Qwinn´s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3 (no longer beta!)

[Thandal]

"Following" a WIP...

 

 

 

 

About "WIP" pages...

 

 

 

 

bennietoch:

 

I didn't know you could put up a page for something yet to be released. At this point the documentation is nowhere near close to being a worthwhile readme - that's probably the last thing I'll get done, it's freaking massive - and I'd hate to put up a pre-release readme that isn't really readable. Just check back in like 3 weeks to a month, it's that close now I think.

 

theskymoves: "."

 

?

 

@Qwinn - My post was just to point out that it is against the TOS to add a public page for a WIP mod, but I reconsidered the wisdom of sticking my nose in and 'deleted' the comment... there are other participants here with some actual clout and a good deal more veracity than me to do the lifting on that. :smile:

 

Applicable section of TOS:

 

Insure you upload a file for your file entry as soon as possible. Do not create "placemarkers" or "Work-in-progress" pages for files that are incomplete or you havent even created yet. If uploading a file will take a long time or youre not ready yet then keep your file set to Hidden until you are ready. Do not deliberately create a file page without uploading any files just to generate hype or interest in your work; it will get you banned (uploading a text document with your ideas will not get around this issue). Do not upload help me with this mod files: such content should be hosted on a third-party download site (e.g. mediafire) and the help request should be posted on the forums in the appropriate section.

 

 

 

Phew, good to know! Thanks! Yes, please feel free to stick your nose in regarding such issues, or any issue really :smile:

 

These will probably disappoint some, but I really don't see a way around them:

 

50. (v3.0) Alistair's love epilogue will now only play if he's actually in love, rather than just in an active romance with the player.

 

51. (v3.0) Alistair's love epilogues at the end of the slideshow will now only play if Alistair isn't king, as he is clearly still primarily a Grey Warden in them and they significantly contradict the beginning of the slideshow if Alistair is king. (Unfortunately, there is no slideshow epilogue for "The Warden stayed in Denerim as King Alistair's mistress.", sorry girls. You have to marry him or not make him king to keep the romance going, apparently.)

 

 

Leliana and Zevran's love epilogues don't play for anything less than love, can't see why Alistair's should, especially when they say the word "love" half a dozen times.

 

And for the second fix, there's no way I can see around the contradictions. He can't rule wisely in Denerim AND travel all over the map with the Warden on lots of adventures, never leaving her side, or go to another continent to help rebuild the Grey Wardens, etc. They also make a reference to Queen Anora without any check that she *is* queen on that line, which indicates to me that they intended to make that check at the beginning of the slide and just forgot to do so.

 

 

 

The prohibition on creating pages for things that don't yet exist applies to the FILES area, not the forums. The section of the ToS that tsm quoted above is found under "Uploading files and images", not "Commenting and forum posting rules".

 

Dark0ne doesn't want the Files area cluttered with things that look like mods but in fact are simply adverts for ones that all too often never actually come to exist. The FORUMS, on the other hand, are for discussions (such as this one!) about anything and everything related to mods and gaming. :thumbsup:

 

How embarrassing...

 

I thought the request ('Could you make a page on the nexus for this pack? I would like to follow it so I stay up to date and don't miss the release.. Don't really frequent these forums that much.') was about the Files area (and not the Forums), and thus I referenced that section of the TOS.

 

My apologies to all. (On the other hand, my instinct that I should STFU has been validated!)

 

 

 

Don't worry, sky, I read the request the same way - and honestly, still do. I think what you posted was applicable to the request. Besides, there's already a forum thread about my project - this one! (Though I will make a fresh one for release, of course). Is there some other forum mechanism I'm not using that can be "followed"?

 

 

 

Now that we all have told each other not to worry about having possibly been mistaken, (myself included!) I'd like to close this distracting side conversation by pointing out that there is a "Follow this Topic" button in the top-right of the page, across from the title. :whistling:

[Qwinn]

72. (v3.0) "Something Wicked": There are many reports of this quest glitching in the final room. While I could not duplicate the glitch, I made a few common sense changes that should at least help and hopefully does fix it (for example, you won't get the cutscene that plays when you first enter the last room a second time if you click on Otto too quickly after the fight is over now.) Let me know if it still occurs and I'll try a few other things I have in mind.

[Qwinn]

I am seriously considering running a limited beta release when I am done here. One big reason is that, as an attempt to improve performance, I am thinking of making one-shot party talk triggers destroy themselves rather than just deactivate themselves once they've been used, and since that will affect *every* area it'll be good to have more than just me test it, and on more than one computer.

