I really love TNO's mods, and Map Marker Overhaul is one of the really cool ones. It has the feature to turn off quest markers in both world and local map, and even tuen off player position in both these, so you don't know where you are.

Now I am an immersionist sort of player who does not like a GPS like system in Oblivion, so quest markers are off for me.

But many Oblivion quests rely on you trying to find an NPC. Or you just want to know where Thamriel of Tamriel is in the morning. Due to the Radiant AI, many NPCs have schedules that take them to different cities and places across Cyrodiil, and you are trying to find them to no avail without any magic-quest marker.

So I thought of a idea, that may or may not be feasible, borrowed from Daggerfall.

Idea follows:
Suppose you are searching for a particular NPC in a city. You don't know his schedule, but just his name. You should be able to go to the tavern (where the owner may know almost everybody in that city/town), and ask him about a person (by choosing a dialog option - "Ask about a person"). Then you type in the name (this may be tricky - does Oblivion support typing in-game? I have seen Kyoma's Journal mod do it, but that is in a book). If you spell it incorrectly, the tavern keeper will respond "I don't know anybody by that name. Maybe they frequent a different tavern." if he likes you, or "Piss off, don't bother me" if he hates you). If the name matches something in Oblivion's database, the tavern keeper can say, "Yes, I know [him/her]". The tavernkeepers they can decipher their schedules from Oblivion's database (is their one, like TES4Edit does) and tell you ("I believe __ goes to the [temple/arboretum/etc.] around __ pm, but I may be wrong.") . It has to be random, sometimes the tavern keeper will say that they don't know that NPCs schedule ( "___ doesn't frequent this tavern, so I don't know [him/her] well enough.").

Tricky parts are:
1) Can a name be typed in a dialog menu? If not, is there an alternative, like Kyoma's Journal mod does it?
2) Can the NPC name and schedule be deciphered on the fly, or is that something that can be done offline via the CS and/or Tes4Edit only?

Any comments/ideas/suggestions?
PS: Unfortunately, I don't know enough about mod-making to even imagine taking this up... But thought the idea could be implemented by someone smarter than me if they have the time and inclination.

I like this idea. You should maybe post it in the MMO thread - I'm sure if anyone can figure this out, it's TheNiceOne.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1141697-relz-map-marker-overhaul/page__st__40

Certainly is an interesting idea. I don't know if it is doable, but it sure could be useful!

Since Refscope can preset you with the NPC's schedule if you ask it to, it is possible to get that information through OBSE.

The NPC's name is part of their data, so that wouldn't be hard to get.

The tricky part would be typing it in. The game's system doesn't support that anywhere without some kind of external support.

I didn't see the typing it in part. That would be hard, but maybe it could be adapted as a way to mark quest targets on the map if you asked people.

Hmmm...yeah, I wonder if it would be possible for the game to scan your quest log (either all incomplete quests or just the current one) and if it involves an NPC as the next step, being able to ask about them in dialog. And after you have found said NPC and completed that step of the quest, the NPC "Find person" dialog option (for lack of a better term) would auto-update to remove the NPC in question from the dialog options while keeping any others from other quests and/or update to the next NPC in the current quest chain (if applicable to either or both). If there are no current NPC/NPCs in question to look for, the option could altogether be gone/hidden. If that makes any sense. :wacko:

Thinking about it now, the scripting the dialog might be harder than the finding of the actual NPC. I suppose the upside is that if the mod could scan your quest log rather than, say, the Oblivion.esm or something, it could work with any mod-added quest NPCs, I would think.

OBSE does, so it is not tricky at all. I already use a message box with text typing in MMO, where you can freely name your map markers, and in Enhanced Economy where you can write in a new price factor for specific types of items.

I don't know squat about NPC schedules or AI packages, but I can certainly help with creating a dialogue option that pops up a message box where you can type in the NPC's name.

Wow! Good to know some technical hurdles can be beaten by OBSE wizardry. Anyone who thinks they can build this should take up on this idea and offer of help from TNO stat!

Bumpah? anithinks its a good idea

Any takers for this idea? Please?

Oh lord, yes please! But make it work for any npc! I resort to the strategy guide for location skill trainers most of the time, it's really annoying!