Temple area rework

[Razorwing]

Thanks Zurke



Thanks for your advice sandor

You said, IMO don't use a general faction for the whole compound in conjunction with using the Continue if PC near flag for different vendor NPC's. Just assign the ownership to a specific faction/owner for every separate cell. The interesting thing with the setup - or problematic, depending on how one views it - is that the vendors would be selling wares along the sidewalks inside the compound. In the picture below the Temple is in the middle of the compound, the sidewalks (looks dark green) run around the base area of the Temple, and the walls (looks light green) enclose the compound.

So they would either be in the same interior cell, if the whole compound is moved to one, or in the exterior world. The latter would be preferrable because of grass generation and lod. If it's not feasible to script the vendors to usher the player out of the compound then maybe other solutions could work. Like for instance if I make a static display case in which wares can be kept away from the player permanently? Wouldn't make sense for them to leave their trinkets behind when they head for home, but at least the player can't thieve them effortlessly.

[TheImperialDragon]

Originally posted by sandor
The only way to usher the player out at closing time is to use the Continue if PC near flag (used on a travel pack, services checked). Used on other package types (even with services checked) will lead to strange NPC behavior.

I didn't know that. I'll need to go over shops I've made in the past and change that if I need to because I don't think I've been done that yet for the stores I've modded. I can't really check anything right now.

As for the compound, maybe the market should be kept separate from the temple's entrance. Then you could move the market to its very own child worldspace just around the temple and have it locked up without stopping the player from visiting the temple. One or more guard NPCs can patrol just the market area and usher the player out when it's closing time.

I've been working on a prison in Ebbedin recently and I think the prisoner-visiting dialogue and scripts might be worth a look at if you want an NPC to usher the player out. From what I understand, Jailors will follow the player around the jail and issue warnings at set intervals ("Don't touch anything", "No gifts!", and all that annoying garbage) until he/she leaves the cell. I believe it's all controlled by scripts, so it should be easily adaptable if nothing else works.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
As for the compound, maybe the market should be kept separate from the temple's entrance. Then you could move the market to its very own child worldspace just around the temple and have it locked up without stopping the player from visiting the temple. One or more guard NPCs can patrol just the market area and usher the player out when it's closing time.

The idea behind the vendors though were to make the sidewalk system more interesting, maybe giving more of a promenade feeling to it than just the feeling of an elevated walkway. The vendor's use to the player or for that matter their intrinsic use would take a back seat to that purpose.

But it's not greatly important that it's vendors that add that bit of window dressing - albeit, I'm kinda strapped for imagination on what other design component I could use that would make sense. Flora can be godsend in some cases but I'm already using so much flora below the sidewalks, both wild-looking sets and potted sets, that adding much more of it might drive the player to think he's running through a greenhouse hehe. So that's the jist of the problem, how to 'dress up' a long, wide sidewalk system so that it becomes more interesting to the player.

The jailor is a good tip, I might look into the way they're set up as an alternative if we do go with vendors.

[sandor]

I like the vendor version too, so I'll test some AI related stuff.

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
From what I understand, Jailors will follow the player around the jail and issue warnings at set intervals ("Don't touch anything", "No gifts!", and all that annoying garbage) until he/she leaves the cell.

It's part of the NQD guard quest (NQDGuardWarning topic).
The following is arranged through a "follow" pack (conditionalized) which enables the dialogue shown in the screenshot.

@Razorwing
If you prefer this version, I'll discuss it with SACarrow and we'll clone the quest (or part of the quest).

[Razorwing]

I appreciate your help sandor, thankyou

I've been mulling over it for a day and nope, I can't think of any better 'window dressing' for the promenade than vendors and their customers. I can't think of much other 'window dressing' besides vendors/customers that would make sense either, so I think I'll go ahead with that idea.

I think a version of the NQDGuardWarning quest could work but at the same time I'd like there to be an arrangement that forcibly removes the player from the area if he doesn't leave on his own accord. For instance the player could recieve insistant commands from a guard that the shops are closing and it's time for him to leave, and for that part the NQDGuardWarning could work very well, but if he doesn't leave within an hour - i.e. if the player is either in the compound, the embassy (ReichParkeep200), or in one of the Temple cells - then he should be automatically teleported to a spot outside the Temple compound. Would that be possible? He would then either be given a popup message saying the guard forced him out, or alternatively he would find himself standing next to the guard and then the guard would speak a line explaining what happened.

