Here is another bonus hireling that comes along with the new tavern. I’ve also added a script to the entrance that will check what day of the week it is, and alternate a few of the patrons according to the day. How many of these NPCs will be unique as opposed to vanilla depends on whether I can find actors willing to do bit parts, but the more volunteers the more scenes I can implement using various combinations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdtwYAALg4
Sometimes NPCs are jerks. They will see you clearly engaged in a conversation with another person, and yet still find the need to rudely babble in the background about the layout of the city or the rich history of their underpants. It would be nice if there were a way to prevent this, and there technically is. It’s just a ton of work.
The problem is there is no single condition that stops the quest when appropriate – it has to be applied to individual NPCs and scenes. At least, as far as I know. I could be wrong. Please let me be wrong.
The video above demonstrates how this brute force tactic works. A condition has been placed on the DialogueFollower3DNPC quest to not run while MorthalInitialScene is playing. A similar condition IsInDialogueWithPlayer can be run on individually referenced NPCs, such as Al’Hassan in the picture below.
The reason I’ve been slow in implementing these conditions is because I’m not entirely sure this is the only way to go about it. It certainly isn’t the most efficient. So it’s a low priority, because eventually someone smart is going to make all of this brutality a complete waste of time. It’s possible someone already has.
EDIT: It appears that the scenes are considered “playing” if you’ve never seen them. Meaning, the IsScenePlaying condition has to be applied to individual comments instead of an entire quest. So it’s useless.
While I don’t want to say the upcoming Darkened Steel questline is a means to an end, the focal point isn’t necessarily on the plot itself as it is with Blood of Kings. It’s almost a six-part excuse to resolve some personal conflicts, try out some modding tricks, introduce some new characters, and add a tavern that is slightly more dynamic than the existing ones.
Here is the barkeep, voiced by Serithi, who will essentially act as the steward for this location.