[tannis]

Update 27/8/12 - Courtesy of Black RL, here is a video showing the dialogue portion of the problem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2_T9NlIwIo

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1399783-dialogue-no-longer-works/


There is a bug with the current version of Skyrim, in which a mod's custom Dialogue in quests, Scenes, Story Manager Events, and SayOnce dialogue, are not working as they should. Workarounds have varied results, and testing has been done by many people. The conclusion so far is that the game itself does not initialise the Quest properties (dialogue etc) properly until a save is loaded with the mod in question active and enabled. The save file does not need to know the mod. The game just needs to load a save file twice for these properties to work. Even then, people are reporting things aren't working still.

The following were my test results, when it was thought to just be a dialogue issue:

==============================================

From my post further down the thread:


Ok so after further testing I have found the following for dialogue only "quests":

(My dialogue only quests are a single 1 line topic/response branch with a condition S - GetInFaction - HunterFaction == 1, and a single line with S - GetIsID - Elrindir == 1)

COC from main menu

No dialogue shows at all for hunters or Elrindir. No amount of waiting or fast travelling seems to solve this. SQV MyQuest shows the quest as running fine.


Load a save that has never seen the mod

No dialogue shows at all for hunters or Elrindir. No amount of waiting or fast travelling seems to solve this. SQV MyQuest shows the quest as running fine.


Load a save that has been saved with your mod loaded (I loaded an old save, and instantly saved it to make this new save)

All dialogue works perfectly!


(For testing) Load a clean save as above, then go to hunter (no dialogue shows). Save game right there, then load that save from the ESC menu.

All dialogue works perfectly fine!


Basically, your dialogue only shows if you load the game with your mod enabled, save it, then reload that save. So this is completely reproducible. I added the COC test results as I know some modders use that. I myself use it to test level design etc.

Something has definitely gone wrong with the latest patch, because any save loaded with a new ESP (my own for example) would instantly work fine with new dialogue quests. Now though, you need to save, then reload that save...


EDIT

Obviously this can cause problems because if you save with a mod loaded, that has an active quest with scripts, then those scripts will be saved into that save. Meaning any edits you make to it in the CK won't change for that save.

EDIT 2

A couple of people have reported this doesn't fix the issue, but more have said it does. Best to try it for yourselves. Until we get a fix from Beth

==============================================



It was initially thought to be a dialogue issue, but upon further testing there are deeper issues here affecting the entire Quest structure. At best it's all quess work as to the actual problem/cause, until we get official word on this. PM's have been sent to the Bethesda folk we have contact with. Fingers crossed this problem can be resolved soon.

Things to note from Sollar's testing:

1) Quests modifying vanilla dialog are not affected and work fine (opposite of the 1.6 dialog bug), and the flip side - if an ESP disables a vanilla quest "Start Game Enabled", the change is ignored and the vanilla quest is still starts.

2) The problem is not in the SAVE file, but in Skyrim itself. The "reloading a save" trick doesn't actually require saving the current game. The work-around can also be accomplished with the following:
a. Activate your mod
b. Load any save with the mod active
c. Load the "clean save" file (in this case, "clean save" = save file that has NEVER seen the mod, ever.)

Edit: The randomness of it works for some people and not others does NOT seem to be performance related.

[David Chambers]

Thanks B1gBadDaddy, I'd like to summarize the following:

* Both ESM's and ESP's are affected the same
* Modified vanilla Quests are NOT affected

Now that we have more information, a bigger picture of the problem has emerged:
1. All aspects of Quests appear to be affected, including:
a. Dialogs
b. Scenes
c. ForceGreet
d. Say Once flags
e. Aliases
f. Quest Variables & Quest Stages (see note below)
Note: Need more testing to confirm if Quest Variables and Quest Stage/Completion values not reporting correctly

2. It’s not an issue in the Save Game File, but in Skyrim itself (as shown by the new reload work-around)

Two known work-arounds:
1. Reload (current "save" not required)
a. Activate your mod
b. Load any save with the mod active
c. Load the "clean save" file (in this case, "clean save" = save file that has NEVER seen the mod, ever.)

2. Start the Quest AFTER the game is loaded (in other words, don't use the "Start Game Enabled" option)


Edit: Will update this post to reflect new information from testing/user experience

[le GraiN]

Thanks B1gBadDaddy, two additional items to add:

1) Quests modifying vanilla dialog are not affected, and the flip side - if an ESP disables a vanilla quest, it's ignored.

2) The problem is not in the SAVE file, but in Skyrim itself. The "reloading a save" trick doesn't require actually saving the current mod, *it seems* (reports still coming in) the same work-around can be created by:
a. Activate your mod
b. Load any save file
c. Load the "clean save" file

Note: I will test the above - seems like step b & c might be as simple as load the clean save file twice. I'll update after I confirm.

