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Need dialogue ideas for M'aiq the Liar mod

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 5:52 am
by imsobadatnicknames
I wanted to work on a smaller-scale mod to take a break from other projects (and also bc at the moment working on my bigger mods like Docks of Daggerfall or Banditry and Travelling Merchants is off the table as I've been busy working on my college thesis lol) so I decided to make a fairly simple mod that makes M'aiq the Liar into a randon encounter.
The mod is pretty much fully coded already, with one little problem: I just can't come up with stuff that M'aiq would say in this game. I'm not exactly great at writing dialogue so I just put in some placeholder dialogue and made the rest of the mod.

So idk, it would be super helpful if some of you guys could suggest some dialogue lines that seem in-character for M'aiq.

Re: Need dialogue ideas for M'aiq the Liar mod

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 6:41 pm
by phantasmald
Well, M'aiq usually makes fun of game mechanics or references actual events that happened to testers or devs, so try to find ridicolous game mechanics, personal gameplay moments or DFU coding mishaps for inspiration.

Here's a couple ideas that I think could fit(?)

"M'aiq was looking for an armorer so he asked for directions from a local. The man sent him to the other side of the kingdom. M'aiq thinks the locals don't like M'aiq very much."
"Some say there was incense and soft music. Some say there were rusty relics everywhere. M'aiq thinks the shop looked just as empty as any other."
"The shopkeeper gave M'aiq 61 days to report back. M'aiq thinks that's plenty of time to rest."
"M'aiq tried to sell an adamantium helm. The shopkeeper said it was just a leather helm. M'aiq thinks the shopkeeper was just being cheap."
"M'aiq once found a man underwater. M'aiq was amazed by his ability to hold his breath."
"M'aiq knows much. But why would M'aiq want to help a/an (-insert player race here-)."
"People once asked M'aiq where he keeps his horse. M'aiq prefers to not think about it."
"M'aiq had a dream about a man and a moon before. M'aiq thinks he had too much cheese." / "...M'aiq wonders where the dreams of females and suns are"
"M'aiq once arrived to a city after dark, so M'aiq decided to cautiously close his eyes and imagine it's morning. M'aiq never felt so refreshed."
"People can't keep their eyes of M'aiq. M'aiq does not know if he should feel honored or fear for his life."

Here are the explanations. Putting it in spoiler in case you want to guess what I'm referencing with each of them :P
Spoiler!
- asking for a local shoptype that's not found in the city never sends you to the nearest location
- lampshading the shop quality system and that everything looks the same thanks to modular generation
- The majority of your dungeon delving time is going to be sent resting to recuperate
- Helms all look the same
- actual thing that happened to me; you can have quest objective spawn under water in dungeons with water blocks, and some quest objectives are people
- referencing the common negative response that NPCs can tell you: "Why would I help a/an (race)"
- referencing how in vanilla horses and wagons just kinda chill in your inventory.
- referencing the werewolf dream, second version is a non-sequitur inversion
- referencing how you can fast travel cautiously to a location where you currently are, arriving the next day with fully replenished resources.
- referencing how the 2D NPC sprites always face the player. Also could refer to the letters you receive from quest givers.


Additional stuff one could poke fun at:
huge dungeons
naked people everywhere
so many undead enemies everywhere
khajiit race retcon (compared to arena)
faction wars and hostilities
missing factions that you can ask people about (e.g Order of the Lamp)

Re: Need dialogue ideas for M'aiq the Liar mod

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:55 pm
by imsobadatnicknames
Those are really good ones!
I did some thinking this morning and finally managed to come up with some ideas of my own:

-Referencing his character sprite (I decided to represent him as a sabertooth tiger bc there's no way to create khajiit NPCs)
-Some comment about how coins in the Iliac Bay are the heaviest in all of Tamriel (a reference to the fact that gold is weightless in every post-daggerfall game)
-Commenting on the repetitive nature of quests (something along the lines of "this is the third time a shopkeeper asks M'aiq to save his dying cousin")
-Commenting on the size of the world maybe?
-Commenting on the fact that there are thousands of dragonlings but no dragons to be found anywhere

I guess I'll keep taking ideas and trying to come up with my own for a while, a mod like this needs a very big selection of dialogue lines lol