I'm finding dialogue to be the most confusing mechanic to understand so far, that said I've gotten most everything I've tried done so far, save for one annoying little detail.

I can set up topics and responses just fine, match conditions all that good stuff, but how I make an NPC say something before a topic is asked is beyond me, I can't figure it out, the dialogue tutorial on the wiki makes no mention of this and none of the dialogue articles are helping much, I'm trying to figure it out from vanilla dialogue but I'm not getting anywhere.

How does it work?

Edit: Aww yeah, figured it out, never noticed that "Blocked" dialogue type, sixY!

How did you do it? I need to know this too. I'd also like to know how to do idle pvssyr, and npc's speaking randomly to each other in passing as well. I'll be adding all that stuff in before long, lol. (Hopefully the dialog bug will get fixed.)

I don't have time right now, but I will answer all of these questions later if someone else doesn't. (Just so you guys know help is coming eventually... )

No problem AV, I'm not getting too aggro with dialog right now anyway until this bug gets sorted out. I think I'm lucky and haven't been bit yet. But all I'm putting in right now is the bare minimum greeting, response and goodbye just to trigger my quest stages. (crosses fingers)

If you set up a branch as "blocking" instead of top level, it will be said without the player needing to select a topic, then if you want topics to appear afterwards set up a link to the next branch in Topic Info, you end up with a Dialogue View something like this:


http://i48.tinypic.com/358rssy.png

Sweet, that's what I'm missing on some of my dialog! I'll try it out, thanks!

You can also set "Greetings" on the Misc tab of the quest to designate what they say before the player chooses a topic.

Dialogue between two NPCs is generally done via scenes.

Idle pvssyr can be done in a variety of ways--there's a "Say" Papyrus function that you can use to force an NPC to say a topic, there's a "Say" AI procedure, etc.

Ah that makes sense, I guess the misc tab is how they cycle between a variety of greetings hmm?

Yes Charlie

Hmmmmm. 'Blocking' actually means that other topics won't appear in the list of topic choices. If you want an NPC to start a dialogue with you without being activated, you can use a ForceGreet package.

Yeah, I found this out about 5 minutes ago and then read your post, I also didn't realise I had to make topics "Normal" instead of "Top-Level" to stop them appearing all the time, I figured linking branches would do that anyway.
EDIT: In hind-sight this seems obvious, "Top-Level" is pretty self-explanatory...but meh.

Also, it seems Blocking dialogue doesn't play very nice with forcegreet packages, at least in my mod, it makes the NPC approach the player, do nothing, then approach them again and greet, doesn't do it if the dialogue is "normal".

This is all explained in the wiki, but it's kind of hard to follow and take the information in when a lot of it doesn't apply to you yet, and unfortunately IIRC the tutorial for dialogue pretty much says "You don't need to know this yet." when it would be helpful to have a brief explanation. OH WELL!

Luckily we've got you geniuses to teach us what's what!

Ok, I know I'm a little slow on the uptick, but there's something I've been trying to sort out for a while now. Whether it's a force greet or normal dialog where the player clicks of the NPC, my player response(s), always pop in right away when my NPC's say their first line. For example, let's say I have a force greet that goes like this:

NPC (force greet to player) - "I've been looking for you, I'm glad you came in here."
Player response - "Well, what do you want with me?"

The response line "Well, what do you want with me?" appears as soon as the subtitle for my NPC's force greet line pops up. I would like for the force greet line to run, THEN and only AFTER it has run, the player response pops in. As far as I can tell, I'm setting it up just like other force greets are setup, but my player responses still show up right away.

I have encountered this issue also.

I have put the undesireable effect down to the fact that, the CONDITIONS on a line of dialogue become true BEFORE the line of dialogue is spoken. Think of it like the Begin and End Script-Fragment Blocks in Dialogue ... The preparation of the player's next line happens in the BEGIN, not the END, block.

PITA

Okay sorry I seem to have flown away to meet Sheogorath, do you guys still need an explanation of anything?

Yes!

1 - How to stop my player responses from appearing while the other actor is saying their lines.

2 - How to set up idle pvssyr between multiple NPC's as they pass each other. For example, say I have 2 guards on patrol routes that walk by one another sometimes. I'd like them to speak to one another about various topics based on conditions. As annoying as it was, remember in Oblivion when they would stop and tell the other, "I saw a mudcrab down by the water...recently!", and the other would say "Horrible creatures..." and move along their way? I want to do this, just have custom lines that would fire based on conditions. The conditions I assume are set just like other conditions, I'm just unsure how to set up the dialog.

