Surilindur Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 A bit both... but mainly the text. I am really bad at writing dialogue. I will see what I can do. Help is always welcome, though, and certainly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 If you want you can PM anything you want me to look at, and if you find yourself stuck for ideas you know at one person who's willing to toss some around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surilindur Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Thank you. Perhaps I will make the first version of the mod with dialogue I manage to come up with and improve it after the mod works. So that you can see what kind of dialogue there should be and where it should exactly be. And I will certainly PM you when I need interesting ideas. Thank you again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surilindur Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Yes! The equipment repair thing works. I also made it so that her enchanted items will be recharged. The feature can be enabled using the ini, as will a few other things, too. There will not be a separate quest for background maintenance after all, as the normal Clavicus Vile quest script is basically empty and I can add everything to it and use Return to cut the unnecessary parts after quest is done. Things will also be in the same place then. The quest stages will also be moved a bit to make room for the new content. This is looking good. It took a while to understand how the quest works - also to understand how the dialogue system actually works. I did not know much about dialogue before. But now I believe I know - at least a bit more. Saves some pointless work I used to do when trying to get dialogue to work, it seems... which means I wasted an incredible amount of time doing completely unnecessary things when creating dialogue for the castle mod. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Yes it would make sense to have a rough draft of dialogue initially. I've found in my own simple mods that often NPCs will do things differently on different run throughs, especially if you reload from the desktop to get a fresh game load (I'm just working with AI packages and generally Variety is the God I serve so that's what I'm trying to achieve ... scripted stuff could be different). After two or three playthroughs the dialogue could be tweaked where needed. I have saves from back before my guy befriended Umbra. I'm a packrat, so actually I have all of my guy's saves archived. They come in handy for beta testing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surilindur Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Yes... beta testing... hmm... I have never really thought about that. I always test my mods myself, without 'using' anyone else as a 'beta tester', so that whenever I find bugs, I can fix them right away and make sure they no longer exist. Also, the bug is easier to fix when I know exactly where it is. Using others to test a mod is not something I am accustomed to. If there are bugs I missed when testing, people using the mod will hopefully report them. Even other people testing the mod cannot spot all the bugs, can they... ? So when the mod is ready and works, I think I could just release it, as it works. Any small bugs and dialogue tweaks could be done after that. Or should I make some sort of 'beta test'? How would that work? I have never done it before. And the mod will be so small it feels a bit odd. What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surilindur Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 I meant fixing bugs, not making them... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 The advantage of having beta testers is exposing the mod to different load orders and machine specs before release. I agree that smaller simpler mods benefit less from beta testing than larger ones. I've beta tested a few mods, ranging from companions to houses to a large mod that was a recent file of the month. One of the problems you face when testing is you know "how it's supposed to go" so you're less likely to even think of the "what if I do it this way" scenarios. One of the things I try to do when beta testing is break things by doing the unexpected. If the beta testing corp is small then the beta can be distributed via email attachment (providing the mod is also reasonably small). The big mod was hosted on that author's site and distributed via a private download link (the mod was large and the beta testing corp was about a dozen people). Another option is as you've suggested, release on here and then fix any bugs as reported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surilindur Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 (edited) Hmm... I had not thought about it that way. In this case, the only alternative scenario or 'the unexpected' would probably be player killing Umbra in the middle of the 'redeeming' process, which is easy to take into account. I could, however, try some sort of beta testing, if you would like to be the tester. But then, I should make the file somehow available. Perhaps Google Drive could help... I need to check how to make files available to others in it. So that it could be agcessed by a link. The mod will be small in size. Just one esp and ini. And a brief progress report. So far, I have:- Made the quest work from finding Umbra to killing the marauder leader- Added a book in which the lore behind Umbra sword is collected- Added the marauder leader a small home in Fort Homestead Heroes' Hall, as well as a journal- Made the Umbra's equipment repair and recharge feature work- Made her armour unplayable before she is dead- Added the name change (changes to Lenwin 7 days after the quest is completed)- Added a simple follower system for Umbra (follow, wait, return home)- Added a spell to summon Umbra (the person, spell not added by default)- Added the option to set her home when quest is finished (through dialogue, to the current location)- Added ini option for essential status and whether to allow rumours and/or persuasion- Added option to select the Clavicus Vile quest starting conditions (game days passed, level, infamy, fame) And this remains to be done:- Add the shrine visit chance when passing by- Make the sword giving thing (almost works)- Make the rest of the quest (from marauder kill to return to Pell's Gate)- Make Irroke a blacksmith and add some blacksmith things near/in his house And perhaps there was something else, too. But I believe most of the thing is done. And it seems dialogue will likely need some... improvement. So you will probably get to beta test it, after all. I just need to see how Google Drive works exactly (have not used it much) and PM you a link to the mod when I have it ready and uploaded... :) I have also thought about naming you as an author, as well. Would that be acceptable? After all, you have helped a lot with creating the mod, I think. As the quest and all the features were ready, making the mod has been much easier than what it usually is when I get an idea, make it, then get another one and add it, then get a third one, remove the two because they do not fit and add the third one and so on... Edited May 14, 2015 by PhilippePetain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker879 Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Your choice on the author thing, but stuff like that isn't even on my radar by default. Only time I pay any attention to credits is when I'm looking to see if someone has permission for what they're releasing. I can't think of anything you've missed looking at your done/undone list. I'll PM you an email address if you just want to email the ESP and INI as an attachment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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