Edit: My working theory is that this could be a race condition happening on FASTER computers, since the problem does not happen to everyone. I would appreciate reports on this...

No probs mate I'll try and keep summaries in the main post, in the hopes Bethesda can make sense of all of our findings and ideas.

[Sierra Ritsuka]

No probs mate I'll try and keep summaries in the main post, in the hopes Bethesda can make sense of all of our findings and ideas.

I modified my post with updated information... for you to update your post

[naome duncan]

I modified my post with updated information... for you to update your post

Done. Also fixed your spelling

[lolli]

Aaahhh, so THAT'S my issue. Ive got this dialogue bug. >.> Just great.

[Catherine Harte]

EDIT 2

A couple of people have reported this doesn't fix the issue, but more have said it does. Best to try it for yourselves. Until we get a fix from Beth

I think that it could be helpful if those people - telling that saving and loading doesn't work for them - could explain, if these selfmade quests they refer to are newly created since the latest CK or game update or are older quest. I could imagine that most people follow the CK-Wiki guide for quest creation. There, it is mentioned that you should use aliases for NPCs in the last part of the fundamental series tutorial.
Refering to my own experience with newly created quests and aliases in thread #1, that could explain why for some people loading and saving didn't help at all. If I am right, creating an alias now mainly leads to not appearing dialogue options no matter what you do ingame.
For me saving and loading didn't help in newly created quests too, but in older ones it does help. As told in the #1 thread this was only related to aliases of newly created quests for me.

What I'd be interested in is what your both own experience is. Did you try out to create a completely new mod with a script for testing pruposes and any kind of alias in the quest aliases tab? Today it is a bit late for me, so I'll try out to reproduce this alias related issue on a clean and fresh installation of skyrim tomorrow.

[Kate Murrell]

On the save/load thing working for some but not others:

Not sure if this relates, but a couple days ago I made a new NPC. Wrote her dialogue, and put her in the Hag's Cure. Nothing I tried would get her dialogue to show up. Save/Load trick was no help. Starting a new game and then going through Helgen first made no difference. Then I remembered someone saying something about how walking up to your NPC from a considerable distance made the dialogue show up.

So the next day, without changing anything with respect to her dialogue, I placed her out in the open world, and this time, the Save/Load trick worked perfectly. I'm not technically inclined either, so I don't know if it was just some random thing, if it took some time for the quest to bake into the save, or if the location actually made a difference, but I do know that the next NPC I made I just plopped him out in the open world again, and he worked immediately upon saving/loading.

[Darian Ennels]

What I'd be interested in is what your both own experience is. Did you try out to create a completely new mod with a script for testing pruposes and any kind of alias in the quest aliases tab? Today it is a bit late for me, so I'll try out to reproduce this alias related issue on a clean and fresh installation of skyrim tomorrow.

Yes, in the previous thread I created a new ESP just for testing purposes - so I have tested on a mod created pre-1.7 and a new mod. The behavior was the same.

So the next day, without changing anything with respect to her dialogue, I placed her out in the open world, and this time, the Save/Load trick worked perfectly. I'm not technically inclined either, so I don't know if it was just some random thing, if it took some time for the quest to bake into the save, or if the location actually made a difference, but I do know that the next NPC I made I just plopped him out in the open world again, and he worked immediately upon saving/loading.

I've tested on an existing NPC (Beth NPC) in an interior location and an existing NPC on an exterior location, same results. I've also tested with a new NPC in an exterior location and again, the same results. For me, I have not seen a difference based on the location of the NPC.

[Mariaa EM.]

Yes, in the previous thread I created a new ESP just for testing purposes - so I have tested on a mod created pre-1.7 and a new mod. The behavior was the same.



I've tested on an existing NPC (Beth NPC) in an interior location and an existing NPC on an exterior location, same results. I've also tested with a new NPC in an exterior location and again, the same results. For me, I have not seen a difference based on the location of the NPC.

Same for me. Dialogue on a Beth npc both interior and exterior don't work.

What I did find was dialogue during a quest works fine. I'll need to do more testing but this appeared to be true. It may be linked to the stages being completed and all that quest stuff happening, eventually allowing certain dialogue topics.

[Mike Plumley]

What I did find was dialogue during a quest works fine. I'll need to do more testing but this appeared to be true. It may be linked to the stages being completed and all that quest stuff happening, eventually allowing certain dialogue topics.

Good point. As many people reported, not using the "Start Game Enabled" but instead activating a quest later resolved the problems. I created a Test plugin with both a modified vanilla dialog and new quest dialog using a trigger to activate and verified it works. (Iposted a link if anyone else wants to try it for themselves.)



