Vanilla Dialogue Advice Needed

[RedDragonDreamer]

After reading the segment in the post about complex dialogue, For my quest I am wanting to add to the vanilla quest dialogue, but I understand now that causes bugs and incompatablity problems. What I am wanting to know is if there is a workaround to this problem?

Thanks in advance for any help

[DarkRider]

Can you give more information about what you want to add/do exactly? It will help me give you better answers.

[RedDragonDreamer]

Yes Thanks DarkRider

What I am trying to do is to make a companion that does quests alongside the player ( vanilla quests ) but have the quest givers aknowledge and assign my companion to do the vanilla quests with the player and to up the rank in the fractions for the companion as it does to the player.

I guess what I am trying to create is a companion that some of the vanilla npc's *know* and stop him from being 'static and not aknowledged or assigned' despite helping the player complete the quests. Mainly the editing part will be getting the guild quest givers to assign my companion and aknowledge that he completed the quest as well

I know I have asked about companion scripting and such help before but I had to stop and learn more about the cs and I want to keep trying because everytime I try I get closer to being able to archeive this.

Edited June 13, 2010 by RedDragonDreamer

[DarkRider]

Adding the companion to a faction would be fairly simple. You'd just need to create a new quest that has a quest script which governs the sequence. This script will check for the player's faction rank and adjust the companion's faction rank to match. You can start each block of the quest script to run on GetStageDone pointing to the faction quest stages to tell it when to look for the player's rank and adjust the companion's rank.

Dialogue is trickier. NPCs deliver quest dialogue directly to the player, which goes into the dialogue zoom in screen. It doesn't leave the character open to have words for you and your companion. You could add additional lines like "Thank you, both of you" conditioned to run if you have a companion, but this poses issues:

1) If another mod alters the same quest you alter, whoever changed the quest last wins creating conflicts.

2) Any lines you add will not have the vanilla character's voice, or any voice unless you add it. This can be a real immersion breaker, and unless the dialogue is directed to the player, you can't squeak by with voiceless dialogue between two NPCs; the player just won't hear the convo.

3) Lines directed to the player often alter quest details like stage progression, adding an additional convo between your quest giver and companion may interrupt the quest unfavorably.

What I would recommend is creating a crop of custom NPCs who use a custom dialogue quest and not vanilla chat at all. You'll need at least a male and a female voice actor to do these generic lines for you, but you would only need a few greetings and goodbye and some general rumors and passing lines. Then sprinkle them around Cyrodiil in taverns, towns and guild halls. You can make your NPCs say anything you want to the duo giving you that immersive feel you want; even give them custom convos to have with your companion when they meet in passing. It sounds like a lot but really wouldn't require much work, so might be something to consider.

[RedDragonDreamer]

Adding the companion to a faction would be fairly simple. You'd just need to create a new quest that has a quest script which governs the sequence. This script will check for the player's faction rank and adjust the companion's faction rank to match. You can start each block of the quest script to run on GetStageDone pointing to the faction quest stages to tell it when to look for the player's rank and adjust the companion's rank.

Dialogue is trickier. NPCs deliver quest dialogue directly to the player, which goes into the dialogue zoom in screen. It doesn't leave the character open to have words for you and your companion. You could add additional lines like "Thank you, both of you" conditioned to run if you have a companion, but this poses issues:

1) If another mod alters the same quest you alter, whoever changed the quest last wins creating conflicts.

2) Any lines you add will not have the vanilla character's voice, or any voice unless you add it. This can be a real immersion breaker, and unless the dialogue is directed to the player, you can't squeak by with voiceless dialogue between two NPCs; the player just won't hear the convo.

3) Lines directed to the player often alter quest details like stage progression, adding an additional convo between your quest giver and companion may interrupt the quest unfavorably.

What I would recommend is creating a crop of custom NPCs who use a custom dialogue quest and not vanilla chat at all. You'll need at least a male and a female voice actor to do these generic lines for you, but you would only need a few greetings and goodbye and some general rumors and passing lines. Then sprinkle them around Cyrodiil in taverns, towns and guild halls. You can make your NPCs say anything you want to the duo giving you that immersive feel you want; even give them custom convos to have with your companion when they meet in passing. It sounds like a lot but really wouldn't require much work, so might be something to consider.

Taking your advice Will be doing it. The last thing I want is to cause conflicts with other mods. Thank you very much