 

The reason I'm thinking of doing this is that I've found from extensive testing that a deactivated trigger is still there and active for most intents and purposes. The engine still deals with the collision, and the script has to run every time anything enters or exits it. If the trigger has been deactivated, which is all that happens when you use most of the ones meant only to be one-shots, the script returns without doing anything the second time you enter it, but the engine is still watching the trigger at all times, and still has to run the trigger scripts every single time. But if you destroy the trigger, that's it - it's gone, no more collision detection needed. When you have an area like the market district, which has a ton of triggers including a HUGE party talk trigger surrounding the entire center area, with a dozen creatures running in and out of it every few seconds, it seems to have a significant impact on performance. All this collision detection and script running is for a trigger that will never actually do anything ever again after the first time you hit it. And there's hundreds of these one-shot triggers all over the game.

 

It doesn't seem to help with the crashing when loading a save in the market district - that's a memory leak issue, I'm pretty sure, and I'm not sure how to address that. But destroying triggers instead of just deactivating them in the Denerim market has definitely seemed to reduce lag quite significantly (there's a LOT of triggers, and a lot of NPC's walking around in and out of them. I have also made many changes to increase the efficiency of the code that runs in the Market district, making things that run in the area script every single time you enter only run once if that's all that's necessary, and eliminating overlapping placeables (such as the portcullis leading to Eamon's estate - there's two of them, one in the open position and one in the closed position, occupying the same space - I can't imagine why, just setting the closed one to be open when the time comes works just fine! And I do think that two placeables overlapping does cause the engine heartburn, even if they're not both active).

 

Anyway, for the beta release - is anyone interested in participating, and will you be willing to play the crap out of the game if I send it to you? I don't really want to delay the mass release more than a month or so for this, so I'm looking for people who think they can get through it relatively quickly.

 

Note that you're much more likely to be accepted for it if you've posted here and shown interest before now. If you're posting for the first time upon this announcement, I'm going to be more worried that it's an attempt to steal my work and redistribute it as your own. If anyone is thinking of doing that, be warned - I intend to put a very subtle deliberate error in the beta release that you'll never find and would cause real problems in a global release, but that shouldn't hamper a limited test.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Qwinn

[Thandal]

@Qwinn; How close to having the beta test version are you? I ask because I would hate to volunteer then not have the time to really perform any testing. (As an IT professional, I know how important to the developers conscientious testers are, and how frustrating careless ones can be.)

 

But right this moment I'm in the middle of a Mass Effect run through (currently halfway through ME2) that I'm trying to finish before actually dedicating the time to ME: Andromeda, which I've had since release but have not played yet. Then there's Syberia III that I just acquired upon release this week, and Her Story that I keep meaning to play, and Rise of the Tomb Raider that I started, but couldn't manage to climb the first cliff so I quit but really want to get back to, and... Well, you get the idea! :laugh:

[Qwinn]

I'd still say three weeks to a month at this point.

 

Oh, an additional note: you'd also need to be willing to play only with rules mods or graphic mods... no other similar fixpacks, IA, anything like that. I don't want to be distracted with mod conflicts aside from those types.

 

73. (v3.0) "Something Wicked": If you beat Otto to the Orphanage, when you exited back out into the Alienage, you'd see him run the remainder of the way to the Orphanage and disappear, even if he was already dead at that point.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Eh, actually, never mind. This trigger change isn't critical, the game won't run any worse than it always has without it. It can wait for version 3.1 which will fix any mistakes I've made in 3.0, and I can play with it at length and see if it causes any issues in the meantime. I'm putting enough in the mixer in 3.0 without tempting fate for something with this big a scope that isn't vital.

[Qwinn]

74. (v3.0) "Unrest in the Alienage": You can no longer get the conversation with Cyrion or Valendrian meant to be had in their house while you are still in the slave compound.

 

75. (v3.0) Looting the evidence off of Caladrius before the fight was completely finished would cause the journal entries to be applied in the wrong order, leaving a permanent plot marker on Caladrius's body and a journal entry stating you still needed to collect the evidence.

