[Andrew]

If you like the idea of meaningless dialogue but not quests, say so.
If you like the idea of quests but not the meaningless dialogue, say so.

[/size]

Actualy, I like and vote for both ideas

[Laura Tempel]

I think meaningless dialog should be implemented first since it would be relatively easy. Perhaps you could get other modders to build quests for you? Maybe have a claim system for each NPC. This would keep the core team free for the main job of improving the cities. You may be able to get other modders to make a Better Cities version of their quest mod.

If the core team needs more to do, how about building cities just past the borders of Cyrodiil such as Rihad?

[Stephanie I]

Sure. Meaningless dialog is great. Quests also. In morrowind M'aiq had people searching the world over for whatever their mind's thought was actually there, whether or not it was actually so. You shouldn't have to many problems getting someone to voice stuff for you.
Also like the idea of new cities built beyond Cyrodiil's borders.

[Amanda savory]

What? Never trust anyone over thirty. :nono: :whisper:



...

[Heather Kush]

If you like the idea of meaningless dialogue but not quests, say so.
If you like the idea of quests but not the meaningless dialogue, say so.

And again I point out that I make no promises that any of this will actually make it into the mod, but it's a possibility if it's popular.

I think the quests idea is excelent... meaningless dialogue helps to give a "Morrowind feeling " to Oblivion, but for me nothing beats the feeling of stumbling with a quest without even being looking for one Besides, it would be great to have BC-lore-related quests.. meaning, making references to the new streets and all the changes BC does with the game (waterfront tunnel, thieves highway entrances, etc) . It would flesh out the cities a lot

[kennedy]

If you like the idea of meaningless dialogue but not quests, say so.
If you like the idea of quests but not the meaningless dialogue, say so.

So so.

Dialogue it more important than quests, though.

[Albert Wesker]

We could add some collision boxes underneath these walkways, but additional collision means additional FPS loss.

They never actually bothered me (just mentioned it in relation to the previous about the body falling through.)
Technically it would be a worthwhile improvement; better not to have things like that happen eh? But is it worth the FPS hit? I don't know.
Personally if I was making a mod, I would probably aim for such things to be fixed as far as possible, and minimise FPS by removing (or not adding) most 'clutter' type things that add little to the game experience. (Which is essentially what the intent of the FPS patches, I think.)

I have a question for users of Better Cities... I know, below is a wall of text, please bear with me

We add a lot of new NPCs to the cities (especially in Bravil), but almost none of them have anything to say. They exist purely to be looked at, they are occupants to the new buildings, but nothing more.
What could we do (assuming we do anything, I make no promises) to make it actually worthwhile going to visit these NPCs?

...
If you like the idea of meaningless dialogue but not quests, say so.
If you like the idea of quests but not the meaningless dialogue, say so.

If you like the idea but only if voiced, don't say so, this is not open to discussion for the time being.

If you have suggestions for some meaningless dialogue (similar to rumours, though we won't be flooding the Rumors list, we'd use new topic options), feel free to suggest them. If you also happen to have a specific Better Cities-created NPC in mind to speak it, then say so. We would not be interested in anything that blatantly contradicts the TES lore, but references to other popular mods might be okay (for example mentioning the Archaeology Guild from Lost Spires - there's already a notice in the Market District which mentions the Guild). Humourous comments would be acceptable, as long as not over the top, immature or insulting.

Meaningless Dialogue: If no quests, these at least make the NPCs seem 'real.' But I would keep them minimal (one rumour each or somesuch.)
Quests: I like that idea. Simple little "find, deliver, steal, kill this, for a few coins" quests add a little more gameplay to the game.

Perhaps a few with quests, most of the rest with a single rumour (and a few left as is would be just fine in my opinion - some people simply have nothing to say. Or, as I have seen a couple of times; nothing but a "I have nothing to say to you" type comment.)


I know you said "don't say so" but I will say just a little; Voice acting:
I suspect that this mod might have enough fan support that if you created the dialogue (meaningless/quest) in such a way that voice acting could be added in over time, and offered people here the chance to provide the voice acting to a given script for each NPC or whatever, you might get a fair amount, if not all, of that done for you! Just a thought.

