[RELz] The Ayleids Steps 3 -- Thread #2 : IV - Oblivion

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:44 am

Thank you all for liking TAS.

Second, and this bit is a spoiler:

Spoiler

During the quest Murder Masquerade, there's an XMarker outside whichever inn it is in Skingrad where the murder takes place which triggers one of the quest stages. Unfortunately, I'm an Open Cities Classic user, and the XMarker remains in the closed version of the Skingrad worldspace, meaning I had to hunt it down in the CS, then go track it down in the closed version of Skingrad. As you might imagine, this was fairly confusing for a while, until I figured it out.

Bah, that's tricky. :stare:
That Xmarker was needed to speed up fQuestDelayTime because the Player has to be stopped once he/she is in the building on a predefined spot. The default delayTime was sometimes too slow to catch a running Player. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for reporting it.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:40 pm

After reaching L4, I decided to get the steps activated because I was bored and I like randomly jumping around Cyrodiil. So I got the book, found the messenger... but I couldn't find the Ayleid cask. I have a feeling it's a conflict with 300 Arcane University, which redoes the tower as well as the AU. No big deal - I just used the console code.

And on another note... I ended up teleporting into a cave earlier today. I saw some imps fluttering around, so I shot them, and I heard a troll nearby... then an ogre appeared out of nowhere and charged me. After one punch, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and jumped out. I'm not entirely sure where that was, either - I didn't get a chance to look at the map. Really cool, though.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:06 am

Have you tried to activate a Step?

I am not sure. I thought I had tried, but that may have been the night before with a different character. I will give it a shot then try the book again.

Edit: That was what I was missing. The moment I tried a stepstone near Bravil, I got the quest.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:29 am

but I couldn't find the Ayleid cask. I have a feeling it's a conflict with 300 Arcane University, which redoes the tower as well as the AU.

Very likely. And not much can be done about that too, except having TAS below that mod in your load order during that quest stage. So that's another Known Issue then. :goodjob:

Edit: if you have done the quests before and you know what you are looking for, here is a cheat. Enter the mod's test room:

(console) coc SSotAHQ

...where you can find any missing item. Caution: don't touch or take anything if you don't know what it is. You could disrupt other quests by doing so.
Leave this room by simply fast travelling to anywhere in Cyrodiil, or by activating the Steps near the stairways.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:39 am

FAQ ADDENDUM

Lately, most of the questions being asked are about the Mapping Mayhem quest. So here are some useful hints that should make it easier to tackle the problems presented by the Councillor:

Spoiler

First, read the task sheet given to you by the Councillor.
Each route starts, or is supposed to start, with one of the steps in the Imperial Palace corridor. Teleporting from there you pass through one of the city's outer watchtowers and then further out to one of the other cities. You keep on teleporting until you are close to the city; then walk to the nearest city gate.
The cleverest approach is to try to find these step routes on your own first. Take note of with which Step in the palace you have to start to reach a given city. Never use a 'broken' stepstone to teleport in this quest, as these will throw you off course; if you think the line starts with a broken step in the palace, ignore it and find the corresponding IC watchtower to start from there.
Once you know exactly how to travel from the Palace to a particular city by using the steps, go to the Councillor and tell him. He will instruct you further and send the watchman with you. Now perform the same teleporting sequence with the watchman in tow. Once you reach the town's gates, talk to him and he will leave you to deliver Osciuro's letter.

If you prefer the complete no-brains gameplay for your quests, here are the exact steps to take after you have received the Councillor's letter and the Watchman told you he is ready to go with you:

Spoiler

1. FROM IC TO CHEYDINHAL:
Enter Imperial Palace, start with 3rd stepstone to your left from the entrance. On the Ayleid Well, activate the step to your right. 6 teleports will land you in some private quarters in Cheydinhal Castle.

2. FROM IC TO LEYAWIIN:
Enter Imperial Palace, start with the 4th Step to your left from the entrance. In Nenalata dungeon, use the Step at 2 o'clock. 6 teleports are needed to end up in the wilderness to the southwest of Leyawiin.

