Recently, I recieved a couple of PM's asking for "this" feature or to remove "that" feature.
While my delayers are not wildly popular, there are still over 2k downloads.
I'd like to get more input as to what makes a good delayer.
My poll questions are somewhat generic, but essentailly take into account all I typically include.

The primary goal of my delayers is to remove that annoying messagebox when the mod is first loaded and to attemp to delay it until "logical" and "immersive" conditions have been met.

Please fill it out. Also, please post a reply.
Even if you have no other suggestions. I'd like to keep this topic near the top and visible for a few days without resorting to bumping.

Thanks

Sounds like a good idea, if this place is a place the player will frequently visit. If a quest won't start until I've visited the King & Queen Tavern in the Imperial City 3 times, I might never get it because it's not unlikely that I'll never feel the need to go there, especially multiple times.

As for how the randomization works, I don't really have an opinion on that.


Kinda depends on the mod, but it's fine to me. I wouldn't raise it much higher unless a quest mod is specifically for for very high level characters.


I'd use quest delayers not because I hate getting the quests at level 1, but because I don't want them popping on my screen as soon as I start the game. But I wouldn't mind if by chance I run into an NPC or something else that would start a quest mod, even though I don't meet the level requirement selected by the delayer.

I avoid requiring multiple visits to a specific place because of your reasons.
But for general "Rumors", a few visits to the IC or the cities seems reasonable.

A couple of specifics to show what I came up with:

My delayer for The Quest for Demon Bane doesn't require a "number" of visits.
Once the player is the required level, they get the popup when they are inside the Skingrad Fighters Guild since that where the quest actually starts.

My delayer for Hoarfrost Castle requires the player to have been in Chorrol or Bruma a number of times.
The castle is located on the Orange Road between the two cities.
Since the NPC that starts the quest is disabled, the player can visit and poke around the castle's public and unlocked areas without triggering the quest.
Once the player has the required number and level, they get the popup and the NPC is enabled. Now the quest can be started.

Be careful with rumours for quest starts. I was working on some stuff with Arthmoor recently that required getting a rumour to appear and we couldn't get it to work due to the stage in the game I was in. There are some times in the game when trying to add something to the general rumours just never seems to fire. Arthmoor finally choose another mechanism to advance the quest. The first time he tried it, he had added the rumour topic and was trying to get it to come up when the player asked an NPC about Rumours. The topic never came up because I had completed the main quest and all they would talk about was their "deliverance from evil". Man, it was excruciating testing that

I also don't like the idea of having to visit a location a certain number of times for a quest to start. This seems non-intuitive to me. I can understand having to find the location to start a quest, like finding the Archeology Guild for Lost Spires, but I don't think I would expect to have to visit a city a certain number of times for a quest to kick off. I would need a hint in the readme if this is the case I didn't respond to your poll because I'd pick "don't force a certain number of visits at all".

I'd still use a delayer even if it wasn't bashable.

When referring the rumors, I was referring to a messagebox that starts with "I've heard a rumor about..." or something similar.
Because BASH doesn't merge any dialog records, I haven't done any changes to dialogue for any of my delayers.

Ah, yes the messagebox method works fine.

If the delayer has triggered the quest, and it's in my journal, I'd rather not see messages like this pop up later. It's not as annoying as the original automatic pop-ups, but I'm using delayers precisely so these quests DON'T bug me too much.



I like the idea of the delayers requiring visits ahead of time, but if I happen to find the proper place/NPC/trigger/etc then I think the quest should start up regardless of other conditions unless the level recommendation isn't met yet.



I think the FCOM levels sound about right all around, even when not using it. You don't have a poll option to reflect "they should all be the same, set to the FCOM levels".



I prefer the world to be consistent, so if an NPC exists for a quest, he should exist prior to it. Unless there's a logical reason (he just arrived from another province etc) for them not to be here yet. If the level conditions are not met though, the NPC shouldn't mention the topic. Not sure how feasible that is to keeping things bashable.



I prefer the bashable file, but if a delayer can't be done that way I don't mind and would still use it if I had the quest mod installed.