[sandor]

I'll discuss the NQDGuardWarning quest with SACarrow.

Originally posted by Razorwing

I think a version of the NQDGuardWarning quest could work but at the same time I'd like there to be an arrangement that forcibly removes the player from the area if he doesn't leave on his own accord. For instance the player could recieve insistant commands from a guard that the shops are closing and it's time for him to leave, and for that part the NQDGuardWarning could work very well, but if he doesn't leave within an hour - i.e. if the player is either in the compound, the embassy (ReichParkeep200), or in one of the Temple cells - then he should be automatically teleported to a spot outside the Temple compound. Would that be possible? He would then either be given a popup message saying the guard forced him out, or alternatively he would find himself standing next to the guard and then the guard would speak a line explaining what happened.

This is certainly possible and it's quite easy to implement.

[TheImperialDragon]

I'm not sure if you'd need it, but I already implemented some of the NDQ lines in the Ebbedin jail a while ago. The version you have right now should already have some of those lines in StPrisonQuest. I'm still trying to make sure it would all work, I will contact both you and SACarrow when I'm done. If it needs to be changed and/or looked at, I'd be more than happy to make those changes or send the current file to you. If it'd be better for me to wait, I can do that too.

Though most of those lines were obviously written for prisons, I don't think they'd be appropriate for ushering the player out of the market without first undergoing some changes.

[SACarrow]

Originally posted by TheImperialDragon
Though most of those lines were obviously written for prisons, I don't think they'd be appropriate for ushering the player out of the market without first undergoing some changes.

It's true that lines would have to be rewritten, but I think the basic confronation leads to fade to black leads to being somewhere else lends itself to this. I'd say the only diff would be that the PC doesn't get to fight his way out; he just gets bum-rushed "out the door, " so to speak.

Steve

[Razorwing]

I thought it was time for an update.

The temple area is coming together nicely and it'll soon be time to adress the closing time issue. I made a new worldspace for the Temple compound, partly so that it would be easy to check if the player is there illegally after closing hours and partly because there'll be a wallop of AI behaviour there. I know I said that about the palace worldspace too, and I still plan to add that to the palace area eventually, but for the Temple compound I've already modded quite a bit of vendor AI.

Right now my curious predicament is that I've run out of NPCs.

First I made the vendors, which use NPCs from Soluthis0517 and three new houses I labeled 0519-0521. It worked out well.

There's a tavern outside the temple, which used to be The Spinning Sanctum but which I moved to its current location when I scrapped the area I used to call The Cog. I reworked the interior extensively, in effect creating it from scratch. I realized I needed NPCs to maintain the bar, because JONJONAUG hadn't made any (at my recommendation if I recall correctly). So then I figured I would go over the AI of the other houses in SoluthisWorld08 and 'recruit' NPCs both to man the bar and to mill around the tavern as well as the Temple compound (for ambience).

The NPCs in the houses furthest to the south felt like they were too far away from either the Temple or the tavern to be of use, so I gave them some general AI outside their home so they would bring ambience there. I found me a barman in Soluthis0512 - one of my own characters - and an additional barman coupled with a Khajiiti waitress in Soluthis0514. And then I was all out of characters.

But I don't want to embellish the problem because I have a few options to try out. First and foremost I modded four rooms below the tavern, two single rooms and two double, so why don't I create half a dozen NPCs whose sole purpose would be to mill around and create ambience in the tavern and temple compound. Another option could be to recruit NPCs from the Valley of St. Seryn (the area just north of the North Imperial District) but I would rather not do that since the area is slated for an extensive rework.

[sandor]

Originally posted by Razorwing
First and foremost I modded four rooms below the tavern, two single rooms and two double, so why don't I create half a dozen NPCs whose sole purpose would be to mill around and create ambience in the tavern and temple compound.

Perhaps they are permanent customers (renting a room) who sometimes have to work in the bar to pay their bills.