Skyrim Creation Kit

[Giauz Ragnacock]

I would have dialogue options only if it was optional for subsequent playthroughs. KOTOR, one of my favorite games ever, is tarnished by all the dialogues forced on the player. I still like the dialogue (Carth's voice could win the whole Sith/ Jedi war it's so distinct and awesome), but I have played through the game at least three times now. The dialogue has become one of my biggest detractors to replaying that game now.

So, first playthrough, yeah sure, talk the ear off of everybody to get all pertinent information. In all subsequent playthroughs, the player only has to get into dialogue if they need a quick refresher on something. Also, a single button press at any time at all should stop the conversation in its tracks, even in mid-sentence.

 

[RK47]

: x

 

[Flanged]

Dialogue system looks much better than in Morrowind's or Oblivion's editor. Excited for this. Like Racofer said, given how easy this looks to use, why is the Skyrim dialogue so basic and shit? Why does the Dovvakhin have writen lines like: "Forget it," and "Are you Hircine?" How long would it really take to make those lines better, and why didn't they care? Lazy bastards.

 

[Bahamut]

why is the Skyrim dialogue so basic and shit? Why does the Dovvakhin have writen lines like: "Forget it," and "Are you Hircine?" How long would it really take to make those lines better, and why didn't they care? Lazy bastards.

If somone is a talentless fuck, even the greates tools wont help it

 

[DraQ]

The best solution is to use topics for generic information and dialogue trees for proper dialogue. This way you avoid "I'd like to ask about something else" loops.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Dialogue system looks much better than in Morrowind's or Oblivion's editor. Excited for this. Like Racofer said, given how easy this looks to use, why is the Skyrim dialogue so basic and shit? Why does the Dovvakhin have writen lines like: "Forget it," and "Are you Hircine?" How long would it really take to make those lines better, and why didn't they care? Lazy bastards.

They can't put decent dialogues couse they all must be voiced for :patriot: Who love to read and Books.

 

[Castanova]

Anyone planning on messing around with it at all? I think I'm going to do some experimentation with its capabilities. If it's powerful enough, I want to make a 10-15 hour mod. /yikes

 

[Admiral jimbob]

I really want to get back into modding something, and am currently toying with quest ideas. The base game's decent enough that I think I can make something worthwhile with it, probably of about the same scope as yours. All depends on whether I ever have the time, really.

 

[Zed]

I would love to just throw together a 1-2 hour highly atmospheric dungeon. Like.. plow through puzzle/combat (alternating) rooms until the end chamber, where you face the big bad. One room could be a dark crypt and involve some sort of riddle-puzzle bullshit, with the next room being a semi-submerged cellar with skeletons or something.
I find fixing environments, lighting, etc. to be the most satisfying thing about these types of toolsets anyway. It's best to start small as well.

 

[sea]

I watched the little trailer they released.

The fact that they took this long to include transform/rotation widgets in their editor is... appalling. I'm serious. How the hell did people even make games with these tools before now? The camera manipulation controls are also still fucking horrendous from the looks of it (like 3ds Max but terrible), but maybe they improved the handling a little.

The dialogue editor looks cool though, better than the previous one. Their tools are, at least slowly, becoming more designer-friendly, which is a very good thing. I'll have to try it out but I doubt I'll make anything too big using them anytime soon.

 

[villain of the story]

I'd like to give it a try to try and fix combat and damage modeling to be more meaningful.

 

[Zed]

Wasn't it due today? What time is it in Kwa? FFS

 

[sea]

I thought it was Thursday? Steam usually updates around 1-3 PM EST on the chance it does come out today.

 

[Davaris]

Dialogue trees are akin to a combat "system" where a developer creates a unique flowchart for each battle in the game, restricting what the player can do at each junction. They might be able to come up with an awesome cinematic sequence with such a "system", but they've fallen for the trap of not building a CRPG around what computers are good at doing. Not only would this "system" eliminate tactics in combat, it would also place a worthless constraint on the developers and modders.

At the moment I'm really liking the way they did dialogue in the old Ultima games, where you have to guess key words, as a mini game. Dialogue trees on the other hand, are only enjoyable to consume if the writing is of superb quality, because as you point out, there is no game at all, in their traversal.

