[WIP] Cerwiden -SMART Healer- Dev Opinion Poll 3

[Moraevik]

I want her to quit saying "Stupid dog!" Meeko is a member of our family. She should learn that.

 

Seriously, though, I'd have to vote for Vilja, although as has been pointed out it could be a long time before Vilja actually makes it into the game. By far, my favorite vanilla follower is Kharjo, so he'd be tops on my list.

 

I'd really like to see extensive quest-awareness with Cerwiden. I'm not talking about the multitude of purely radiant quests. That would be just absurd to try to accommodate all those possibilities, but the hard-coded quests should be things that she could respond to. I'd love hearing her comments about the various Daedra, for instance. I'm more interested in seeing this for side-quests, rather than the "guild quests", too. I'm at a point in my playing where I couldn't care less about the guilds, anymore. There's quite enough other stuff in the game to keep me happy until the game's leveling starts disintegrating at or around level 35.

[Mujuro]

October 7th is not far away at all! I can't wait to see what you've done with her. The first major update for AD will be coming out around the end of the year, at which point I'll be starting to look into companion interactions. DreamKingMods, Mujuro (obviously :) ), and a few other companion modders have expressed similar intentions; at some point we should all find some time to have a quick chat about compatibility.

Not far away at all! And I still have quite a lot to do with Ceri's installment questline. In terms of intermod/follower compatibility, I really don't believe that will be an issue as a general matter. The larger question is HOW we want the respective followers to interact, and whether the voice assets within each of our mods are structured in a way that can be easily (relative term, of course) pulled and used by the other mods. And this all depends on how the assets get set up, at least from what I've seen in building Ceri's initial interaction foundation. That said, I've not meaningfully tested this foundation with truly "custom" companions like Atvir, Vilja or DreamKingMods' Aela, so I could be drinking my own bathwater. :P

[Thasic]

Ceri is a wonderful companion and from what I've heard, Vilja was every bit as good if not better. It would be fantastic if a few of the really dedicated and skilled companion modders out there like Emma and Mujuro could collaborate and have a couple of characters interact, even just a little. Mujuro has done a bit of that with Ceri addressing other companions, but let's face it, using vanilla companions will never give any depth to that kind of interaction. Any way, good to hear Vilja is headed on a fast ship to Skyrim. Ceri and I will be waiting at the docks to meet her!

[mandrass]

I’d like Cerwiden in interact with other spell casting companions. Illia would be my choice as I recruited her thinking she would be my healer. Glad you gave us Cerwiden coz Illia did not live up to expectations :)

 

As for her and the main quests

 

It’s always nice to be the centre of attention in games, so having Ceri waiting to see a prisoner that recently escaped the 1st dragon attack in living memory would be great, but I’d like her to be there for her own reasons. Something that may conflict with the main story in the same way the Blades and Greybeards try to force a hard choice.

In fact it would fix my Skyrim world if she could help me out of the dead end I’m in with the Beards and Blades.

I haven’t killed Paarthurnax (That’s stuck me handing in/getting blades quest) coz he’s far too groovy, but maybe Ceri has a plan for Paarthurnax that could help tip the balance.. ..

Cerwiden’s morality and advanced reaction table would further improve things like joining the Dark Brotherhood.

 

“Fine go be an assassin I won’t stop you being a murderer, but if some ones see you I won’t stop them bring you to justice. May even heal them if you try to kill um”

Edited September 12, 2012 by mandrass

[Triaxx2]

That's a lovely bit of personality, but when it's said to someone who spends their spare time eating the souls of dragons, it's not the brightest sounding comment on the planet. Nor is it conducive to a long, healthy life.

[Mujuro]

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback and comments here. I've had a really busy week at work so I've not been able to be on the boards as much lately, but rest assured I am working on Ceri's next installment when I'm able. That leads to the second point, which is that I've submitted the dialogue lines for Ceri's next installment to ThePoeticOne for review. :)

[grimgagorim]

Voted for vanilla follower, if Serana counts as vanilla :) Otherwise, Aela would be nice.

[Tantalus010]

Since I play as a vampire, I'd also like to see Ceri interact with Serana if at all possible. I know not much interaction will be possible since Serana has a unique voice and thus more limited dialogue, but still, it'd be cool.

[calfurius]

Are you still working on an update?

[Mujuro]

Yes, still working on v1.7, which is the next installment of Ceri's questline. In terms of longer term planning, I plan on working companion interaction and additional situation-based dialogue in v1.8. There will be some additional situation dialogue in v1.7, but not too much, as most of the new dialogue (and there's quite a lot) will go to Ceri's "why is she in Skyrim" questline. The v1.7 installment should provide some interesting battles that I hope will be challenging. Without giving away too much, the questline is geared towards mid-to-higher level players. I'd recommend a minimum level of 25 unless you're running around with uber-mod gear, in which case, Skyrim may pose even less of a challenge. :P

 

Some general information on what v1.7 will include:

 

1. Lots more background on Ceri's reason for being in Skyrim, and the questline to help Ceri accomplish her inital mission.
   
2. Some battles will be fixed-level, with opponents set around level 20-25 (I'm still tweaking this a bit). Other encounters, including bosses, will have at least 1 enemy that has minimum level 25 but will level scale to 100.
   
3. Some enemies will have Ceri's healing AI, such that they'll heal their allies.
   
4. Some enemies will have Ceri's SMARTCast AI, and select spells accordingly against the player, Ceri and any player allies/followers.
   
5. While the enemy spellcasters will not have Ceri's buffs (those are hers alone from Lord Donblas), they'll have their own unique support spells.
   
6. There will be 2 "ally" NPCs available to help you and Ceri, but they will NOT be followers. That said, they will have some basic configuration options. One will be a sword-and-board archetype, with some special magic abilities (for those already familiar with the Lords of Chaos and Michael Moorcock's works, the NPC is Elric of Melnibone, and he'll have Stormbringer). The other is Rackhir the Red Archer, who'll be the "rogue" archetype. I've got a couple of surprises here if you choose to get their help, but they'll be optional and will largely depend on how you find the relative difficulty of the "boss" fights.
   
7. You'll have the option of letting Ceri "take the lead" on certain portions of the quest, if you choose to have faith in her "visions from Donblas".
   

I'm planning for v1.7 to go to closed beta next week. Given the sheer amount of new dialogue to support the quest installment, much of it may not be in for the beta, which is more to test the functionality and play balance. If anyone is interested in helping beta test, I wouldn't mind more testers. :)