3. FROM IC TO BRAVIL:
Enter the Imperial Palace, start with the 3rd Step to your right from the entrance. In Sardavar Leed dungeon, take the Step at 2 o'clock. 6 teleports are needed to land you on the Ayleid Well near Bravil.

4. FROM IC TO BRUMA:
The Step belonging to this route in the Imperial Palace corridor is broken, so start by running to the city's North Watchtower in the Market District. On the coastline near the north sewer exit, take the Step to your right. At the next spot activate the Step to your left. The 5th teleport puts you in the hills north of Bruma. (If you have UL-Snowdale active you cannot easily see that, so check your world map.)

5. IC TO CHORROL:
Enter the Palace, activate the first Step to your left from the entrance. At Sinkhole jetty, use the Step in the middle. In Fanacasecul dungeon, use the Step you are standing on. In Narfinsel, activate the Step in front of you. In Wendir, use the Step at 11 o'clock. 6 teleports in all take you to the wilderness west of Chorrol.

6. IC TO SKINGRAD:
This route's stepstone in the Palace is broken, so run to the South Watchtower (Arboretum). In Vindasel dungeon, use the Step to your right. In Ceyetatar use the Step at 11 o'clock. 4 teleports land you near Skingrads West city gate.

7. IC TO KVATCH/ANVIL:
Enter the Imperial Palace, start with 1st stepstone to your right from the entrance. In the SW watchtower take the Step at 1 o'clock. On Talos Bridge, take the southern step. On the Ayleid Well, take the Step at 1 o'clock. Near Kvatch, take the step to your right. 5 teleports are needed to reach a Step in the hills north of Anvil.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:45 pm

I have an issue that may turn out to be a bug.

I entered the last of the 12 Lost dungeons for the second quest, and decided it was getting late and I'd finish the next day, so I saved the game. After restarting, I cleared the dungeon without finding the "special artifact". Since it has to be spawned into whichever of the 12 is the last for a given player, I'm wondering if the restart has broken things. The final dungeon for me has two interior cells, and I had not entered the second, so I'm wondering what happens if the script decided to place it there when I entered the first. Does that cell get built from scratch when I enter for the first time, without it?

The other possibility is that it's in a very well hidden container that I haven't found. There are a lot of them!

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:35 pm

The other possibility is that it's in a very well hidden container that I haven't found. There are a lot of them!

This. As soon as you find the next to last dungeon, the quest determines what dungeon remains and the container with the artefact is acivated therein. The container is non-respawning. It is not hidden as such, but it may sit in a very dark corner. IIRC in a certain tilted dungeon it is in a room which has to be opened with a remote switch. I you really cannot find it, PM the name of the dungeon you are in and I'll try to point out where to look.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:39 am

If you're spawning it at that stage, then the restart can't be affecting it. I'll keep looking. I should have left a smaller one for last!

If all else fails, I'll look where you hid it in the CS.

(Edit: turns out it was VERY well hidden - in plain sight, looking exactly like another one I'd emptied already)

I did hit a problem caused by Open Cities - I didn't trigger a quest stage because I didn't pass an XMarker outside the Two Sisters that was in the closed Skingrad. I had to enter that worldspace and go there to set it off. OC has paths into the closed cities just for those purposes. Also found that eyja.esp has to load after TAS or else the water level in the Rosethorm basemant gets reset to vanilla and the pool is empty. Since these are two popular mods I'm surprised that BOSS didn't already have them ordered that way.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:04 am

I did hit a problem caused by Open Cities - I didn't trigger a quest stage because I didn't pass an XMarker outside the Two Sisters that was in the closed Skingrad. I had to enter that worldspace and go there to set it off. OC has paths into the closed cities just for those purposes. Also found that eyja.esp has to load after TAS or else the water level in the Rosethorm basemant gets reset to vanilla and the pool is empty. Since these are two popular mods I'm surprised that BOSS didn't already have them ordered that way.

Thank you. The OC problem was also pointed out http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091510-relz-the-ayleids-steps-3-thread-2/page__view__findpost__p__16343179 by Dwip. I didn't know about the Eija conflict. Thanks for mentioning it in the BOSS thread.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:19 am

Something odd...SSotANorbGroRukhol "Norb Gro-Rukhol" [NPC_:##0014D7] and vanilla character Shelley "Shelley" [NPC_:000034C3] keep walking into each other slightly to the west of the road leading up to the castle in Cheydinhal.