[Jose ordaz]

We could do lovely quests revolving around all NPCs added by Better Cities but, yes there is a but, people who don't have all the cities wont be able to finish them unless we include an OBSE lookout for which city or district is present in the user game... That is a bit of a killer... Some people still fear OBSE or say that it is it which is causing issue to their game while we all know that Oblivion doesn't need any help to crash on its own. Anyway. I don't know exactly Vorians intents but there wont be any OBSE in the quests to keep them as simple and as easy to play as possible. Due to the modularity of the mod, there wont be either city crossing quest to make sure that people can finish any quest they will start. I know that a large majority of the users just use the merged files but there are still some who don't want Cheydinhal or Bruma, or Bravil(!) even. Some also do not use the IC at all but prefer the ImpeREAL version. We can't satisfy every one but by doing one place only quests.

Well that's my first thoughts on this matter. It may change with time and we may find some way to work around these limitations but I don't see how for now.

[Lyd]

There are ways to ensure quests don't get triggered unless certain conditions are met without needing OBSE (which by sheer coincidence Arthmoor just revealed to me earlier today for some totally unrelated reason) - which would get around this issue, but indeed I hadn't intended to include quests dependent upon multiple cities or IC Districts which actually used the Quest log. Such quests could still be purely dialogue-driven though, requiring the player to keep a pen and paper beside them if they wanted to remember who wanted what etc.

[Greg Swan]

Not that I actually play much, so maybe my opinion doesn't count for much, but to me almost *anything more* is better than less. Meaningless dialogue is good, meaningful dialogue is better, quests (bug-free, of course) are great, NPCs that can tell me how to make NiPSysTrailEmitters work would be the best of all!
I suppose about the only things I wouldn't be interested in seeing implemented is "eyecandy" clothing (not that anyone had suggested that, but I'm making a "pre-vote" against...) and I don't really want new dialogue to be voiced (though I'd be quite capable of removing it myself thanks to Elys' Silent Voice).

Vac

[Reanan-Marie Olsen]

Not that I actually play much, so maybe my opinion doesn't count for much, but to me almost *anything more* is better than less. Meaningless dialogue is good, meaningful dialogue is better, quests (bug-free, of course) are great, NPCs that can tell me how to make NiPSysTrailEmitters work would be the best of all!
I suppose about the only things I wouldn't be interested in seeing implemented is "eyecandy" clothing (not that anyone had suggested that, but I'm making a "pre-vote" against...) and I don't really want new dialogue to be voiced (though I'd be quite capable of removing it myself thanks to Elys' Silent Voice).

Vac

Woah, wait a minute! I never said anything about creating bug-free quests!

So, an NPC needs to say "NiPSysTrailEmitters? Oh yeah, I know all about them! But I left my PC in Akavir... If you can find me a laptop I'll show you how to get NiPSysTrailEmitters working."
Then you can go off on a quest to find a laptop!

Eyecandy clothing, indeed is not something which will appear in Better Cities. There's already a mod project working on that for vanilla NPCs, so we don't need to

As for voiced dialogue. As great as this is in theory, actually getting voiced dialogue that blends in with the vanilla dialogue can't be easy. It's not a step we want to explore at the moment.

[His Bella]

Woah, wait a minute! I never said anything about creating bug-free quests!

I'll be bold enough to assume that they'll be bug-free after a few release iterations and that's good enough for me.

So, an NPC needs to say "NiPSysTrailEmitters? Oh yeah, I know all about them! But I left my PC in Akavir... If you can find me a laptop I'll show you how to get NiPSysTrailEmitters working."
Then you can go off on a quest to find a laptop!

That NPC better darn well have something useful to say afterwards!

Eyecandy clothing... don't need to
As for voiced dialogue... not a step we want to explore at the moment.

Great, that's my two major dislikes covered. I guess it's just the relatively specific things I wouldn't like, such as "Please don't turn Bruma into a giant marine aquarium populated with sea slugs." You're not planning that, right? :nono:

Vac

[Marilú]

That NPC better darn well have something useful to say afterwards!

Yep, once you get a laptop for him: "Ah good, here we go. Oh. What about the software? Can't do much until you download the software from http://niftools.sourceforge.net/ Such a shame we don't have the internet in Cyrodiil yet. I hear the Emperor was making a deal, but since the assassinations, well..."

