[WIP] Mister 880

[becauseofreasons]

http://i.imgur.com/XYSMVbK.png

 

Yeah, so I've got a mod in-progress-pretty-close-to-done, and I'd like to recruit some beta testers / drum up some anticipation for it. Hopefully my trial-by-fire with the Margaret release is going to be a learning experience and I'll avoid some of the issues I tripped over there.

Mister 880 is a mod that gives a story to that friendly little cap counterfeiting shack we all stumbled upon on our trip through the Mojave. It all starts off once you've finished Pressing Matters and disabled the Sunset Sarsaparilla counterfeit ring. Alice McLafferty has a job for you.

You'll be swept across the (northeast corner of the) Mojave, through (four or five un-) exotic locales, talk with (three) original NPCs all in search of the dastardly counterfeiter who made the deadly mistake of getting his work noticed by none other than yours truly.

The facts:

- Keepin' it simple, stupid: I'm just getting started with the whole modding thing, so this quest isn't nearly as elaborate as the description makes it out to be.
- Lore friendly: nearly all the characters involved are vanilla NPCs, written to mimic the original characters. The three new NPCs are written to closely hew to the Fallout canon.
- Maximum compatibility: Apart from a square of the northeast corner of the Mojave, this mod doesn't add anything that will conflict with the rest of the game or other mods.
- Choices & consequences: in the grand Codexian (represent!) tradition, the game will feature several endings that incorporate your choices - known and unknown - throughout the quest.

Questions & Answers:

Q. When will it be out?
A. Imminently! I'm done with the first 3/5 of the quest, and I've got the week to sit down and hammer out dialogue.

Q. How long will it take to play through?
A. If you know who to talk to and what to say, it takes about 5 minutes. There's a minimum of backtracking and scouting out far-away locations. But if you play it as intended, talking to everyone and without hammering the fast-travel, it'll take you closer to ten. It's not a long quest, but it's a deepish one.

Q. What's keeping me from just going to the cap counterfeiting shack?
A. Absolutely nothing, but then it won't really be any fun, either.

Q. Recommended level?
A. Probably 10 - 20. It's not combat-heavy, ignoring the Cazadors that like to chill by the cap counterfeiting shack. But there are lots of skill / perk checks, meaning that you'll want high Speech / Barter / Terrifying Presence / other things.

Q. What if I've already been to the cap counterfeiting shack?
A. Doesn't matter. You've got a shortcut to the end, but the rest of the quest will work fine.

Q. EVEN IF I'VE TAKEN THE COUNTERFEIT CAPS?!?
A. YES.

Q. What if I like killing everyone / being stealthy / Speech checking the hell out of people / Terrifying Presence?
A. Then this quest is for you! I've worked to make it completable despite whatever the player decides to throw into the mix, including messing around with the quest sequence.

Q. Where'd you get the name?
A. The fifties movie Mister 880. I'd give you a synopsis of the plot, but it would be a minor spoiler for the quest.

Q. Voice-acting?
A. No. The general quality of amateur voice-over acting is not a compelling reason for me to add it, and there are too many vanilla NPCs involved to make sense.

Q. I'd like to beta-test. This isn't a question.
A. Awesome. PM me and we'll talk.

Pictures!

http://i.imgur.com/f6p4vSol.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PgeKzKol.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/1pwU7J1l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Lr026Kcl.jpg

Edited March 25, 2013 by becauseofreasons

[becauseofreasons]

Some updates for today.

• Finished outlining the conversation for the counterfeiter's daughter. There are now several completed, albeit linearly-executed, ways to access the next portion of the quest. (kill, pickpocket, go to superior, accompany, lie, befriend). When the rest is done I'll go back and flesh out the options more.
• Added a variable that makes the conversation with the daughter progressively more difficult as you piss her off (bringing up the Legion, insulting her father, etc.)
• Added more to the conversation with the sharecropper, Joad. Now you can barter for the information about his old friend (caps, information in exchange, intimidate), along with the usual options of speeching, killing and pickpocketing
• Added more dialogue for Chief Hanlon so that he requires evidence before giving the counterfeiter's daughter leave to accompany the player to her father's home.

Overall, things are going well. Assuming I can get a good start on the conversation with the counterfeiter tomorrow, things are looking good for a beta release toward the end of the week. To pique some interest, I'll give you guys a run-down on some of the endings I've planned. They're mostly combinations of endings for particular characters, so it's not going to be nearly as hard to write up as one might expect.

• Kill the counterfeiter.
• Let the counterfeiter live, upgrade his equipment.
• Let the counterfeiter live, frame Joad.
• Let the counterfeiter live, take a cut from his counterfeiting work.
• Turn the counterfeiter in to the NCR.
• Turn the counterfeiter in to McLafferty.
• Let the counterfeiter go free.

Some stats for number fans:

• Lines of dialogue: 177
• Notes: 3
• Quest stages: 31
• NPCs: 8
• Original NPCs: 3
• Scripts: 6
• Weapons: 1
• Globals: 14
• AI packages: 3

Still looking for beta testers. If you like criticizing dialogue and breaking quests, hit me up. I'd love to hear from you.

Edited March 26, 2013 by becauseofreasons

[SMB92]

Count me in :). PM me anything I need to know. Also, I know of a few good voice actor's we might be able to recruit, if you'd be keen on that well i'll get in contact with a few. I wouldn't insult them by calling them amateur either ;). 2 ofthem in particular are really good, dunno if they'd have the time, but as long as you got the scripts and lipsync in place, you're on fire :).