Me, I absolutely hate messages of any kind on my screen. They ruin the experience for me, one of the reasons why I've never been able to warm up to eat/sleep mods. I get too much message spam as it is. The fewer times that I'm reminded I'm playing a video game the better.




In general, I dislike being forced to do things. I play Elder Scrolls games for the freedom they afford me, and this feels like I would be forced to jump through hoops. I voted for "Start the quest when I get to the "logical" destination," because this approach is more in the spirit of the Elder Scrolls series, in my opinion.




Unless there is some logical reason for delaying the beginning of a mod this sounds to me like an arbitrary restraint. What is gained by the delay? Why not let the player decide?




I believe it is in the spirit of Elder Scrolls games to allow the player to make their own decision. If the player wishes to tackle something difficult, I believe that should be the player's responsibility - not the developers, or the modders. The vanilla game holds our hands too often as it is. I tend to use mods to remove hand-holding from the game.




Yes.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's there now.


The primary reason I do these is to keep the messagebox from popping up the first time a mod is loaded.
Adding a level requirement or requiring the player to be in a specific place is the simplest means to do that.
(Not to mention giving the player a bit of time to get acclimated to Oblivion).

The reason is NOT to hold their hand, but to attemp to make the quest progression seem more immersive.
Multiple visits and a level requirement give the player time to gain experience become "known".
Would someone brand new to a city "hear rumors"? I wouldn't think so.

At least, that's the background for my delayers.

Well they could "hear rumors" among the other folks in the city talking about it. Just because the player shows up doesn't mean they'll all go quiet and act like nothing is going on. That's incredibly hard to implement though, as I found with ABR and was what Andalaybay eluded to.

No question, that's correct.
But in RL, generally people clam up when someone new is around.
Hence my "background".

Well at least until cell phones came along Now I get to hear all about her six life or his jock itch while riding public transit...

Good poll, asking for feedback etc.

After the initial journal entry, some of my delayers flash a message "I have a feeling..."

In general I think I would find this annoying. If I have the quest in my log, that should be enough. It's up to me to progress or not as I choose. The only real annoyance was the pop up at the start of a game for me;
"Someone just gave you a note" - what?! No they didn't, I'm still in the freakin' dungeon, and you say I inherited a castle or something?!

Some delayers need or require the player to have visited a place (or places) a number of times.

Not really my thing. I understand your explanation about this usually applying to visting broad areas, not specific buildings as such. But still; I think I like the delays in these ways:
1. Remove the quest addition at start-up - that's the real biggie.
2. Delay until the quest requirements and/or suggestions are met - such as being at least a certain level etc. I do like the limited randomness where you may get the message a few levels above or below that level though, makes it feel a little more natural and fluid. Not too much of a range would be my advice though.
3. Set the quest to trigger somewhere at least somewhat relevant - nearest township or whatever, depending on the nature of the mod, if location is of any significance.
4. But if all conditions met I think I would like he quest to begin as soon as I got to the relevant place (Anvil for Castle Seaview as an example) regardless of how often I have visited the area before.

Sure sometimes it seems odd that a quest starts as soon as I step foot in a town for the first time, but better that than missing the quest due to infrequent visits. In general I think people want to actually play the quest (otherwise why would they have it installed?) So making it available at the earliest rational opportunity (conditions met) seems the best bet to me.

My delayers typically set a random level to start the quest

As stated, this is fine for me. I can't really comment on how high they are set, or FCOM vs. vanilla (haven't played them enough) but in general I would say that triggering a little lower than optimal (whatever that might be) is probably better than higher. In other words better to get the quest before you are quite ready, level-wise, than not having it start until later. Again; simply because people want the opportunity to play the quest as and when they choose, rather than have it dictated too much by the delayer.

Some of my delayers disable the specific NPC(s) that start the quest until other conditions are met.

I don't know if this is strictly neccessary. But I guess some are of the nature that the quest stage giver (etc.) is unlikely to be in town unless with the intend to recruit for the quest.
Perhaps a case by case situation, this one.

If a delayer was availble for a mod, but wasn't BASH-able, would you use it?

Definitely.
BASH-able is always preferred - who wants an esp slot taken up by a delayer, on top of the mod itself. And perhaps patches as well as those! Some mods seem to get like that, with what seems like one esp for the mod then half a dozen more (exaggeration intentional), but with delayer + a couple of patches + COBLisation... it can get up there) just to make it work as desired.

