Renee's Modding Thread Options

[Renee]

Mod-making thread basically, which focuses heavily on quest-making. The first two tutorials (How to make a fetch quest and how to make a kill quest) are very hand-holdy. They are designed for those who are just starting to learn the art of quest-making. Other tutorials get more advanced, as my wacky ideas have pushed their boundaries.

Just click on any of the links in the post below this one.


Bethesda Units. (How distance compares in-game to real-life).

Xpadder Walkthrough page. Xpadder is a site which allows gaming controllers to mimic the key & mouse functions. Xpadder, or similar programs such as Joy to Keys, are absolutely crucial to get the most out of older games such as Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion, for those who prefer controllers. They can also be used for newer games (Fallout 3/NV or Skyrim) to provide alternate controlling scenarios during times when a game's native D-pad arrangement needs to be shut off.




This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 16 2024, 06:27 PM

[Renee]

Lizard Men! -- Game: TES IV: Oblivion

*PIC*

This one is not very comprehensive. Just something neat I added into my own game.

In TES 1: Arena, there were no Argonian enemies, but there were lizard men. These were similar to the primitive, reckless creatures found in many of the tabletop games: DnD and others. I wanted to put lizard men back into the Elder Scrolls series, starting with Oblivion. Because they were in the first game, so there.

This is going to show how I got lizard men into my game, and also how I added them to Leveled Lists, so they'll appear as generic enemies. Mostly in monster and goblin lairs, but also in underwater outdoor locations.

1). OBJECT window > Actors > NPC > Argonian
Select either Male or Female, and then scroll down to the V section. Any of the Veyond Argonians can be used (VeyondArgBossMale1, for instance).

Funny thing. I never really noticed that Argonian enemies are actually pretty rare in the fourth game! But yeah, they don't appear as bandits or conjurers or any other generic enemy except Marauders, I think. This only furthers my quest to add these into the game. Lizard men are not the same as Argonians though, as we'll see.

2a). Edit one of the Veyond enemies. Change ID, change Name. Class can be changed to whatever enemy-class fits best, such as BanditMelee for one which primarily uses melee weapons.

Make any changes you'd like to Stats, but make sure No Low Level Processing stays toggled on.

2b). Factions tab
Add or remove factions that seem pertinent. I made my own faction in step 4a, but before we get there, go ahead and remove the lizard from his/her original faction, VeyondCaveBandits.

2c). Inventory tab
Lizard men also don't go around wearing silly town clothes, in fact, the Veyond bandits aren't wearing anything much at all. I gave my lizard a Leather Shield, a Club, and left the two Leveled List selections alone. Gave the guy Leather Greaves though, otherwise he'd be walking around in loincloths, which is even sillier-looking than town clothes. Up to you, of course.

3). Click OK, saving as a New Form.

4a). Main Toolbar > Character > Faction
The Lizard Man deserves his own faction, and for dialog purposes, it's easiest just to make a new faction, just for the lizards. Right-click > New into the Factions window.

4b). Give the faction a name. I am calling it aaaLizardmen. Yeah, real original.

4c). Name the faction (in the top-center Name slot) and toggle "Hidden from PC" and "Evil" on.

4d). In the Interfaction Relations window, right-click > New and make this faction friendly, or hostile, or somewhere in between, to whatever other factions are in the game. Since my lizard men will primarily be put into Creature dungeons, I selected this, then put 70 into the Disposition Modifier slot. With 70, there is a chance there'll be occasional disagreements between the lizards and (let's say) some goblin or rat. They aren't totally rational beings.

4e). Keep the Faction window open.

5a). Reopen the Lizard Man's NPC panel, click the Factions tab, and drag the faction just made into the Lizard Man's Factions window. Click OK.

5b). Close the Factions window.

Main toolbar > Dialog button (this is the button which has a quote bubble for an icon).
Lizard Men are supposed to be primitives. They live in their own society, away from the colloquial civilization of Cyrodiil. They are basically like slightly-more-intelligent animals, since they have their own language, and can wield weapons. This being said, it'd be rather silly if they go around saying "How does the day greet you friend?" talking like any other NPC, if they are supposed to be monsters.

