Quest start problem - help!

[triptherift]

Okay I spent a couple months making a multistage quest mod as a learning experience. For testing purposes, I set the mod as start game enabled. Everything worked perfectly. So now I re-configure the mod to start from a note that you read. Here is where things get weird. When I do a save now with the quest active, the save will now not recognize the "say only once" dialogue flag. At all. So every new stage intro dialogue along the way is cluttering up the dialogue tree. This is beyond frustrating. The quest has had the start game flags removed. Removed the seq file (since it's now not start game enabled and shouldn't be needed). I'm testing on a fresh no mod save. The quest starts when the note is read. It almost appears to be something hard-coded, or I'm missing something really obvious. Everything works perfectly if I don't use a note to start the quest.

[scorrp10]

Let me get this straight:

1.  You start a brand-new game.
2. You read the note and quest starts.
3. You talk to the quest NPC, and the 'Say only once' intro dialogue is there.
4. You talk to the NPC again, and intro dialogue is no longer there.
5. You save the game and exit.
6. You start game again and load the save.
7. You talk to the NPC, and intro dialogue is there again?

I can take a look if you upload the mod someplace.  (You can give me the link via PM)  I should only need the .esp...   and I suppose the script that starts the quest.

[triptherift]

Yes, what you have listed is what is happening. Sent the plugin to you via pm

[scorrp10]

I will put the answer here for other as well - it is a game engine thing.   See the Wiki about 'Say Once' option.    For any quests that are not start game enabled, 'Say Once' topics reset when player exits Skyrim.