Great, that's my two major dislikes covered. I guess it's just the relatively specific things I wouldn't like, such as "Please don't turn Bruma into a giant marine aquarium populated with sea slugs." You're not planning that, right? :nono:

Vac

Oh no, definitely not. We don't have any slug meshes. It'll have to be a slaughterfish aquarium instead.

[Farrah Barry]

Oh no, definitely not. We don't have any slug meshes. It'll have to be a slaughterfish aquarium instead.

I just wonder how did he discovered our super extra mega secret plan for Bruma.

[Nina Mccormick]

:nono:

I would have to point out that this is in direct conflict with the Lore?.

Bruma was slated to be conquered by giant watermelon atronachs. Luckily, I think Midas has something you can use...

[DeeD]

We could do lovely quests revolving around all NPCs added by Better Cities but, yes there is a but, people who don't have all the cities wont be able to finish them unless we include an OBSE lookout for which city or district is present in the user game... That is a bit of a killer... Some people still fear OBSE or say that it is it which is causing issue to their game while we all know that Oblivion doesn't need any help to crash on its own. Anyway. I don't know exactly Vorians intents but there wont be any OBSE in the quests to keep them as simple and as easy to play as possible. Due to the modularity of the mod, there wont be either city crossing quest to make sure that people can finish any quest they will start. I know that a large majority of the users just use the merged files but there are still some who don't want Cheydinhal or Bruma, or Bravil(!) even. Some also do not use the IC at all but prefer the ImpeREAL version. We can't satisfy every one but by doing one place only quests.

Well that's my first thoughts on this matter. It may change with time and we may find some way to work around these limitations but I don't see how for now.

First off - yup, would love both pvssyr and quests.
Adding dialog - sure, but I don't mind if the rumors get a load more off 'em too. Give them slightly lower priority just in case maybe.
I'm for allot more dialog for each person - why should someone only get one thing to say about life and the city in general. Lots of comment on the PC could be added too - checking for finished quests, places found, status in guilds and personal attributes/skills.
Would be nice with quests that do span more than one city but in generally what concerns people is problems next door soo...
EDIT: And yeah, as already stated; making use of the new shops, streets and such. END EDIT

Quests: Getting messages through to other NPC's
Lost and found quests (kittens; lost husbands...)
Organize a Beggars shelter - have to bring food.
Help out with local grudges with your charm and/or authority (some families just don't get along do they...)
Help organize a party at the local pub for the couple celebrating their 40th anniversary (getting food and drink; finding the guests and convincing them - now why would this couple want the local count to preside over the toasting - sure, you might not want to touch original characters...)

Lots of stuff that could become quite interesting and convoluted if done right, even if they don't sound very appealing

Cheers, and thanks again for a great mod and compilation etc!

[Devils Cheek]

By all means, please add as much "meaningless quests" as you'd like.

Reward, and quest log updates, are not necessary.

Thanks for the great mod, guys.

[Kortniie Dumont]

Back to vague seriousness, thanks Locksley for those suggestions! And to those who so far have expressed a desire to see these additions to Better Cities.

I think the hardest thing right now would be coming up with dialogue for NPCs to say. We would only be touching NPCs we added to the game, not any vanilla NPCs, to ensure that we don't needlessly upset another mod which needs to edit some vanilla NPCs.
For quests, I would certainly want some to involve travelling between cities and IC Districts, but as already mentioned, this would need to be done in a manner which didn't require the player to be using every single part of Better Cities (hence my mentioning of quests which don't use the quest log system - if an Anvil NPC says "Go to the Imperial City and get me some fish from the fishmongers", and the player doesn't use BC IC Market District, then as a quest this would be permanently stuck in their quest log as uncompletable. But if the quest log wasn't used - they had to write it down on some paper or remember it in their head - then it wouldn't matter whether they use BC IC Market District or not, they can either carry out the NPC's request or not).
Then again, it is possible to set up conditions to check which parts of BC are installed (through a bit of trickery not involving OBSE) which can prevent certain quests from being available to the player unless these conditions are met, thus allowing the use of the quest log even for quests which carry between cities.

This is all getting a bit ahead of ourselves just now though, we're still at the consideration phase here! And with my still dodgy internet connection, it is difficult for Ismelda and I to communicate directly in private like we are used to doing, preventing us from discussing this together.