 

76. (v3.0) When playing cards with Isabela, if Zevran or Leliana offer to help you, you would only get a chance to have them actually help you in 1 out of every 6 hands - but even if it never came up, you'd always win the hand anyway. Now, once help is offered and accepted, you will always get the chance during the game to ask Zev or Lel for help - but you won't automatically win unless they actually do help you.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Soris's dialogue in the Alienage is, as a percentage of bugged to non-bugged lines, the most bugged dialogue in the game. (I'd say second place goes to Cammen in the Brecilian Forest, with third place to Ruck, but neither of them are close. Almost every single line of dialogue in the Alienage is bugged.

 

Erasing #77 above. It's impossible to list all these bug fixes in one entry.

 

 

77. (v3.0) Soris in the Alienage will no longer repeatedly forget that non-city-Elves talked to Shianni.

 

78. (v3.0) Non-City-Elves can no longer ask Soris in the Alienage "Why shouldn't I be seen with you?" if Soris never said "You're better off not being seen with me." (which he'd only say if you refused to talk to Shianni when he asked you to - he'll now say it if you click on him again after telling him you talked to Shianni, which he would previously always forget, see previous fix).

 

79. (v3.0) A City Elf could only ask Soris in the Alienage "Where's Shianni?" if they'd already talked to her. The reverse is now true.

 

80. (v3.0) A City Elf could only ask Soris in the Alienage "What quarantine?" or "Isn't anything being done" about the plague if they already knew about the quarantine. The reverse is now true.

 

81. (v3.0) A City Elf that didn't know about the massacre could only get Soris in the Alienage to tell them about it if they hadn't heard about the quarantine yet.

 

82. (v3.0) A male City Elf that asked Soris in the Alienage "Where's Valora?" first would no longer be able to ask "Where's Nesiara?". Also, asking "Where's Nesiara?" will no longer set a completely unrelated flag.

 

83. (v3.0) If a non-City-Elf agreed to talk to Shianni when Soris in the Alienage asked them to, then told Soris what Shianni had said prior to entering the Hospice and finding the note and key, they would be unable to ask Soris "Is there some way out of the Alienage besides the gate?".

 

84. (v3.0) If a City-Elf that didn't take Vaughn's bribe in the Origin was told by Soris in the Alienage that their father was taken into quarantine, the flag that allowed you to ask others about this wasn't being set.

 

85. (v3.0) Non-city elves could only ask Soris in the Alienage what was being done about the plague if they already knew the answer.

 

86. (v3.0) If a non-city elf didn't ask Soris in the Alienage "Why were you in the dungeon?" immediately (out of at least 4 options) upon first meeting him, they'd never get the option again. A similar issue existed with getting him to tell you about the massacre.

 

 

And I'm not done yet. Spent the last 3 days working on it.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

I swear, whoever worked Unrest in the Alienage must have despised City Elves. Extreme measures were taken to give them as little content as possible. If any one person tells you about *anything*, then you can never ask anyone else about those things.

 

For example, if you ever click on the Alienage guard in the Market district, he tells you about Howe's massacre, it's utterly unavoidable. After that, the only way you can ask anyone in the Alienage about it is due to bugs. Apparently, a City Elf warden would find his entire curiosity over a massacre he's being blamed for completely satisfied after having heard the version of the story told by a human guard who wasn't actually there for it and who refers to the Alienage as a "festering sore full of parasites". That Warden is not permitted to ask his close friend Soris "What happened here?", cause, you know, that human guy told you the full unbiased story - who needs the stupid elf version? Even if you avoid talking to the guard, choose carefully, cause (aside from bugs) you are only allowed to ask ONE elf for the story. And if a bug does let you ask a second person, you'll still have to actively pretend you know nothing.

 

Similarly, extreme measures are taken to allow a City Elf to ask about Valora and Nesiara only once. Ever. If you accepted Vaughan's bribe in the Origin and ask Soris about Nesiara first, Soris will tell you that Shianni told him that she died, but if you ask Shianni first, she tells you Nesaria went to Highever. Since you can only ask one of them, though, you won't actually see any inconsistency in a single play through, she just has a different fate depending on who you ask about her *first*.

 

Seriously, working on these conversations is draining me of my will to live.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

I backed up a ways so I could get to the Landsmeet without having done Alistair and Leliana's personal quests yet, so I can test various options. Noticed this on the way:

 

87. (v3.0) "Rescue the Queen": Corrected Erlina's dialogue if you attempt to leave Howe's estate while she is following you.

 

(You'd get the same dialogue you get when you click on her, you were just supposed to get ambient line "We must hurry").

Edited April 28, 2017 by Qwinn