 

I can build patches where necessary too, or anything you think you might need. I've got my 3 projects on at the moment, but I'm always happy to lend a hand where there is great potential :).

[becauseofreasons]

Nice. It looks like I'll have the basic quest done by tonight. I'll upload it here in case anyone else wants to take a crack at it.
It looks like I was being optimistic. I've started to implement a more fleshed-out framing system that will take a little bit more time than I expected. Still hoping for tonight, but no promises. :wink:

 

Looks like I was being optimistic. I'm refactoring all the quest variables I'd implemented as globals. Oops. #noobmistakes

Edited March 27, 2013 by becauseofreasons

[becauseofreasons]

What I've been working on: obvious spoilers are obvious.

• Refactoring is done. Took a lot less time than I expected.
• Added a "talk the 'boss' to death" evil option. Like, a seriously evil talk the boss to death option.
• Added a more peaceful option for dealing with Josephine. Apart from being evil and attacking.
• Implemented some more finalized conversations for framing Joad and Josephine while debriefing with McLafferty.
• Implemented another bit of evidence and a "You now have enough evidence to frame someone for counterfeiting" message.
• Implemented an anger-meter for Josephine. She'll be less keen on talking and more keen on shooting (you) if you keep pissing her off (by bringing up the Legion, or by accusing her father of counterfeiting, etc.)
• Implemented the bones of the final conversation with Jacobs.
• Implemented the framing conversation for Josephine with Hanlon, and Joad with Romanowski. Can't turn in Joad to the NCR if you've royally pissed off Romanowski, though. Choices and consequences, man.

Some more numbers for y'all.

• 250 lines of dialogue.
• 143 lines of scripting.
• 110 kb of data.
• 42 quest stages.
• 18 quest variables.
• 8 NPCs.
• 5 AI packages.
• 4 notes.
• 3 original NPCs.
• 1 quest item.
• 1 weapon.

More stuff to do tomorrow, but I think I'm done for the night. I will continue to update, despite the apparent lack of interest, for the benefit of the public record. :P

[becauseofreasons]

All right. I'm thinking we're in alpha.

 

That which is done.

• It's totally playable from start to finish, with a majority of the options included. Especially if you're inclined to frame people.
• Majority of dialogue is written and implemented. I don't think it's going to break 350 400 lines, though my penchant for wildly underestimating things may very well surface again.

That which needs to be done (aka things that are not going to work if you try or expect them)

• Other 20% of end quest options (Jacobs escapes, Josephine is framed and escapes)
• Some scripting (Jacobs, Joad, Josephine escaping, Jacobs suicide)
• Discussion of framing to victims needs some work, especially for Josephine. She' s just turning out to be the star of the mod. :P
• Fleshing out the debriefing with Josephine after talking with pops.
• Implement the "getting caps from Jacobs" post-quest option.
• Implement the shopping list for Jacobs' counterfeiting operation.
• Writing Jacob's dialogue in case of Josephine's death.
• Re-implementing the "Go ask him yourself" option re: Josephine asking Hanlon for leave. It works at the moment, but it doesn't make sense.
• Implementing workaround on case that player beats Josephine to the shack (via fast travel / sprint mods, etc.)
• Attaching quest end-states to dialogue.
• Determining quest rewards.
• Determining karma rewards/penalties.

The daily number crunching! (It helps me decompress.)

• 303 lines of dialogue (+53)
• 202 lines of scripting (+59)
• 139 kb of data (+29)
• 46 quest stages (+4)
• 35 quest variables (+17)
• 8 NPCs
• 4 AI packages (-1)
• 4 notes
• 3 original NPCs
• 1 quest item
• 1 weapon

All righty, alpha testers / interested people! Have at it! Break it! Do it in the wrong order! Turn in the wrong people! You'll be on the credits list once this is done.

 

Note: You'll have to have Margaret downloaded and installed for the mesh / texture to work. Shouldn't be a critical error, just something y'all should be aware of. Link's in my signature.

Note 2: You'll have to have finished "Pressing Matters" in order to start the quest by talking to McLafferty. Type "completequest 0014ef5f" into the console and you should be good if you don't have it finished.

 

Edited March 28, 2013 by becauseofreasons

[becauseofreasons]

Well, I discovered the miracle of the conversation editor, so my verboseness verbosity has now increased beyond my wildest imagining. We're up nearly a hundred lines from yesterday, bringing the total to 402. That being said, I've got most of the variations on the endings written now, so it'll mostly be a matter of cleaning things up over the next two days - adding rewards, finishing scripting - the escapes are really all that's left on that front - and fixing the quest stages that I've begun to neglect so much. That's not going to be fun.

 

Let's get real here, I don't expect anyone to download this next alpha version, but I'm putting it up if any of y'all happen to be interested. Instructions are the same as before: to keep it below 250kb, I've neglected to include the Margaret mod, which is available for download via my sig. You'll have to have the quest Pressing Matters finished, so a quick "completequest 0014ef5f" in the console should take care of that.

 

 

 

Courier: "Funny. This world look like a just one to you?"

Josephine: "It seemed so, once. Back when my mother was alive. Back when the NCR was more than just the least bad alternative. And maybe it even was, back before the bombs. A just world. But no, not now. There is no justice here."

Edited March 29, 2013 by becauseofreasons