[Peter lopez]

if an Anvil NPC says "Go to the Imperial City and get me some fish from the fishmongers", and the player doesn't use BC IC Market District, then as a quest this would be permanently stuck in their quest log as uncompletable.

True. But I don't think we really need Better Cities to grow into a huge quest mod as well. What I was thinking of was simple little quests, independant of any other part of this mod (besides the NPC of course.)
Such as "I'm in the middle of an experiment and can't get away (or am to feeble) could you find me three Welkynd/Varna stones?" Things in general supply already and not tied to any specific place in this mod.

[Oyuki Manson Lavey]

I agree that even mindless pvssyr/quest is better than none.

As for quest, I would really, really appreciate if you added some simple quest like Vargr suggested. IMHO, one of my main remaining immersion problems with Oblivion is that there is so little roleplaying reasons for exploration of caves/ruins. The gold you gain from the looting is of course one reason, but when trying to play a good character, it is somewhat against its character to slay tons of goblins/amazons/whatever that mind their own business just to get their loot.

So if you could add some quests where the townspeople complain about the inhabitants of nearby caves/ruins, asking me to help them get rid of the problem, that would really help me with a roleplaying reason for exploring them. Similarily, quests that ask for Welkynd/Varna stones or other things that can only be found by exploring caves/ruins would be good.

[Andrew Lang]

True. But I don't think we really need Better Cities to grow into a huge quest mod as well. What I was thinking of was simple little quests, independant of any other part of this mod (besides the NPC of course.)
Such as "I'm in the middle of an experiment and can't get away (or am to feeble) could you find me three Welkynd/Varna stones?" Things in general supply already and not tied to any specific place in this mod.

It's just that having a quest to send the player to another part of Better Cities encourages the player to see more of our mod!

I agree that even mindless pvssyr/quest is better than none.

As for quest, I would really, really appreciate if you added some simple quest like Vargr suggested. IMHO, one of my main remaining immersion problems with Oblivion is that there is so little roleplaying reasons for exploration of caves/ruins. The gold you gain from the looting is of course one reason, but when trying to play a good character, it is somewhat against its character to slay tons of goblins/amazons/whatever that mind their own business just to get their loot.

So if you could add some quests where the townspeople complain about the inhabitants of nearby caves/ruins, asking me to help them get rid of the problem, that would really help me with a roleplaying reason for exploring them. Similarily, quests that ask for Welkynd/Varna stones or other things that can only be found by exploring caves/ruins would be good.

Ah, that sounds good, requests to clear out nearby caves. Which would of course be a repeatable quest since the caves reset, thus if you returned to the NPC who asked you to clear it out three + days later he can say "I thought you said you'd killed all them goblins! I went there this morning to look for a new vein of iron ore, and there were hundreds of the buggers!" Hmm, I might be making things a bit more complicated than I'm capable of doing here...

[Pete Schmitzer]

Arthmoor pointed out to me that running disable/enable on objects every frame (or every couple frames) can reduce fps. I haven't checked them all, but

BANICWaterfrontWeekendMarketScript is good.
The vender scripts are good.

BANAmbientLightScript needs to be updated with a check, this controls the IC Tunnel daylight beam and may explain the sudden drops of fps in the main Tunnel hall. I'm not sure if this controls other lightbeams.

I haven't checked out Anvil yet, so I'm not sure what the BANAnvilSWLightBeams does. It could be updated with a check, or a variation of this post if this has more of your desired behavior?: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1033748&view=findpost&p=15000415

[Thema]

Excellent mod, couldnt play oblivion without it. 20/10.

I do have some improvment suggustions.

- the torch flame sound that is applied to all the street lights in the Imperial city. Its a bit to much IMHO. At night time i felt like i was walking around in a raging inferno.

- Would be nice to have some imperial guards at the entrance to the city at the Talos Plaza Gate. I think 000 adds a single legion guard to the gate but two guards in Imperial City Uniform
would look great at the enterance.

- Lighting at the Talos Entrance and on the Weye Bridge would be a great improvment.

- There seems to be alot of npc's in the abortorium (sp) compared to the rest of the city.

