Quests never start; Can set non-existing stages ingame

[Hellscreamy]

Hopefully the issue is clear enough in the title, I'm having some issues with creating quests in the creation kit. I've already made some test plugins and quests where dialogues and quest objectives work without problems. This issue doesn't related to the .SEQ or dialogue bug, I use the Story Manager to trigger quests and load saves before testing.

 

This happens with two quests: one mainly found in Tamriel, the other inside a custom worldspace. Both involve custom npc's. Quest 1 has a non-unique npc but an alias is forced to reference to it. The other quest does involve an unique npc, but nothing happens here either. No objectives are shown for either quest, objective-handling is done in dialogue and stages (as seen in the official CK tutorial).

 

This is what happens in the game:

load up the game, use coc to go to a location.

I type GetQuestRunning <Quest> in the console, says false.

Story Manager should trigger quest when it's not yet running and when inside any locations with the keywords: inn, town, city.

I enter an inn or town, type GetQuestRunning in the console which still returns false.

I type in StartQuest <Quest> and then try GetQR again, still returns false.

I try SetStage 10, quest is set to that stage but no scripts attached to the stage are executed.

I try SetStage 13, a stage that doesn't exist, no error message is returned and the quest is now at stage 13.

 

I have none of these issues with my test plugin, yet I made these the same way.

- SEQ files shouldn't be necessary since the quests shouldn't execute unless in a certain location.

- All dialogues have sound files

- Conditions show no logical errors.

 

I can give the test plugins but not the mod I have issues with because that one is connected to Dawnguard, a custom master file with worldspaces and nearly 1gb of resources.

 

Edited September 2, 2014 by Hellscreamy

[Hellscreamy]

Sorry for the bump of this thread, but I still can't get my quests working because of this issue. We want to alpha-release the mod soon and I'd rather have part of the quest working by then.

[Mattiewagg]

First off: Don't just load save games of the mod before testing, make a new save. Every time.

[Hellscreamy]

That's what I'm already doing. I create a clean game every time I test my mods. After it fails to start right after a new game I save and reload that save again to see if it's related to the missing dialogue bug. I've already excluded all the common causes.

 

It isn't related to other mods either because I only have the necessary esp/esm's active. I have no problem with Start Game Enabled quests or storymanager-started quests made in other plugins.

[Mattiewagg]

Make sure you have an objective.

[Hellscreamy]

I've done some tinkering to find out what's going wrong, but so far still no success. I've made screenshots of my entire quest setup and story manager to give an idea of how I've set it up, hopefully it's possible to find a mistake somewhere. As you can see, I already had multiple objectives setup.

The images were too big for the forum uploader, so I had to upload it externally. You can find it here: http://oi57.tinypic.com/2myupw6.jpg

 

In the images you can see I use the Change Location Event and check whether the player has entered either an Inn, town or city. I've checked the CK for cells and interiors with these locations and used those for testing For example, walking out the ShorsStoneRedBelly mine should trigger the event because the outdoor cell ShorsStoneExterior01 has the locationtype Town. Walking into the RiverwoodSleepingGiantInn should also trigger this event, as long as the quest isn't running yet.

The quest never starts and I'm unable to start it manually with StartQuest in the console.

 

The weirdest thing is that I've created another quest EXACTLY like this in a separate plugin. I used that quest as a reference for this one. The only differences between the two plugins is that the one with the problems uses multiple masters (Skyrim, Update, Dawnguard, MyOwnESM), the working plugin only runs inside interiors (bugged one mostly runs inside the Tamriel Worldspace) and in the working one I check the exact location and not the locationtype.

 

I've also tried running the quest Start Game Enabled. In this case the quest does start up and I can only set the existing stages of the quest, but I couldn't talk to any of the npc's. The first objective bound to the startup stage didn't show either, even though I did use SetObjectiveDisplayed(0, 1). After some searching and messing around with console commands I found GetQuestAliases and noticed they were all empty. I had another start-game enabled quest for dialogue bound to the npc so I thought the npc was reserved. After disabling this quest the aliases remained empty.

 

I've no problems with other quests or simple dialogues I've made, somehow I only have issues with this one quest either because aliases won't fill or because the SMevent won't trigger.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Hellscreamy

[NemoStone]

I have run into what might be a related bug. I changed a quest from "Start Game Enabled" to not start game enabled, and the quest simply failed. I cannot make calls to it from other quests, nor can I use console commands to either start it or set a stage. However, when I check "Start Game Enabled" again, everything works fine. I have another quest that I also set to Start Game Enabled when I built it and under similar circumstances I un-checked it, and it works fine, checked or unchecked. This seems to be a bug with Start Game Enabled itself. I am not sure, but it may have something to do with having a .bsa or SEQ file around while making the changes. I have no clue how that would break things, but it could be a source of conflicting settings when the game is loaded. I usually make sure there aren't conflicting files around, but if I missed it, some conflicting code settings might have snuck in. Hey, its CK and its buggy, what CAN'T happen.

My problem is that I am trying to avoid using the SEQ file because I cannot put it into the Archive in CK. I get a "not valid file type" when I do. The only work around seems to be using setstage or start commands from other quests -- or trigger boxes as you have done. This works fine except I have the one quest that I cannot uncheck without having it fail. For me, I am going to build a duplicate quest (102A instead of 102) and NEVER check the Start Game Enabled box.

To address another issue that might concern you, I have had a problem with filling aliases that are set as properties in the "QF" script but work fine in the "extends Quest" script that can be created in the Scripts tab of the Quest window. CK treats each script's properties very differently, but I cannot tell how. I have also had trouble with using the same NPC as a quest alias in more than one Quest. Sometimes they will not load correctly in game and at least one of the quests just will not run. If you can access the NPC or object using a property in the extends Quest script it keeps it cleaner. I use the in-game console command "sqv myQuest" to look at the status of the quest and aliases to see when this might be happening.

Edited December 3, 2014 by NemoStone