Construction Kit and Dialogue

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

I wanted to add some new dialogue to an NPC. When I add it under an
existing topic, "Sanguine Glib Speech", it works fine, even though this NPC
never had that topic associated with herself before (but another NPC did).
When I create an entirely new topic, "Stolen Amulet", it does not show up as
a topic I can talk to the NPC about. If I go into the console, click the
NPC, and type <addTopic "Stolen Amulet">, then it shows up and works fine.
I have the topic setup to appear if the NPC's ID is shotherra and the player
is in the Morag Tong. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong here? Is
there some extra step required to "initialize" a new topic?

I am trying to add a few simple quests to Eno Hlaalu where he will send me
to retrieve the Threads of the Webspinner that are held by friendly NPC's.
I am trying to design it with the idea that these characters don't realize
their stolen items belong to the Morag Tong, and will gladly turn them over
to you (unless their disposition to you is very low, in which case they'll
fight you for it).

--
Rick Cavalla
rac22@NO.erols.SPAM.com
==========================
"Beyond me, night is total / And through the colonnades I walk..."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

"Rick Cavalla" <rac22@erols.com> wrote:

>I wanted to add some new dialogue to an NPC. When I add it under an
>existing topic, "Sanguine Glib Speech", it works fine, even though this NPC
>never had that topic associated with herself before (but another NPC did).
>When I create an entirely new topic, "Stolen Amulet", it does not show up as
>a topic I can talk to the NPC about. If I go into the console, click the
>NPC, and type <addTopic "Stolen Amulet">, then it shows up and works fine.
>I have the topic setup to appear if the NPC's ID is shotherra and the player
>is in the Morag Tong. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong here? Is
>there some extra step required to "initialize" a new topic?
>
>I am trying to add a few simple quests to Eno Hlaalu where he will send me
>to retrieve the Threads of the Webspinner that are held by friendly NPC's.
>I am trying to design it with the idea that these characters don't realize
>their stolen items belong to the Morag Tong, and will gladly turn them over
>to you (unless their disposition to you is very low, in which case they'll
>fight you for it).


Gluronk (the orc) is a Thrall in the morag tong. His disposition to
you will always be higher than normal. Especially if you outrank him.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.morrowind (More info?)

Rick Cavalla wrote:

> Does anyone know what I am doing wrong here? Is
> there some extra step required to "initialize" a new topic?

Actually nothing wrong. You simply must make a topic known via addtopic,
otherwise it will never appear in the dialog.
There are usually two ways to do that:

* Call AddTopic inside a startscript:

short doOnce
if ( doOnce != 1 )
addTopic "MyTopic"
set doOnce to 1
endif

This makes sense if you have a topic added to a *lot* of generic NPCs.
It makes *no* sense to add a topic only to a few NPCs, like in your
case. Nevertheless, thought I mention this quite common way even if its
not interesting for your current task.

* If you need to add a topic to only one or a few NPCs, you need to
introduce it in either the Greeting or another existing topic. So if
your topic is "Stolen Amulet", add a custom greeting to Shotherra where
she says: "Hello my dear %PCName, I have a Stolen Amulet for you!"
(okay, that's dumb, but you get the idea...) This will automatically
make "Stolen Amulet" available in the dialog now.
To make this a bit more interesting, you could chain the commands a
bit, like greeting adding a topic "job", then "job" adding the topic
"Morag Tong", then this adding "Stolen Amulet".

When you make a custom greeting, you need to make sure it only appears
for shotherra (just enter the NPC ID in the appropriate field in the
filter). Additionally you might for example check if the player is morag
tong member and/or got the quest from Eno, usually done by checking a
journal entry.

* Actually, just thinking of it, a third way: You could simply call
AddTopic "Stolen Amulet" when Eno gives you the quest. Down in the
bottom field of the dialogue window you can put any script command. Not
100% sure this works, never tried this myself, but theoretically it should.


Peter