I have most of the dialogue done for my orphanage. However, the kids' dialogue is too generic. I'm going to use the default kid greeting supply for the kids, but post-adoption I want them to be more unique. Unfortunately I svck at non-generic dialogue. There should be two unique post-adoption greetings per child, in an attempt to give them personality. Any ideas?

Currently at 29/36 unique greetings

Some ideas:


An adventurous boy:

1. Will you take me to the Imperial City someday (dad/mom)? I want to see the Imperial Palace and meet the emperor! Maybe he'll even make me one of his Blades!

2. When I grow up I want to be (player character's class) just like you! Then I'll be able to travel all over Tamriel on adventures! I'll fight giant monsters, catch bad people, and all sorts of other stuff!

A shy girl:

3. Hi (player name)... I mean (daddy/mommy). I can call you (daddy/mommy) now, right? I guess I still have to get used to that.

4. Thanks for being my new friend (player name). I've never had many friends, except for my dolls. It's nice to finally have a friend that talks back!


A polite dark elf boy:

5. (Father/mother), may I pretty please have a candy? I only want one and I promise I'll eat my saltrice and Kwama eggs all up afterwards.

6. Thanks’ again for adopting me sera. I promise I won't do anything naughty that will make you mad. I'll make sure to say please and thank you whenever I’m supposed to, ask for permission, and say my prayers before bedtime just like my old parents taught me.


A Smart kid:

7. Did you know I can count all the way to ten? Well, I can now! Do you want to hear me? Okay! Here I go! One, two, three, four, five, six.... uh… seven, eight... nine, ten! Yeah! I did it!

8. Will you teach me to read someday (dad/mom)? I want to be able to read books someday, so I can go to school, and become as smart as you are! That would take me a long time of course, since you're very, very, very, really smart!

I'm kind of uncomfortable with the idea of the kids calling the player daddy/mommy even after adoption since the player is not the real parent, but I will definitely adapt some of those ideas! Thanks! Keep the ideas coming and the orphanage will release in no time!

Extending the call- maybe I could be able to release this weekend if dialogue ideas come in today!

Here's some more

imaginative kid

I once fought off a hundred Cliff racers with both hands tied behind my back! I then chased a whole pack of Nix-hounds all the way up
Red Mountain! Oh, and once I lifted an Ogrim off the ground and threw into the Sea of Ghosts.

Have you vested any Dwemer ruins yet? Well, I've explored every single one in Morrowind. I could probably give you a few pointers.


Nord boy

Have you ever heard of Skyrim? It's a province far away where there's a lot of mountains and snow and Nords like me. I was born there but I can't remember anything about it. Can we visit there someday?

You know, I think playing with a toy sword is much better than playing with a ball. I like to imagine I'm a great warrior fighting monsters twice my size and that I'm the greatest hero in Tamriel. Will you teach me to use a real sword someday so I can actually do those things? I want to go on adventures just like you!

girl

I have question (Player name) Why do boys always want to fight and get dirty The ones at the orphanage were always making trouble for us girls and giving the nice grown-ups there a handful. They never wanted to play with dolls or have a tea party either. I guess they're just smart enough.

My mommy used to tell me stories before I went to sleep. Will you tell me a story (Player name)? I want to hear about all your amazing journeys and the places you've seen! Or maybe you could read me a book? My favorite books are the ones about fairies and princesses.

As someone who's adopted myself, I'm kind of curious why...? I've never thought of my adoptive parents as "not my real parents." Just a thought from someone who is adopted.

None of the kids are babies, which means they all probably remember their real parents. Makes for an awkward situation if they start calling the player mommy or daddy. Certainly the player cares as much for the adopted child(ren) as their real parents did, but the player is a different person. I know there are some disagreements, but that's how I feel about the situation. If there were babies available in my orphanage (which there aren't) I would have absolutely no problem with them calling the player mommy or daddy when they got old enough to talk. I researched adoption a bit before making the mod, and this is my opinion. Of course, the Morrowind Family mod by Emma which is an influence has the nanny character say that some of the smaller kids call her mommy, so that's another interpretation of adoption. Those kids in their background story topics have memories of their parents though. I guess there are as many different ways to handle dialogue in an adoption mod as there are people who want to make one.