They both have the CheydinhalWanderGardens12x5 [PACK:0006E6AA] pack In the vanilla game only Shelley has that pack. I think the problem is that the Pack has a Radius of 0, so they both try to occupy the same spot.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:14 pm

Hi there -

I am playing through TAS and enjoying it so far, but am not very far in. I am at the stage where I am supposed to investigate the clues in "a book concerning the steps". However, I can't find the Mages mentioned in "The Ayleid Steps", and while I think I've found the people mentioned in Austel's journal, none of them have anything to say to me. Is this a bug, or do I need to look harder? If the latter, I'm content to continue nosing around until I stumble upon something.

Thanks,
Asterai

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:37 am

They both have the CheydinhalWanderGardens12x5 [PACK:0006E6AA] pack In the vanilla game only Shelley has that pack. I think the problem is that the Pack has a Radius of 0, so they both try to occupy the same spot.

Hmmm ... saw that once, but failed to pay attention to it. Noted, thanks, I'll change that if I ever can get around to update the mod.

Is this a bug, or do I need to look harder? If the latter, I'm content to continue nosing around until I stumble upon something.

Just do that, i.e. explore the steps until something else catches your attention ... the books are misleading in this respect, so forget them once you have completed the first quest.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:56 am

Hmmm ... saw that once, but failed to pay attention to it. Noted, thanks, I'll change that if I ever can get around to update the mod.

It seems the AI Package is faulty (has a Radius of 0), so it will be fixed with the next UOP update and the problem should solve itself that way.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:02 am

Just to make sure...unlike previous versions you no longer need to be a member of the Mages Guild to play this mod, right?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:41 am

Just to make sure...unlike previous versions you no longer need to be a member of the Mages Guild to play this mod, right?

Nope.

No MG membership required.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:24 pm

Nope.

No MG membership required.

Good!

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:18 am

I have run into a problem. I have version 3.4 of this mod and have found Ervvyn's journals. I went to the Elven Gardens District to the tavern from which he lost his notes

Spoiler

Luther Broad's Tavern

. I couldn't find anything. I checked the spoiler document and noticed where it was

Spoiler

a loose panel on the corner of the bar counter

. I verified this in TESCS, but when I went there in my current game, it was not to be found. I am guessing another mod in my load list could be to blame. Has anyone else had this issue, and if so, how did you fix this?

Thanks.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:53 am

Would you consider adding Oblivion XP support to this? I see that it requires OBSE anyway, so it would only require a few lines of code to be added to the result script of the quest completion stage. I've taken over development of Oblivion XP and am trying to improve its performance... This would help considerably and not add a burden to your mod.

Here is the code that would need to be added along with some guidelines for the number of points to award:

if ( isModLoaded "Oblivion XP.esp" )	runScriptLine "set ObXPMain.interOpGainedXPMessage to sv_Construct %qCompleted the blah blah quest%q"	runScriptLine "set ObXPMain.interOpGainedXP to 100"endif

Replace "blah blah" with the name of the quest. Replace the 100 in the second line with the number of points you wish to award.

Point guidelines:

* For simple quests that really only require you to talk to somebody, you would award about 50 pts. The Deliver the Amulet quest is a good example. The master training quests in which all you need to do is find the trainer and talk to him are also good examples.
* For quests that involve you doing bit of leg-work, you would award about 100 pts. The miscellaneous quests "The Potato Snatcher", "Raid on Greyland", "Go Fish" or "Bear Season" are all good examples.
* For quests that involve a small dungeon dive and retrieval you might award about 150 pts. The Daedric Shrine quests all fall into this category. "Find the Heir" or "Weynon Priory" are also examples.
* For quests that involve a more extensive dungeon dive or a lot of running around, you might award 200 to 250 pts. This is typically the upper limit.

...Thanks.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:37 am

I verified this in TESCS, but when I went there in my current game, it was not to be found. I am guessing another mod in my load list could be to blame. Has anyone else had this issue, and if so, how did you fix this?

