Trailers and Teasers – Caylene

Kris Takahashi Trailers and Teasers No Comments

A few weeks back, a user asked me to contact someone. She was an aspiring singer who did covers of fantasy stuff(no, not that one), and expressed interest in being part of a mod. The user thought it would be a good match.

I contacted the person, and we were both initially excited to be working together. However, as time went on, it seemed we had different goals. She wanted to expand her profile as a singer, namely by putting her likeness in the mod. I wanted to make the bard as unique as possible, which meant avoiding any similarities to existing NPCs or living humans in general. Things were starting to unravel even before I made my suggestion of giving her NPC humongous boobs. Long story short, we decided it was best to part ways.

Now the question was, what to do with the NPC I created? I had already added her to the cell, and given her a routine. I could delete everything and remove the edits, but it seemed like such a waste. So, I decided to turn our would be busker into something else entirely.  And as much as it disappointed me to lose the bard and possibility of new music, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Caylene is that awesome, as is her voice actor, Elisabeth Hunter.

Elisabeth, who has been voice acting professionally for some time, is volunteering to do a variety of characters for the non-beta release, but we both agree this one’s our favorite.

Trailers and Teasers – Kjen, Sven, and Maren

Kris Takahashi Trailers and Teasers 2 Comments

One of the things I don’t like about the vanilla taverns is the fact that they’re so quiet. I wanted to make Robber’s Refuge more like a normal bar, and fill the halls with a chorus of words, songs, and laughter, without the player ever having to engage anyone.

While I want to experiment with a number of tools, the first thing I played around with was the concept of prolonged skits. Over the course of several scenes, these characters can be given the same dimensions and depth as the other NPCs and still be part of the background.

Of course to shoot this scene, I needed a bit of quiet, so I had to kill everyone else off save Ortheim. You may notice the corpse in the top right corner. This is just one of 7 scenes between these traveling adventurers, and just a small sample of the kind of goodies I want Robber’s Refuge to have.

Dialogue Overhaul Bug Testing

Kris Takahashi Other 3 Comments

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Heyo! I’ve added a torrent of what I have right now. It’s not exactly a playable release, it’s basically to bug test the dialogue overhaul, which has seen nearly every NPC’s dialogue tree re-organized for better gameplay. Make sure to download the Hearthfire patch if you own the DLC.

About 10 quests are included as well, but most are still in the experimental testing phase. You can try them at your own risk, but most are connected to Darkened Steel which starts at Orphan’s Tear if you’ve met the prereqs. Idle Dreams is probably an easy one to test though, just head to Haelga’s Bunkhouse and talk to Amicus. With the exception of 1 song for Alassea, no new bard songs are included as they’re still being made.

For those intrepid souls who want to help test this thing and get it working, here are some things to look out for when talking to folks:

• Getting kicked out a conversation for no reason – This is not to be confused with going back to the top level. I mean a random, forced goodbye, which is either a symptom of dialogue not being connected properly or the NPC is a jerk.

• Stuck in a dialogue loop – A symptom of things connected when they shouldn’t be. For instance, if a bard asks you “What would you like me to play?” and the choice is “Can I make a request?” That’s not a catchy new song title, it’s a bug.

• Questions not matching answers or just out of place – Example: If an NPC tells you bandits killed her brother, and  the only available response is “Does this dress make me look fat?” then that’s a bug.

• Top-level questions showing up prematurely – For instance, you meet an NPC, and right away a question about his/her choice of lube is at the top before the topic of masturbation has even been broached. Also a bug.

• Missed Stuff and Other Dialogue Tweaks – I may have missed a tweak here and there, so if you see anything else that needs fiddling with let me know. Even if none of the above things show up, you may notice a conversation seems halfway finished, or perhaps you’ve spoken to an NPC before and certain stories are unavailable. Stuff like that.