But if that is the only way, there are probably some mods that many people would gladly take on the extra file, just to rid themselves of the annoyance of the popup. I want the opportunity to delay the mod, from annoying start up messages, even if I may choose to live with it after all to save a slot, on a more heavily modded game.

Need more input please. Only 15 people voted (+ 2 in the other one I deleted).

@:
Q1: i don't think this is really necessary. The mod should run the way the author intended for it to run, putting that message in gives hints that may not be welcomed.
Q2: like others have said, unless theres some good reason why i should've visited places then there is no reason to do so.
Q3: it's fine now, although imo most of the quest mods can be completed with a lower level character than the recommended levels by the author. Set on medium difficulty with some skill and good preparation with potions/poisons etc, instead of mashing the attack button, stronger enemies can be defeated in lower levels, so i think maybe make the level range start from lower, that way people who don't want to do the quest, can simply leave it til later.
Q4: same opinion here, i'd rather no npcs are disabled, it kills the immersion.
Q5: generally i'd rather bashable since they really help with reducing slots and less esps loading = more stable game.

As I mentioned somewhere or another, the level requirement is primarily for two puposes:
1. To prevent the popup from appearing immediately when starting a new game or leveing the sewers the first time. This, in conjuntion with a location requirement, will prevent multiple popups when you level.
2. To allow the PC to get a bit of experience. Seasoned players will know what to do out of the sewer. Newer players are still just getting their feet wet.

Originally, I thought the other stuff I added was cool. I didn't consider that I was forcing a player to play my way. But, I guess it's not cool.

I'm surprised though. Our community is pretty vocal, but bairly a fraction have weighed in. Oh well. It's pretty apparent what will be enjoyable and what won't and what I need to change.

I've actually noticed things have been a little quiet lately. I know some folks have returned to school...

Your poll is maybe a bit too detailed.
Bur for me personally the main thing is that the quest should not be "forced" upon the player and that the player character should not be "the only one who can help" when he's still wearing prison attire and smells of sewage.

I have never played the first mod, but Hoarfrost Castle is in my setup, and while I don't have any problem with disablins of NPC in general, I think the Hoarfrost Castle delayer would be much more immersive if you just prevented the popup from being displayed at all, but had the NPC quest giver enabled from start and being able to give you the start quest from the go.

Hoarfrost Castle is easy enough to find without any popup to tell about it, so the popup is just an immersion breaker, and I don't see anything immersion-breaking in having the NPC being outside the castle from level 1 on either.


This is of course only my subjective opinion, but when a quest can be started by finding a location that is easy to find (like Hoarfrost castle is), the most immersive is to being able to start it just by finding the place and speaking with people there.

Disregard my vote on Q.'Some of my delayers disable the specific NPC(s) that start the quest until other conditions are met.'
I would have selected the 'Don't know' option if it were there My reason for installing this mod (thanks aellis, also the 'Trainers' book while I'm at it) was to reduce the intrusion into my game by pop-ups so my votes reflect this ie. don't add more!

Agreed. Even if that means getting creamed i taking it on because your character is far too inexperienced (low a level.) That's realism for you - you shouldn't try too bite off more than you can chew, unless you really want to of course.

I've got Journal entries to remind me, that should be plemty...


I generaly don't visit until I want to start the quest...


Would rather not have Any limits, I can allways Wait after I find out it's too diffacult..


I put no, but it Would depend on the quest.


Doesn't Really matter..
*edit quote boxes

Voted.

For me, the more "random" the starts are, the better. Of course, I'm talking about mods where the starts are "manifest" or "forced" on the player (RTT or TotF) as opposed to mods that are "latent" (The Aylied Steps) and the player can choose when to start the mods. If I know that a mod is going to start the first time I enter the Imperial City Market after I'm crowned Champion of Cyrodill, I'm going to be "looking" for that start - and maybe trying to avoid it.

The wider the range of random variable, the more immersive. When I made my delayers for RTT and Windfall, I made a ten+ level range to delay the start.

Just my thoughts.

~ Dani ~