6a). Once the Dialog panel opens up (and it can take a few seconds) the Filter scroll-bar should automatically be on the lizard's ID IF aaa is at the front of the ID's name. If this ID is not showing in the filter, go ahead and find it.

6b). Click on the Conversation tab. This tab controls all the silly conversations NPCs normally say. In the center-left Editor ID (this is the tall window) there's a long list of topics. We're only going to focus on Hellos.

6c). Left-click on Hello. Scroll down to GenericArg. The first Argonian greeting is "Blessed we are." In the Conditions window, notice that there are two conditions: only Argonians are going to be able to say this.

6d). Add a third condition, which is GetInFaction aaaLizardman != 1.00

6e). Copy this Condition, then Paste it into all the other GenericArg Topics below.

6f). Scroll down to the Generic topics which do NOT include the Player in the NPC column. The first generic topic which qualifies is "Good Morning."

6g). Paste the same condition into Good Morning's Conditions window.

Pay attention to the variety of conditions which appear as you scroll downward. "You're making me nervous, sneaking around like that" is never said by any NPC I've ever heard. The aaaLizardMan condition won't need to be pasted into this one.

Also, any racial Hellos can get skipped. The game recognizes lizard men as Argonians, but not as Imperials, Orcs, High Elves, etc.

Any Generic Hellos which feature low Disposition ratings can also get skipped. Anything below 20.

6h). Click on the Combat tab, and click Attack in the Editor ID window.

Some of these Attacks can be kept. Anything not in plain English, for instance, such as "Huuagh!" or "Arrgh!" could potentially be said by a primitive beast. Anything English though, can get removed from lizard men dialog by pasting the same condition which was pasted into the Conversation tab topics.

Again, a lot of these Generics can be skipped. The lizard man character is not an elf for instance, so it's pointless to paste the GetInFaction aaaLizardman != 1 condition in.

6h). Detection tab
Every single selection in this tab will need to have that same condition pasted in. Good news is though, the job is finally done.

6i). Click OK, closing the Dialog panel, click OK on the NPC panel, and save.


Time to add these lizards into the game. If put into Leveled Lists, they will show up randomly

7a). OBJECT window > Actors > Leveled Creature
Find any list the lizard can possibly get added to. Since these lizards are friendly to goblins and monsters in my game, I started with LL0Goblin100. Double left-clicked on this selection.

As can be seen, there are three possible goblin-types which can appear in this list, all of them Level 1. Any instance of LL0Goblin100 (in a goblin lair or outdoors) will cause one of these three types to show up 100%

7b). Right-click > New into the window, and find the lizard man, or a lizard man. In my game so far, I've got aaaLizardmanWarrior and aaaLizardmanSwimmer (the underwater / swamp version). Swimmers don't carry weapons or shields, but are good with Hand-to-Hand. Now, there is a chance one of lizards can show up, along with any one of those three goblins. Basically, there is a 25% chance the lizard will appear from that LL0Goblin100 list.

7c). The Level slot can be changed if desired. For instance, if the lizard man is not to appear until the PC is Level 6, this can be changed from 1 to 6.

7d). The Count slot can also be changed. By default, one lizard man (or one of those goblins) will appear from that list. If the slot is changed to two, now two will appear instead of one.

If more than one get added into Leveled Lists, chances are the Dialog window will need to get opened again. Go back into the Conversation tab, and paste the GetInFaction aaaLizardmanFaction !=1 condition into any conversation topic which goes beyond the Hellos. In other words, the lizards won't say any Hellos, but if there are more than one of these in the same cell, there's a chance they can still meet & greet and fall into a silly NPC conversation.

Same condition can be pasted into Goodbyes as well.

7e). Click OK. Save.

7f). Continue to scroll down the entire list of enemies, adding the lizard into whichever lists seem appropriate. Since Argonians can stay underwater indefinitely, I put the swimmers into some LL0WaterShallow and LL0WaterDeep lists, so they'll occasionally replace mudcrabs and slaughterfish respectively.

This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 22 2024, 11:48 PM