The panel is only enabled after you've had a dream urging you to go look for the book. If that is the case, the only other cause I can imagine is that some other mod changes the interior of that tavern. Then try to move it above TAS in your modlist, or temporarily disable it until you have found the notes.

Would you consider adding Oblivion XP support to this? I see that it requires OBSE anyway, so it would only require a few lines of code to be added to the result script of the quest completion stage. I've taken over development of Oblivion XP and am trying to improve its performance... This would help considerably and not add a burden to your mod.

Sure. On the to-do-list. It may take weeks or months though, I can't tell. Sorry.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:19 pm

Take your time Ervvyn, this is a wonderful mod. I'm just happy you are still supporting it.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:08 pm

The panel is only enabled after you've had a dream urging you to go look for the book. If that is the case, the only other cause I can imagine is that some other mod changes the interior of that tavern. Then try to move it above TAS in your modlist, or temporarily disable it until you have found the notes.

Sure. On the to-do-list. It may take weeks or months though, I can't tell. Sorry.

Thanks, Ervvyn. My character has yet to have the dream. I will check again once that happens and re-post if the panel is still missing.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:33 am

Sure. On the to-do-list. It may take weeks or months though, I can't tell. Sorry.

Haha - yeah I know what you mean

Ok, well I'll post the usual blurb about how to do it and you can judge the effort and tuck it in when time permits.

Add these lines of code to the result script for the quest completion stage, as follows:

if ( isModLoaded "Oblivion XP.esp" )	runScriptLine "set ObXPMain.interOpGainedXPMessage to sv_Construct %qCompleted the blah blah quest%q"	runScriptLine "set ObXPMain.interOpGainedXP to 100"endif

Replace "blah blah" with the name of the quest. Replace the 100 in the second line with the number of points you wish to award.

Point guidelines:

* For simple quests that really only require you to talk to somebody, you would award about 50 pts. The Deliver the Amulet quest is a good example. The master training quests in which all you need to do is find the trainer and talk to him are also good examples.
* For quests that involve you doing bit of leg-work, you would award about 100 pts. The miscellaneous quests "The Potato Snatcher", "Raid on Greyland", "Go Fish" or "Bear Season" are all good examples.
* For quests that involve a small dungeon dive and retrieval you might award about 150 pts. The Daedric Shrine quests all fall into this category. "Find the Heir" or "Weynon Priory" are also examples.
* For quests that involve a more extensive dungeon dive or a lot of running around, you might award 200 to 250 pts. This is typically the upper limit.

If you think to let me know when you do it, I'll add your mod to the Friends of Oblivion XP club

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:02 am

Version 3.4.1 is available at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16316.

This is to be considered a beta version, for testing compatibility with http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1126968-relz-oblivion-xp-update/ by SirFrederik and Andalaybay. Do not bother to install this if you don't use aforementioned mod, as there are no other fixes or changes.

Installation: copy The Ayleid Steps.esp to your \Oblivion\Data directory, overwriting the previous version. No need to clean save, just continue your game.

Beware: UNTESTED in game. Please report any problems in this thread. Thank you. :wave:

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:24 am

Thank you for adding the support. I will be releasing a new version of Oblivion XP shortly that removes the limited support Ob XP had for The Ayleid Steps previously. Until everyone upgrades to the new version of Oblivion XP (which will be 4.1.8), they may get two doses of points for a couple of quests

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:27 pm

I'm experiencing lots of Real Life quests and cutscenes lately, which leaves me no time for modding or even playing in the foreseeable future. So I decided to upload some resources for any mod maker or tinkerer who might want to edit the The Ayleid Steps 3.4 mod for themselves, or want to check for conflicts/compatibility with their own mods (thank you

). If you merely want to play and enjoy the original mod do NOT open the files, as they will surely spoil the fun.

Contents:
SSmapConnect.bmp - a Cyrodiil map depicting all locations of stepstones and their teleport connections, if any.
Stepstones.xls - a spreadsheet listing all stepstones in the mod, including Editor IDs, Xmarkers, cell coordinates and remarks on related quests and (landscaping) mod conflicts.

Download only at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16316. Enjoy.

Oh, and happy Holidays to everyone. :wave: