Difference between revisions of "Quest and Dialogue Tutorial"

Quests are everywhere in the game. Some are the "real" ones, full of dialogues, stages, objectives etc. - these are common quests, that Player accomplish while playing the game. Some quests however can be hidden to Player, and used only to run scripts to check something or set some events. They are also used for dialogues between Player and NPC, as well as between two or more NPCs or even monologues.  

There is only one requirement – you must be familiar with GECK environment. If you do or if you went through "My First Vault" tutorial, then we can start.

''He was my friend... Find him please...'' (Continue with PC choice, 3a-3e)

 

This is PC choice dialog and NPC response, also only for first dialog between Amanda and Player. It will be followed by PC choices from 3.1 to 3.5, according to different conditions. This topic should be said only once in the game.

 

This choice will show up in the dialog menu only if Player has a children perk, actually – the ChildAtHeart perk. I want it also to be a challenge topic, with average difficulty. In case of failure I will need a special topic, but we will take care of it later on.

 

The 3d choice will be available if Player already has a teddy bear for Amanda, before speaking with her for the first time.

*''Can you help me?''

 

 

*''Hello young lady. What can I do for you?''

*''Could you find my teddy bear please?''

*''I lost him while I was escaping with my mother, in Springvale School.''

*''He was my friend... Find him please...''

 

After this modifications I click on the OK button. Editor asks if I want to create a new form – yes, this is what I want, so my answer is Yes.

Minimum objective index is 0, which should be null, with no entries, and maximum is 255.

Quest Targets are defined in the [[Quest Objectives Tab]]. You can add them to any objective, first by left clicking on an item of the objectives list, and then adding a Target Ref on the list below. You can choose any reference to the object in the world, but it must a persistent reference.

{| {{table}}

When the object is taken by the player and the quest stage is smaller than 5, we set up stage #5. We want to set this stage only once, that is why we check if the quest stage if less than 5.  

Notice that I am using "less or equal" comparison. It is better then only "equal" and sometimes it allows to avoid some mistakes. In the IF block first processed code is this:

{| {{table}}

{| {{table}}

   if getStage aBHMainQuest == 10

       setStage aBHMainQuest 20

{| {{table}}

* '''Topic Text''' – this is what PC says, this a text displayed as a choice for Player in dialog menu, but only if the Prompt field is empty. If there is a text in the Prompt field, then it will be used instead of Topic Text.

 

Every dialogue starts with a NPC greeting, so we must add it in our quest.

In the quest window go to the Topics tab, right click on the list to the left of the window and choose Add Topic option. The Select Topic window will open, with a list of all topics that were not used in selected quest. Search for the GREETING topic, left click on it and approve the selection by clicking on the OK button (or double-left click on the topic).

Now we have a GREETING in our quest, however we cannot leave it as is, we must add our unique text of the greeting. In game there are already many GREETING topics, but each of them use different texts, different Info entries. We only borrow the GREETING topic ID, which is the special one, used by NPC to greet Player.

Right click on the Info list and New, and the New Response window will open. In Response Text we enter the following text:

If you wish, in '''Script Notes''' and '''Edit''' fields you can add some notes. In '''Idle Animations''' you can set up some animations for a Speaker (NPC is speaking the greeting); Player is a Listener, so in this case we cannot use any animations. These fields refer only to NPC. In '''Audio settings''' it is possible to choose an '''Emotion Type''' for the response, as well as an '''Emotion Value'''; the greater value, the more emotions are on the Speaker. '''Voice filenames''' are generated automatically and we will handle them later.  

Close the New Response window. In the Quest window, in upper right corner there some useful options:

''Do you have a teddy bear for me?''

This text can be repeated many times, while doing the quest Player can always speak with Amanda, so I do not tick the Say Once checkbox.

Later we will came back to this topic and add some conditions and links, but now let's fill the list with other topics.

 

In my scenario, after the greeting there is a choice for Player, topic aBHTopicWelcome with the following text:

To add this topic, right click on the list to the left of the window and choose Add Topic option. The Select Topic window will open, with a list of all already existing topics. There is no aBHTopicWelcome, so we must add it – the steps are simple and we do as usual: right click on the list in the Select Topic window and New; enter '''aBHTopicWelcome''' as a topic ID.

 

As '''Response Text''' add the following:

This is what Amanda will say, after she greets Player and when Player clicks on Hello young lady. What can I do for you? dialog choice in dialog menu. Easy, isn't it? Right click once again on an empty line in Response Texts list and add another entry:

* ''I lost it in Springvale School while I was escaping with my mother.''

'''Topic ID:''' aBHTopicHaveTeadyBear<br>

'''Topic ID:''' aBHTopicHaveTeadyBear<br>

There are two different Prompts for aBHTopicHaveTeadyBear topic, because there are also two different ways for Player to do the quest: finding the teddy bear and then speaking with Amanda or speaking with Amanda first, and finding the quest item.

 

 

Let's go back to the point and link some topics. In my quest the dialogue is simple, so there will not be too many links. Click on the GREETING topic and Can I ask you a question? Info text. For this I have planned only one Player's choice, that is topic aBHTopicWelcome. Right click in the Choices field and add this topic.

Add each of this topics in Choices field of aBHTopicWelcome topic.

Now go back to the GREETING and click on the second response with "Do you have a teddy bear for me?" Info text. This time there is a list full of possibilities. The Choices field should contain the following topics:

First we must add another special topic: SpeechChallengeFailure. You already know what it is for, don't you? This is only a response topic, it should have no Prompts. The response is the following:

It should be linked from aBHTopicAgreeWithChallenge topic, so add it in the Link From field. Now, in game, if Player succeed with a speech challenge, the response will be taken from aBHTopicAgreeWithChallenge. In case of failure, there will be displayed SpeechChallengeFailure response.

The first condition is very simple and very common – the dialogue can take place only between Player and Amanda. Right click on an empty line of the Conditions and add New entry. You will get the Condition Item window with some fields to be filled in:

- quest stage index must be greaten than or equal to 10 (AND)<br>