.
-The journal for the rumours should have Finished checked, and the next starting point should have restart checked.
-Generally a comma after yes flows better, but not always.
-A good thing to keep in mind for punctuating the dialogue is that the dialogue in morrowind is a bit more formal and a bit less 'flow of thought', if that makes sense.
-For script PC_q2_bc02_arahnscript, you don't get the messagebox right now if the journal is <=42. (the else should be one level lower, of just put the messagebox after Activate if you want this to happen anytime.)
-You get the latest rumor journal update from the guard in Kimoi manor even though you have already started the quest(before the papers)
-The note doesn't work properly (https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/comment ... ment-17206 for a fix)
TOPIC ARAHN KIMOI
-"Ramus was working here on the night of Arahn's death. Though he wasn't working very hard. I may have to dock his pay again." a comma instead of a full stop after death, of change the sentence to "He wasn't working very hard, though." both of the options have a bit better flow.
-"... I actually have morals unlike some people." comma after morals, while not strictly needed, flows better imo.
-"Arahn has tried to purchase the store from me on multiple occasions, however I didn't have any intentions to sell it...." A full stop instead of a comma after occasions, and a comma after however flows better.
-"He's visited the store a couple of times. I overheard him speaking with Brescis, he wanted to purchase the store but Brescis wouldn't sell. Arahn was furious stormed out of here. Brescis was here on the night of Arahn's death." A full stop instead of a comma after Brescis, and 'Arahn was furious *and* stormed out of here.' sounds better.
-"Yes I am currently investigating his death however due to the sensitive nature of this matter I can only share the details with someone I can trust." comma after yes, full stop after death and comma after however flows better imo.
-Choice for Brescis needs a question mark at the end.
-I know what you said about the repeating dialogue for Thelius, is there a similar reason for repeated dialogue of the suspects? If not, a shortening after the journal updates might be good, though not strictly necessary.
-The alibi's can be confirmed out of order.(i.e. if I talk to Medina first, I can confirm the alibi's of the other two without talking to them first). Not a big deal, really, but from the filters, it seems like this wasn't intended.
-"Choice "Yes I found this weapon on her body" 6" needs a full stop after the choice.
TOPIC ARGONIAN ADVENTURER
-The dialogue "I think I remember seeing someone matching that description speaking with Ramus a few days ago." is filtered for 11111 test journal instead of your journal in one filter. (I'm sure I didn't mess it up this time :D)

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Post by Moyglass »

Alright I made all of the fixes suggested except for the alibi one. Thelius won't repeat his dialogue now either. Thanks for taking the time to go through all of this. I feel as though I should have been more thorough the first time around.
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Dev Shah
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Post by Dev Shah »

Rewiewed! There's some things that still need to be fixed (I missed some last time around, sorry!), but overall I feel like everything is good enough for me to recommend you for promotion!
Here's the review:
Spoiler
->pc_q2_bc02_arahnScript- needs a space after the added messageboxes.
->In all the scripts, there were some inconsistent capitalisations in the ids.(q/pc/bc02 is sometimes not what it should be). Not really a big thing, but still.
->Again something I completely forgot, GetLOS is a slow check, so it should only happen once every few frames.
->The Rumor's journal doesn't have finished checked(the next one has restart, though.)
->You'll also need to add restart to the other journal that comes after this one, index 100.(In the alternate path)
->Topic Arahn Kimoi - "Good work. Each of..." in the dialogue results, "StopScript, "PC_q2-BC02_SuspectTracker" should have PC_q2_BC02_SuspectTracker. (Changed it for me before playtesting)
->The guard probably shouldn't have respawn ticked.
->PC_i2-Gos_DeadAssassin should have q2 instead of i2, since it's added by your quest.
->In this case when there are this many npcs, I wouldn't require a failstate if you kill the npcs, but some dialogue/a small failstate journal entry when the suspects/Thelius/Nerilius/Ris die so things make sense after would be nice.
*Just a journal that updates OnDeath might be good enough, though you might need to implement a GetDeadCount check in a global script, else make new scripts for the suspects just for this. Note-GetDeadCount can also be slow check, so you should use it with a timer or a frame check as well.
->Minor Nitpick: It might be better to reword the journal index 100 to make it clear that you should bring the weapon as a proof, else it kinda feels like the journal put words in your mouth that the player might not be thinking.
->There is no dialogue for journal 45 for Nerilius. It's generally good if the primary questgiver has dialogue for all journals the player can talk to them. (And so the topic will not disappear when the journal updates.)
->Similar thing for Argonian Adventurer topics.

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Post by roerich »

Member promoted.
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Dev Shah
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Post by Dev Shah »

Just a heads up, the note will not open in the inventory in openmw as of now due to an openmw bug. (https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw/-/issues/5991) So ignore that while testing till the bug is fixed.

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Post by Moyglass »

Alright made the changes. Added a failstate if Nerilius dies. Added to each of the topics and journal. Added a local script for Nerilius. Suspect tracker keeps track of any suspect's death. If Ris is dead Brescis continues the quest, if Thelius is dead Nerilius won't send you to him.
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Post by Moyglass »

Fixed this bug:
If you kill ris before the quest starts brescis will still tell you to ask you to see if ris will corroborate his story.
It doesn't effect playing through the quest but it is odd (the journal treats her as though she was still alive too)
Ris is treated as being dead when you talk to brescis about the stab wound though, so that does work.

Also the other suspects won't point you to their alibis if they are dead. Added a couple of dialogue entries to the Arahn kimoi topic and two new journal entries for these conditions.
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Violet
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Post by Violet »

Merged.

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