Edit: Thanks nurgln, added "ForceGreet" issue (and "Say Once")

[maria Dwyer]

Yea I think we're really starting to narrow it down mate lol

[Honey Suckle]

I want to add that myself in my mod and Arthmoor (http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/554910-open-cities-skyrim/page__st__1440) have isues with forcegreet not working.

[Eve(G)]

Is it worth mentioning the possibility that aliases aren't filling, and may work inconsistently across subsequent loads?

[LittleMiss]

Now that we have more information, a bigger picture of the problem has emerged:
1. All aspects of Quests appear to be affected: Start Game Enabled, Dialogs, Scenes and Aliases

I *think* someone mentioned it in the previous thread, but I don't see it mentioned here, so I report it again:

also a mod's VMQuestvariables are affected and seem to reset to 0 on each load (like the SayOnce-entries which are being repeated constantly). If not cured, this could be quite devastating for questmods and their progress.

[kat no x]

I *think* someone mentioned it in the previous thread, but I don't see it mentioned here, so I report it again:

also a mod's VMQuestvariables are affected and seem to reset to 0 on each load (like the SayOnce-entries which are being repeated constantly). If not cured, this could be quite devastating for questmods and their progress.

Okay, I updated my post above to be more inclusive of Quest Related issues.

[Reven Lord]

Sollar, I based my post on comments from my playtester, but when I'm thinking over how my mod works, I think I should do some tests on it, myself, to see if I can confirm the issue. (What I realize is that a certain gameplay-style that the tester could be using could cause similar "symtoms" to what happens if my VMQuest-vars are set to 0. As broken VQuest-vars would be thoroughly devastating for any quest-modder, I feel very responsible for reporting such a thing without having thorougly tested to confirm it to be true).

[Austin England]

Sollar, I based my post on comments from my playtester, but when I'm thinking over how my mod works, I think I should do some tests on it, myself, to see if I can confirm the issue. (What I realize is that a certain gameplay-style that the tester could be using could cause similar "symtoms" to what happens if my VMQuest-vars are set to 0. As broken VQuest-vars would be thoroughly devastating for any quest-modder, I feel very responsible for reporting such a thing without having thorougly tested to confirm it to be true).

You aren't the only one who has reported quest variables as being a problem. Problems with quest completion status not coming back correctly has also been reported (I posted a quote from another website).

I will update my post to reflect more confirmation needed.

[Gisela Amaya]

Same for me. Dialogue on a Beth npc both interior and exterior don't work.

What I did find was dialogue during a quest works fine. I'll need to do more testing but this appeared to be true. It may be linked to the stages being completed and all that quest stuff happening, eventually allowing certain dialogue topics.

I can confirm that. In my quest the NPC containing the dialogue lines to start the quest is located in Castle Dour. After saving and loading and starting the quest I have to visit Beirand in Solitude, so it is another location. From Beirand on everything works fine.

About that mentioned VMQuestvariables ... I need a VMQuestvariable from the CW Script (for the Civil War questline as you might know) to get the players rank in faction. I'll try out if this is still working, but it should I suppose because its not a VMQuestVariable from a selfmade Quest-Script. Don't know if that information woulg helpful, though.

I made some additional testing on a fresh and clean installation of Skyrim without any mods and with an newly created character. There it is all the same with the aliases bug behaviour.

[Juan Suarez]

I want to add that myself in my mod and Arthmoor (http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/554910-open-cities-skyrim/page__st__1440) have isues with forcegreet not working.

Ah, no, there isn't an issue in OCS with that not working because OCS isn't editing that. Something else is causing that, as I mentioned. I only offered up two possibilities for why it's breaking in that post.

[mishionary]

I tried out using that VMQuestVariable from the CW Quest, which is used only in the starting dialogue. This works fine, as it seems, but as said before, its from the original game.

[Chloe Lou]

I tried out using that VMQuestVariable from the CW Quest, which is used only in the starting dialogue. This works fine, as it seems, but as said before, its from the original game.

All my testing of edits on vanilla quests are that they work fine. It only seems to be user created Quests (in either ESM or ESP) that cause problems.

[jess hughes]

Ah, no, there isn't an issue in OCS with that not working because OCS isn't editing that. Something else is causing that, as I mentioned. I only offered up two possibilities for why it's breaking in that post.

Ahh... okay, sorry. I misread it.
Though I think it is no coincidence that forcegreet is not working for me and a few others.

[Ally Chimienti]

If the forcegreet in that case is tied to a quest alias and the quest hasn't registered as started, then yes, it would probably break right along with all the other things people are seeing. This dialogue thing is a huge mess. Though for whatever reason what little new dialogue exists in my own mods has yet to fail, and I don't really know why that would be.

[Hayley O'Gara]

The package is tied to a quest ref alias (unique actor) and also in a phase of a scene. In case one fails the other should trigger but nooo... :/ Even looping the scene does not help. I really hope this bug is classified as urgent and the devs are working on it.