[Q1-2-Mis] Atmospheric Dictative [Reviewing]

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Infragris
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[Q1-2-Mis] Atmospheric Dictative [Reviewing]

Post by Infragris »

Dandre Aurilie, the obsessive alchemist living in Stirk, recently had parts of his Atmospheric Dictative break. Without this device, his garden of exotic plants has completely wilted. He will pay the player an exorbitant sum to find replacement part across Stirk, as the Mages Guild in Anvil does not stock them (or, more likely, refuses to supply him). The player has to follow rumors to discover each part among the people of Stirk.
  • Ticerdo Abitus, a poor beachcomber, has seen a unique Dwemer gear somewhere along the shoreline.
  • Several sheets of quality silk are required as condensers. Muribus Curgusis, the Rag-and-Bones man, collects old silk from the the rich houses.
  • A sharpened lens is required. Procis Popillious, the Lighthouse Keeper, might be able to help you.
  • A powersource is needed in the shap of a Welkynd Stone. You may be able to find one in the Ayleid dungeon on the island.
Helping Dandre restore the machine allows the player to use his alchemical garden, and unlocks some minor fetch quests in which the player has to look for rare plants and ingredients on Stirk and elsewhere.

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

We still need silk cloths in our data files in order to implement this quest.

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

There are normal cloth bolts in the vanilla data files. It would be simple to replace their textures with some of our tapestry of rug textures.

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TerrifyingDaedricFoe
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Post by TerrifyingDaedricFoe »

Uh, a Dwemer gear on the beach? How did it get there?

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Moritius
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Post by Moritius »

<ThomasRuz> A cleansing potion, with a nasty side-effect
<rotouns> Drain Spear 50 / 3600s
<ThomasRuz> We shall call it... the potion of impotency!

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

Not a lot of time atm, but I had a quick look over this. Looks great! There's a couple of syntax things, but that's mostly personal preference. Two things:

350 gold seems a little high for an old piece of silk. How much are the normal bolts of silk priced? I think it would be best if the player can bring back any one of the generic bolts of silk (or the raw silk ingredient), but Curgusis is just a guaranteed source of the stuff, maybe with a small discount if you sweet-talk him.

I don't think the lampshade about the dwemer cog is really necessary. Heavy metal stuff from wrecked ships washes up on beaches all the time: it's why beach combers use metal detectors. Ocean currents can be real powerful. If it bothers people, you could put is on/near a small crashed rowing boat, maybe hidden beneath the water level so you still need the advice to know where it is. The same thing goes as with the silk, I think: if the player for some idiotic reason dragged a dwemer gear all the way to Stirk, they should be able to hand it over.

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

So, I managed to play through the first quest and here are my observations:

- Lots of grammatical errors in the greeting and initial dialogue. Also, later on in journal entries.
- In the initial dialogue with Dandre Aurillie there is the option "Wow, sucks to be with you", which doesn't feel very fitting, nor does really do anything of relevance. I'd just cut it down to the other two possible responses.
- When you speak to Procis Popillious to deliver the items for him in exchange for the sharpened lens, he instantly removes them from the inventory instead of leaving the option of giving or refusing him the items. It generally feels better to have the choice between handing out the objects or keeping them for the time being, especially if you wanted to keep them for the time being. It's less much an issue towards the end of the quest when you hand out the items to Dandre Aurilie, as many of them are only relevant for the current quest.
- In my opinion, finding the sprocket is made a too hard for a misc quest like this. Even as one who, by now, knows the island like the back of my hand, needed to search long before even coming across a hint of its whereabouts. Even finding the sprocket afterwards took a lot of time. It would be better, if you didn't need to leave the town further than the lighthouse to finish the quest.
- After completing the quest Dandre speaks about giving you access to his cellar plants. In this context, it would make sense, if the cellar door would be unlocked. At the moment it is unlocked from the beginning.

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

I managed to play it once more and also test the following fetch quests this time:

- There should be a generic fallback response for the topic "Atmospheric Dictative", just so you can ask everyone about it.
- As said on irc, there is still a hint about the sprocket being in possession of a bandit. As the hiding place has changed, that hint should be removed.
- The reward for the first plant delivery quest seemed fine to me. But I was missing a hint about a further plant delivery quest following after that one.
- The primrose leaves delivery quest seems to be defect. You don't get an updated response for the rare plants topic when you have the leaves in your inventory. Accordingly I was not able to test it further.
- The beginning of the primrose leaves delivery quest contained "yay" somewhere and sounded a bit too internet-english to me.
- It would be cool, if the other alchemist could be asked about the rare plants topic with changing replies, dependent on which of the fetching quests you are doing. But I don't think this quest needs a generic response for the rest of stirk. It can be limited to alchemist- and apothecary-characters.

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

I have not gotten far with your new version. When I try to speak to Muribus Curgusis about the Atmospheric Dictative, I only get the generic response instead of being offered silk.

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

I've, eh, put my grubby fingers all over this:
  • Translated/updated to Tamriel_Data
  • Fixed grammar and dialogue inconsistencies. Apologies if I went a bit too far with this, but I felt like a lot of dialogue was in need of a rewrite. I've toned down general hostility in dialogue, and removed responses by guards and nolore NPCs. I think some of your dialogue is a bit too aggressive: nobody wants to do quests for jerks. Also toned down Dandre's "mad alchemist" persona: it got a bit too colorful in the wrong way, I think.
  • Changed "sprocket" to "Dwarven gear". If you ask players to bring a sprocket, nobody is going to make the connection that you mean a dwemer gear. This could cause a ton of confusion.
  • Moved the gear further up towards the eastern beach, and added multiple hints to dialogue to look here. I disagree with worsas that this quest should restrict itself to the village: we have a whole island available, and we should take advantage of this fact. To make finding the gear easier and more logical, I added the wreckage of a small rowboat around it.
  • Changed "Elixir of Meridia" to "Phynaster's Elixir". Mentions of Daedra should only occur in relation to Daedric quests or cults. Also, Imperials really don't like Meridia. Phynaster is a well-known mage/deity known for his healing powers, so it fits better, I think.
  • Added/changed dialogue for the rare plants quest to give hints where these plants might grow in the future.
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