I know someone who was adopted at the age of three and he's never referred to the people who raised him as anything other than his mother and father. Not being adopted myself, I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I would expect the three main factors effecting how the children addressed their adoptive parent would be age, length of time passed after adoption, and what the adoptive parent has requested he/she be called. As I expect there's scripting involved in making the dialog dependent upon time passed and player preference, I think age might be a viable choice. The orphans could be assigned a class, faction, or rank pertaining to age and the dialog filtered for it accordingly.

If you're interested, Mordigant, I have been fiddling around with a CoM-Orphanage dialog patch which filters out the text and voice greetings which mention mother and father. It just felt weird having them say they were supposed to be in the kitchen with grandmother and such. The only things I left in were the ones where the children use past tense, such as: "Mother said I shouldn't talk to strangers." A couple of greetings I filtered to show up only before the adoption. I can't recall which ones right now, but they didn't sound right coming from a child who has consented to be adopted.

No offense meant to anyone, but out of personal preference I removed those which use the word "dude". I just felt it was out of place. In any case, you can open the patch in TESAME and simply delete any dialog entries you want to keep. I did this with dialog filters, btw.

On a side note, I believe a child of any age would ask if it was okay if he/she calls the player mommy/daddy, unless the adoptive parent made it clear at the beginning what he/she wants to be called.

PM me if you want to look at the patch, Mordigant. It would be a shame for you to have to go through it all again . . . it was rather time consuming.

I'll take a look at it, though I'll probably make it optional rather than merge it. I have two other mods that are ready to release, but I want to release them at the same time as the orphanage so they're just waiting for me to wrap on this project. Still need more unique post-adoption greetings though, which was the purpose of this thread. Any more ideas?

Nah, don't worry about it. If you're ready to release, you probably wouldn't have the time to go over all the changes. I had forgotten that I'd filtered out the inappropriate MCA topics, which would undoubtedly conflict with whatever method you used to do the same, so never mind. Good luck with your release.

What is MCA? And I can't release unless either I get more unique dialogue ideas posted here, or somehow magically become more creative than I am.

Since I've never heard of MCA, I've done nothing to filter its dialogue.

MCA is Morrowind Comes Alive. This is what Emma was talking about on her CoM thread. MCA introduces the dialog topic "make love" which, for obvious reasons, is inappropriate for children. Emma effectively prevents the children in her mod from even having that topic; you might want to ask her how to do the same thing with the children in your mod.

The dialogue topic is spelled exactly "make love" right? I can force-remove it tonight on my next testing session.

Any other questionable topics in MCA I should remove?


Oh, and the call for more unique greetings is still out. My creativity still has not returned.

I'm not positive about this, but II believe that the make love topic doesn't show up in the original Children of Morrowind because the author has filtered the topic for a short var in the CoM main scripts. If you look at MCA, you will see which short var it is, and then you can simply add it to the script of your children as well.

Oh nice. I was going to add a "remove topic" to all the greetings but this will be much more efficient. I'll check it out tonight.

Though, I think all the regular COM variables are in my kids too.

How many more do you need Mordiant?


Anyway:

fearful girl

Is it true that there are all sorts of evil monsters living at the top of Red Mountain? A boy told me about them once and they sounded really scary. I sure hope I don't meet an evil Dagoth Ur someday!

Oh (Player name)! I just saw one of those awful rats today. It was really mean and ugly looking, and I was so afraid, but now you're here so I'm scared not anymore!


thoughtful boy

(Player name), why are there so many mean people in Tamriel? I’m talking about people like bandits and smugglers. why do they like hurting other people so much? Don’t they know some of the people they hurt have little kids like me who love them…

Someday I want to be the Duke of Vvardenfell. I would make it so that everyone would stop being mean to each other, so the island could become a better place for everyone!


brave Nord girl

When you’re out on your adventures (player name) do you explore caves a lot? My dad was always telling me not to go near caves since they’re all filled with bad people like smugglers and bandits but I think he was just trying to scare me.

I want to be an adventurer like you when I’m older. Not all girls want to play with dolls their whole lives, you know, and I’m already a lot tougher than most boys!

I cannot swear that it is the way it has been done with MCA, but it is the way I have encouraged other mod authors to avoid non-fitting topics.