 

[Zed]

I thought it was Thursday? Steam usually updates around 1-3 PM EST on the chance it does come out today.

Update: The Creation Kit is on track for release on Tuesday!

found a post today

kit will go live this afternoon

So... It's what... 12:30 EST? So in a couple of hours maybe.

 

[sea]

I've always loved the keyword system from Ultima, or Morrowind - not dialogue trees, but abstract enough to let you fill in the blanks. Only problem is, you don't really get the same sense of role-playing as far as choosing options go - instead of "Yeah, that sounds good to me" or "I guess we have no choice", you usually just end up with "yes" or "no." Nothing wrong with that, but they're different approaches and I think a lot of players like to choose dialogue options that inject their experience with meaning, even if there is no practical difference between them. I know that might sound like heresy to some players, but frankly the whole "BioWare choices" thing isn't really a problem unless it actively limits the options the player has - I don't mind cosmetic dialogue at all so long as it's not all there is.

Skyrim's dialogue editor actually looks like one of the best I've seen, and designing complex conversations using it seems quite easy. At the same time, doing larger, more complex dialogues looks like it would get cumbersome, due to the flow chart setup - this is where simple scripting or a nested sort of view would do better. The Neverwinter Nights 2/Dragon Age dialogue system excels in this sort of situation. I'd love to try it out and compare the two - I have a feeling doing large dialogues in Skyrim would be harder, but you could probably handle more complex links and dialogue flow in a more intuitive and natural way.

 

[Zed]

The Creation kit is out now. The first tutorial episode didn't really teach much. I would like to know how to create a mod using skyrim assets, but individual from skyrim itself. Own starting location, etc.

 

[villain of the story]

Just find player's starting location in the game world, find the scripts attached to the player, study them and make your own.

 

[Gord]

Don't worry, they are available in mine and I still can't get them because Steam servers are totaly overloaded.

 

[Castanova]

The Creation kit is out now. The first tutorial episode didn't really teach much. I would like to know how to create a mod using skyrim assets, but individual from skyrim itself. Own starting location, etc.

I haven't gotten to try out the Creation Kit yet but that's exactly what I'm looking to do. I want a standalone world map where you have to play a new character. I guess I'll look into it tonight when I start messing around with it and I'll post here if I figure it out.

 

[bonescraper]

Don't worry, they are available in mine and I still can't get them because Steam servers are totaly overloaded.

Guess i was wrong, it didn't want to start at first but now i'm downloading it. BTW, i changed the region i'm downloading stuff from to New Zeland and it goes fairly decent now - 2mb/sec. You can mess with the settings too if you're impatient ;p

 

[Surf Solar]

Does someone know how hard it is to transform new assets in the engine? I just want to toy around a bit with the editor and want to insert some assets I have made to render for What Remains. Could be cool to see them in an actual 3d enviroment, rather than as a rendered 2d picture.

Also, that dialogue editor is really really sweet.

 

[Akasen]

So I just found out they released a Free DLC for Skyrim. A three gigabyte High Resolution Textrure Pack. I'm unsure if Bethesda made it themselves or if they just slapped their name on someone's work.

 

[Castanova]

Only got to play around with the CK for about an hour. Went through the first tutorial on the wiki, basically, and that's it. Gotta say, it seems like it could be really time-consuming to make a mod in this game. It takes a lot of time just to create a single room with nothing in it! I can't imagine how much time it took them to create the game's opening sequence with the dragon.

Anyway, it wasn't immediately obvious to me how you'd create a mod that totally replaces the vanilla game. I wonder if there's any precedent for that type of thing in FO3/FNV/Oblivion... or is there some hard-coding going on between the "New Game" menu item and loading up a particular map to start with? Maybe I'll post some questions to Skyrim Nexus in a couple days after the "pros" have some time to look things over.

EDIT: I jumped the gun and posted to Skyrim Nexus already. I'll update you guys if I learn anything.

 

[villain of the story]

You have never used CS/GECK for previous Beth games, have you?