Jay_H's quest writing tutorial

For all talk about quest development - creation, testing, and quest system.
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Jay_H
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial

Post by Jay_H »

Thank you :) The most basic quest tutorial is now available, in case it's useful to you. I'm not sure how frequently I'll post new ones, but I may announce them with new posts like this if it isn't a nuisance.

We'll get to the new quest actions before too long. In real terms, they're small modifications on what Daggerfall is already programmed to do, with specific limitations. For the night-time criminal band quest I made, that had the unusual ability to create enemy NPCs inside a specific town only, but it couldn't use any fixed enemy locations because of it. Both of these are offshoots from ordinary Daggerfall, and things we'll explore once we reach that stage.

Some custom actions really are beyond my knowledge, so everyone'll have their turn to contribute. What I don't know, someone else will :)
Last edited by Jay_H on Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:40 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Ziune Wolf
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial

Post by Ziune Wolf »

Thanks. You've been very helpful. I'll certainly be able to make basic quests at the very least for now. And really, they're not a bad start anyway. Don't want to start off complicated and get intimidated and not make another quest.

That sounds fair. I can't judge the system at this point in time, since we're still in the middle of adding full quest functionality. I can wait for my more advanced ideas then. :)

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Jay_H
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial

Post by Jay_H »

Parts 1 to 3 are now finished. The only things left for this build are dungeons, the game's ability to randomly select among options, and activate during specific hours of the day or night. All the quests made so far are based on those things and what's been written so far.

There is the "add face" and "remove face" options, but their use is very limited until the Person definition gains more ground, so I'll leave it for a future build.

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Feralwarlord
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial

Post by Feralwarlord »

Jay_H wrote:Part Two: Writing a Simple Quest
Placing the Quest File

First, name your quest file something. Right now we're going to name it the following:

TESTING1.txt

Save it in the folder /DaggerfallUnity_Data/StreamingAssets/Tables.
Shouldn't this be in \DaggerfallUnity_Data\StreamingAssets\Quests?
also if we wanted to give more or less gold than the default PClvl X 100 how would we do that?

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Jay_H
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial

Post by Jay_H »

Feralwarlord wrote:Shouldn't this be in \DaggerfallUnity_Data\StreamingAssets\Quests?
also if we wanted to give more or less gold than the default PClvl X 100 how would we do that?
Thank you, I fixed it :)

You can determine a specific amount or range for gold using the parameter "gold range m to n." Daggerfall uses this late in the main quest:

Code: Select all

Item _goldgoth_ gold range 10000 to 10000

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Ziune Wolf
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial: Vengeance build

Post by Ziune Wolf »

Wow, thank you for the bundles of information! This is great for everyone interested in contributing the game. You deserve a medal. :D

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Jay_H
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial: Vengeance build

Post by Jay_H »

Thank you :) Can you believe I've only been doing this for 4 days? ;) Daggerfall really does rock. All this must have been a pain to program in 1996 but now it's all easy enough that even I can understand it.

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Deathcrush
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial: Vengeance build

Post by Deathcrush »

Jay_H wrote:Thank you :) Can you believe I've only been doing this for 4 days? ;) Daggerfall really does rock. All this must have been a pain to program in 1996 but now it's all easy enough that even I can understand it.
Thanks so much for this thread, it's very helpful and very thought out. Luckily I have some time today to start writing, so I'm going to jump right on that and see what I can conjure up.

It's all up hill from here, right? ;)
"Excuse the gloom, but none may know of this meeting."

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Ziune Wolf
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial: Vengeance build

Post by Ziune Wolf »

Jay_H wrote:Thank you :) Can you believe I've only been doing this for 4 days? ;) Daggerfall really does rock. All this must have been a pain to program in 1996 but now it's all easy enough that even I can understand it.
Daggerfall has the best potential of any Elder Scrolls game in my opinion. The world is massive, there are so many factions and quests to do, so many skills, and a lot of room for roleplaying. When I first played it after it became free, I fell in love with it. It nearly instantly became my favorite Elder Scrolls game, and that was back when it was buggy and had more flaws. Now that it's being improved upon with a new engine, it's only getting better and better.

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Jay_H
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Re: Jay_H's quest writing tutorial: Vengeance build

Post by Jay_H »

Deathcrush wrote:
Jay_H wrote:Thank you :) Can you believe I've only been doing this for 4 days? ;) Daggerfall really does rock. All this must have been a pain to program in 1996 but now it's all easy enough that even I can understand it.
Thanks so much for this thread, it's very helpful and very thought out. Luckily I have some time today to start writing, so I'm going to jump right on that and see what I can conjure up.

It's all up hill from here, right? ;)
You're welcome, and thank you :) It really is just going to get better from here on. I'll admit that in previous stages of development I would usually go back to playing classic Daggerfall after testing DFU since I wanted a complete game, but now DFU's starting to reach that level of development where it can really be considered a complete game of its own (much more simple for now, but still a very real game). The much greater variety available in quests really has me coming back to it again and again.

I just finished the final quest tutorial, which will be all I write for the Vengeance build. Once the next build is finished, I'll add tutorials for the new functions it adds, which I'm guessing will include much more focus on the Person variable.

Until then, feel free to ask questions if things go wrong, or collaborate with brainstorming in the quest prompt thread :)
Tealy Wolf wrote:Daggerfall has the best potential of any Elder Scrolls game in my opinion. The world is massive, there are so many factions and quests to do, so many skills, and a lot of room for roleplaying. When I first played it after it became free, I fell in love with it. It nearly instantly became my favorite Elder Scrolls game, and that was back when it was buggy and had more flaws. Now that it's being improved upon with a new engine, it's only getting better and better.
I completely agree. I believe no fantasy RPG can possibly compare in scope with what Daggerfall is capable of, especially once we're able to break into custom quest actions and begin creating whole new quest dimensions. I like the comments people have made on the most recent ZetaPlays video, that DFU could become the "ultimate RPG."

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