Keeping them coming, TR! Nice greetings, but still not quite enough!

You can't remove topics, you can only prevent NPCs from having responses to those topics. They're still there, but since the NPC doesn't have anything to say, they won't have that topic available. If another NPC does have something to say about the topic, it'll be in their topics list.

What I meant was forcing the "removetopic" option in my greeting scripts, but since no kids have responses to the offensive topic it should be okay.

Khajiit kid (Please note that Khajiit are supposed to speak in the third person.)

(kid's name) is glad to see you. (kid's name) wonders if you'd like to play a game. His favorite game is chase the tail. It is a popular game from Elysweyr where (kid's name) was born.

(kid's name) doesn't understand why other kids always think he is going to steal toys from them. (Kid's name) just wants to borrow them! Perhaps (kid's name) should ask before he borrows from now on....


girl

Hi (player's name). Did you bring me a present? I love presents. Oh! Of course I'm glad to see you, even if you don't have present for me. So, anyway, did you bring me one?

I picked the most lovely flower for you (player's name). Doesn't it smell pretty?


boy

Do you think we could get a pet someday (player's name)? I'd really, like to have my own guar! I could travel all over Morrowind with him and he'd chase away all the mean cliff racers for me. We'd be best friends!

Do I really have to eat my Ash yams (player's name)? I know they're good for me but I think I'm already healthy enough!


curious kid

I have some questions (player’s name). Why are there are so many stars in the sky? Why are Altmer so tall? Why does the emperor get to boss everyone around? When did the sky decide to be blue? Why is Red mountain called red mountain if it’s not really red? Were Telvanni wizards really kid once too? Why are Bosmer so short? Why are Orcs so dumb? How come there are two moons and only one sun? Why is your name (player’s name) ? Why are Khajiit always stealing things? Where is Oblivion? How come....

(player’s name) where did the Dwemer go? My mother told me once that they a‘re playing hide and seek and no one’s found them yet, but I think she was just joking…



Argonian kid
Can I go swimming (player’s name)? I love getting in the water and diving. I’m very good at it so you don’t have to worry about me.

I’m an Argonian so I know I’ll never have nay, but I sometimes wonder what it’s like to have hair. Is that weird (player’s name)? My dad got a big laugh out of it when I said so.



Girl

One skip, two skip, three skip, four skip… I’m practicing my skipping (player’s name). It’s very fun!

Are birds pretty (player’s name)? I’ve heard they are but the only one’s here on Vvardenfell are Cliffracers and they aren’t pretty at all!

Anyone
Isn’t it hard carrying around all that stuff (player name)? You must have a lot of pockets!

No one will tell me where babies come from (player’s name). Do you know?

girl
Hi (player’s name) how are you doing?... Well, that’s nice; I’m being a very good girl. I mean, I certainly didn’t break anything! Really I didn’t! That pot fell over by itself!

Orc kid
Have you been in a lot of fights (player’s name)? My mom always told me it’s not good to fight people but my dad told me sometimes you have to.

Did you see how high I just jumped just now? I’m practicing so I can jump really high someday; just like that guy who jumped off Kharstag point… except I’ll probably stick to jumping up and down instead of jumping off tall rocks…

Getting closer! Let me go back and tally the count so far of what is useable.

EDIT: Need seven more. Do some generic ones that still have unique personality, so I'll be able to fit whatever's left when I'm done adding what you've given me so far. Thank you for everything, TR!

I edited my post with more greetings Mordigant. I think there should be enougth now :disco:

Oh and call me Yeti TR is just something I added because Yeti was already taken on this forum

Dialogue is in, but I am delaying release again to address two issues: a piece of script that is not working, and the issues with moving around in the interior. It shouldn't take too long to get those resolved though. I'm still taking tomorrow to do all three readmes and packaging for the other two mods I will be releasing simultaneously with the orphanage. The triple release should be Monday or Tuesday at this point.

EDIT: Just redid the interior, using the inn/tavern layout to make more space. I even put two of the teens hiding in the basemant by the juice supply. It's almost too big now, I'll probably have to move the kids playing outside back into the building, at least they wouldn't be in the rain anymore.

Just about ready! One more test later this afternoon and then I'll do the readme and package it for release!