Custom Smithing / Tailoring

[Hazelnut]

I'm not sure I'm revolutionizing everything Jay, but I am trying to provide more functionality for quests on DFU for sure. While creating this quest I've found that it's quite a time sink to format the text entries nicely, and it gives me a new appreciation of how much effort you put into your quest pack! Although having lots of NPCs and choices does multiply the amount of text entries quite a bit.. I think there are getting on for 100 for this quest now.

I am hoping that others who are keen to make mods, but are not programmers, will be able to use this as an example and it will enable some creative stuff. I certainly don't see myself doing many quests, I'd rather spent my time programming. I do have some ideas for a capstone quest for the Archaeologists guild though, but that will have to wait until I am ready to take on this amount of work again.

And thank you for doing the quest writing tutorial, it helped me with a few things.

[Jay_H]

Yes, the text writing is 80% of the time I sink into writing one. That number approaches 100 for every branching path I have to make; this is why most of my quests are simple, straightforward affairs.

[Firebrand]

Yes, the text writing is 80% of the time I sink into writing one. That number approaches 100 for every branching path I have to make; this is why most of my quests are simple, straightforward affairs.

Is there any way to improve this? Making quests more complex, without an extreme overhead of typing, would be an interesting feature. Maybe through that Visual Quest Editor

[Hazelnut]

I think a way to edit the text messages in-game for a quest and have it save them to the script would be my ideal. Each edit you make has to be tested in game to see what it looks like. Then again and again and again... so tedious, especially since you need to start the quest again each time.

[Jay_H]

Is there any way to improve this? Making quests more complex, without an extreme overhead of typing, would be an interesting feature. Maybe through that Visual Quest Editor

No, what you see is what you get. The only way to write less text is to make fewer text boxes. You can copy over text you've already written and adapt it to new circumstances, but that's not often the solution.

Part of it is also writing good text, which is harder than people think. It's easy to write insipid dialogue but people get bored of that really fast. For example, in the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim I actually had to quit because I was literally getting sleepy from the writing:

"What happened? Why won't you go back?"

"It's hard to explain ... I remember those people with the masks coming on board, then ... The next thing I remember, I was here and they were gone. That's not right, losing whole days like that. There's been something strange going on there for a while, but after this ... I'm done. I'm not going back to Solstheim."

"Yes, you are. You're taking me to Solstheim.

"Have you been listening to me? I'm not going back there."

"I'll pay you double your usual rate."

"Well ... a man's gotta make a living, after all. Fine. We'll cast off immediately."

That's horribly bland. Daggerfall's dialogue is written at a much higher standard, and keeping up with that is hard work.

I think a way to edit the text messages in-game for a quest and have it save them to the script would be my ideal. Each edit you make has to be tested in game to see what it looks like. Then again and again and again... so tedious, especially since you need to start the quest again each time.

This is somewhat complicated by players' screen resolutions. Small resolutions fit less text, so you'll still be spilling off the borders even if most players see it right. I've developed a sort of general sense of when the text goes too far or not, and haven't heard any complaints yet, so you can learn it over time.

If that's the difficulty, you may want to just start that quest (or a dummy quest) with the action "say 1011" and put the text into that box. Then you can isolate it and fix it freely.

[Hazelnut]

This is somewhat complicated by players' screen resolutions. Small resolutions fit less text, so you'll still be spilling off the borders even if most players see it right. I've developed a sort of general sense of when the text goes too far or not, and haven't heard any complaints yet, so you can learn it over time.

If that's the difficulty, you may want to just start that quest (or a dummy quest) with the action "say 1011" and put the text into that box. Then you can isolate it and fix it freely.

I test all my text messages at 320x200 and with classic fonts. I find that the line length varies depending on the letters used and getting nice tidy centralised text just takes time and iterations. I'm thinking of a mode started by a console command which displays each message from a quest in turn on a max size msg box for the minimal screen size, and allows editing. Not something I want to tackle at the moment, but it'd sure be nice.

In hindsight I should have put all the messages into a dummy quest with an action that just says them all instead of running through the quest paths over and over.

[Ralzar]

In hindsight I should have put all the messages into a dummy quest with an action that just says them all instead of running through the quest paths over and over.

Aw jeez. Live and learn

[Hazelnut]

This is now released. I'm going to wait for feedback on the FG version before possibly extending it to Knightly Orders.

[Regnier]

This is now released. I'm going to wait for feedback on the FG version before possibly extending it to Knightly Orders.

Where is this released? i cant find it

[Ralzar]

This is now released. I'm going to wait for feedback on the FG version before possibly extending it to Knightly Orders.

Where is this released? i cant find it

Roleplay&Realism. You unlock this by completing a master level Fighters Guild quest.