3 - I have a Captain that trains their men at melee and archery dummies. I want him to patrol from station to station (patrol markers) and give instructions to the guards training. I assume this would be similar to # 2, but just not spoken to a specific NPC. I think it might have to do with the Topics you add to the patrol marker?

I already have all these NPC's created, AI packages working for them and custom voice types. Most already have dialog branches setup as they all have lines here and there. I just need to polish everything, and part of the polishing is to add these random bits of pvssyr in.

Oh, yeah I remembered something else, lol. I also need to set up random combat pvssyr as well. Stuff like grunts, ouches, and "Skyrim belongs to the Nords" type lines they yell during combat. I really wish the wiki had more info on all these dialog setups, but it is basic player to NPC dialog which I have a good handle on. Thanks AV!

As far as Idle pvssyr I don't rightly know.

For number 1 setting the branch to blocking does that, but I'm finding it's kind of wonky with forcegreet, makes them approach the player twice before talking.

For your last part, combat dialogues, in Misc in the Quest window there are dialogue subtypes for combat grunts, swing melee weapon and all sorts of scenarios, might be worth looking at.

Gah, I am out of it! Sorry! I'm forcing myself to respond right now so I don't disappear for a week again.

1 - Depends on what you mean. Click, you select 'Okay John I'll help you pick flowers.' and while he is thanking you for your kindness, the next group of responses pops up? This should not happen and is a hardcoded engine thing. If you wait they should appear after the line is done. Or you can click and I think it fast forwards, skipping the line, or if it's the last line, it continues but the next group of responses comes up. If it's the last line and there is nothing linked from the topic, you back out of the conversation, and the NPC finishes his line.

2 - I've actually never figured this out. In previous games it was random conversation info's, however they've removed conversations from Skyrim, merging what's left into the 3 other dialogue types. (Combat, detection, misc) You could set up a scene between the two NPC's. Have it triggered when the Captain enters a certain area? And I believe that you can repeat it as many times as you want. Just call 'MyScene.Start()' again and it should repeat.

3 - Definitely a scene for this one. Just have him look down range or at the trainee or something, then give him some dialogue lines. When you start the scene he will say them in order. This scene, like #2, should be repeatable.

Alternatively, I do think you can add topics to a patrol marker. They will randomly pick from them and say them when they are idling at it.

Yeah, I think using scenes for 2 & 3 completely defeat the randomness I am looking for. But for 1 (I'm mostly concerned with the force greet), you must not have seen my other post above where I asked:

Whether it's a force greet or normal dialog where the player clicks on the NPC to initiate the dilaog, my player response(s), always pop in right away when my NPC's say their first line. For example, let's say I have a force greet that goes like this:

NPC (force greet to player) - "I've been looking for you, I'm glad you came in here."
Player response - "Well, what do you want with me?"

The response line "Well, what do you want with me?" appears as soon as the subtitle for my NPC's force greet line pops up. I would like for the force greet line to run, THEN and only AFTER it has run, the player response pops in. As far as I can tell, I'm setting it up just like other force greets are setup, but my player responses still show up right away.

For the force greets, do you have audio files and lip files in place?

For #2, what you can do--what the game does--is have scenes triggered to start by Story Manager "Hello" or "Dialogue" events, as explained http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Scenes#Random_Conversations. You can add an addition random factor using a GetRandomPercent condition on the SM Event Node entry for the scene's quest.

They don't need to. You can put conditions all over scenes, including e.g. GetRandomPercent conditions, to make them random and varied.

Scenes can still be random. Just add a lot of response info's under the single topic and set up conditions so the game randomly chooses one. I have scenes where characters randomly say one of several lines so it's different for everyone.

I think that is normal? I mean, with each line of dialogue, the player has the choice of clicking it away quickly (and this is good). If the next line of dialogue is to be spoken by the player, then their topic choice will show. If the next line of dialogue is to be spoken by the NPC, a click takes you through to that line. So if you broke up the NPC's speech into two responses the player's choices wouldn't appear until they'd clicked through to the second line,

Well, 2 examples I can give right off the top of my head are the guard force greet in Whiterun the first time you enter. He meets you at the gate and says, "Halt, whatever, blah, blah...". And only AFTER his line is spoken and his subtitle goes away, does the player response about news from Helgen or whatever, and the persuasion option display. Also, the same with Irileth when she force greets you in Dragonsreach about approaching the Jarl. Only after she speaks and her subtitles are gone does the player response appear.

It's not a critical deal if my responses display at the same time as my greeter's dialog. It's more of an OCD thing with me, lol and I'm just wondering why mine aren't working like the others, even though I have everything I can see set the same.