- fps is much improved over earlier versions. the only place i have a slow down now is in the Arcane University Entrance. (lots of pulsing lights so i can see why)

- Are there any further plans to improve the University ? while the current face lift is good, I think a major overhaul similar to the other districts would be amazing and much needed. (now to find someone with the motivation to do it!)

[Veronica Martinez]

Arthmoor pointed out to me that running disable/enable on objects every frame (or every couple frames) can reduce fps. I haven't checked them all, but

BANICWaterfrontWeekendMarketScript is good.
The vender scripts are good.

BANAmbientLightScript needs to be updated with a check, this controls the IC Tunnel daylight beam and may explain the sudden drops of fps in the main Tunnel hall. I'm not sure if this controls other lightbeams.

I haven't checked out Anvil yet, so I'm not sure what the BANAnvilSWLightBeams does. It could be updated with a check, or a variation of this post if this has more of your desired behavior?: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1033748&view=findpost&p=15000415

That's something for Ismelda to think about.

Excellent mod, couldnt play oblivion without it. 20/10.

I do have some improvment suggustions.

- the torch flame sound that is applied to all the street lights in the Imperial city. Its a bit to much IMHO. At night time i felt like i was walking around in a raging inferno.

- Would be nice to have some imperial guards at the entrance to the city at the Talos Plaza Gate. I think 000 adds a single legion guard to the gate but two guards in Imperial City Uniform
would look great at the enterance.

- Lighting at the Talos Entrance and on the Weye Bridge would be a great improvment.

- There seems to be alot of npc's in the abortorium (sp) compared to the rest of the city.

- fps is much improved over earlier versions. the only place i have a slow down now is in the Arcane University Entrance. (lots of pulsing lights so i can see why)

- Are there any further plans to improve the University ? while the current face lift is good, I think a major overhaul similar to the other districts would be amazing and much needed. (now to find someone with the motivation to do it!)

Torch flame sound will be investigated

Do you mean guards OUTside the District gates? If so, we'll consider it. If inside the Gates, doesn't the vanilla game already place guards at every gate, one all day, another all night?

We don't touch the bridge connecting the Imperial Isle to the mainland. It's too far from the city for BC to affect it. UL Imperial Isle adds some fire-breathing statues to the bridge, and another mod adds some banners and stuff to the bridge. Might be called Regal Talos Bridge?

You're probably right We do send a number of NPCs to the Arboretum, the vanilla game sends a few, and many other mods favour sending NPCs to this District. I'll review my records of our IC NPC AI packages and see whether any might perhaps be redirected to quieter Districts.

Yes, the entrance to the AU can suffer a bit of an FPS hit from the lighting

The AU is one of the more heavily modded IC Districts in BC, what more can you possibly desire?

[Tamara Dost]

That's something for Ismelda to think about.



Torch flame sound will be investigated

Do you mean guards OUTside the District gates? If so, we'll consider it. If inside the Gates, doesn't the vanilla game already place guards at every gate, one all day, another all night?

We don't touch the bridge connecting the Imperial Isle to the mainland. It's too far from the city for BC to affect it. UL Imperial Isle adds some fire-breathing statues to the bridge, and another mod adds some banners and stuff to the bridge. Might be called Regal Talos Bridge?

You're probably right We do send a number of NPCs to the Arboretum, the vanilla game sends a few, and many other mods favour sending NPCs to this District. I'll review my records of our IC NPC AI packages and see whether any might perhaps be redirected to quieter Districts.

Yes, the entrance to the AU can suffer a bit of an FPS hit from the lighting

The AU is one of the more heavily modded IC Districts in BC, what more can you possibly desire?

Thanks for the reply.

Re the torch sound. I just noticed a big fps drop at around 6.30pm in the market district. All other times its fine. Its bad near the torch sounds. Maybe something to do with the sound and many npcs. As 6-6.30 is quite busy in the market. At noon with lots of npcs the fps is fine.

Re talos gate. I was refering to placing guards outside the IC. At the gates.

Re Arcane Uni. I guess i always pictured the uni to be bigger. With more buildings and levels etc. Perhaps a mini arena/square where summons do battle.(that shouldnt b to much to ask should it? ) the uni is good as is, it just... well... cant it b bigger... Not volunteering to b the one to do it though

Jokes aside thanks for an amazing mod.