Player Alias breaks the start of the game

Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:37 am

How are you putting the player in an Alias in your mod?
E.g. if you need to create a quest object, it is convenient to create a player alias and then create the quest object as an alias in the player alias' inventory.

However, any ESP with the player as an Alias bugs out the auto-walk to the chopping block at the start of the game, before Alduin shows up.
To try:
  • Create a new ESP
  • Create a Quest with Start game enabled
  • Add the player as an Alias
  • Activate and start the game
That's it! No Script, no special item is required to break this. Only the player in an Alias is needed to break this scene.

EDIT: This was ok before 1.5, by the way.
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Rudy Paint fingers
 
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Post » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:08 pm

Not true, mate. Just tested and it works fine.

Is your Player Alias called "Player" or something? Mine is called something slightly different (I put a prefix in front of all my variables)

My Quest - with Player as an Alias - Is start game enabled and the start scene works just fine (went as far as jumping from the tower into the ruined house, anyway)



Couple more thoughts:

1. What priority is your quest? Try turning it right down if high and see if problem goes away? (Also Check priority of MQ101)
2. Does your Quest demand an action of the Player (script), or does it have a package on the player? (Mixed with above, that might be your issue)
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stevie critchley
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:36 am

Weird. The Alias name is kuPlayerAlias. And it's at default 0 priority. And it has nothing. The Quest is empty apart from the player Alias. Very weird.

The auto-walking to the chopping block stops the game from progressing. If I save the game at that point using the console, I can continue the game after I deactivate the test ESP.
If I reactivate the test ESP and load that game, I get into the auto-walk "screen shake" mode and again, get stuck on the way to the chopping block.

I'll reinstall my CK and try again.

Thanks for checking on this, h4vent!
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Carolyne Bolt
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:38 pm

No worries.

And I agree, weird. Guess it might be a bugged ESP, can't see what else would do it

Best of luck
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Rudi Carter
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:21 am

I've found the problem. Not the exact problem, but I've found out where it fails.

The Script for Stage 5 of MQ00 suggests that some startup quests shouldn't have Start Game Enabled "for various reasons".
; called by MQ102 during chargen - place to put "startup" quests that can't start enabled for various reasonsHousePurchase.Start()
Something in my startup script set-up (http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1349590-init-at-game-load-and-init-at-game-restart) to enable a hacked OnGameLoaded () and OnGameRestarted () must be one of these "various reasons".
To work around this I simply ensure that my code only runs when MQ00 is at least at Stage 5.
E.g.:
Event OnUpdate ()    If questMQ00.GetStage () >= 5	    ;do stuff here    EndIfEndEvent
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Madeleine Rose Walsh
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:15 am

Just to complete this thread, here is the result of my test that justifies the blame on the Player alias as the culprit:

In my tests, everything worked all the way through to the end of Helgen EXCEPT when I had the player as an Alias. When I removed the Alias, my test worked. When I added the Alias, it didn't worked. It was very inconsisten on when it failed. Most times it failed at your walk to the chopping block. But sometimes it failed after you get up after the dragon attack and tried to walk to Ralof. I can imagine that while testing, all seems ok - until much further in the prologue mission when it will fail. Best to follow what Bethesda did and run scripts at Stage 5 MQ00 as per the Script for it:
; called by MQ102 during chargen - place to put "startup" quests that can't start enabled for various reasonsHousePurchase.Start()

And YSNE58 made me aware of this post by Arthmoor in the Economics of Skyrim mod in Dark Creations forum: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/1281-relz-economics-of-skyrim/page__st__100#entry97019. It simply iterates that we shouldn't be making our mods run from the start of the game.

I think you may need to suspend initialization until after Helgen is complete. Or at the very least until after MQ101 reaches a minimum stage that's beyond the race menu selection. This mod's initialization takes so long that it caused a CTD two times in the 10 or so I was poking around in LAL today.

I suspect the vanilla Helgen sequence will not appreciate having this interrupt it either since that's pretty sensitive.

EDIT: I added the word "didn't" which is bolded in my original statement.
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Charlotte Henderson
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:53 am

Thanks for the update kuertee. I have seen that little warning in the MQ line ... It's one of those things you wish they had documented a bit better (WHY can't they start!?)

Having seen this a couple of weeks back I have now a "New Game" test added to the other standard tests I run ... MQ101 is very odd and quite complex (moving all the charcaters to start positions and doing the Race Menu etc) so it seems sensible to check that what I do have in startup (including a player alias!) is not impacting on it ...

... So far it - even the player as alais - is not (I can clear Helgen without issue from a vanilla start)

If anyone does figure out what combination of things is "bad" at startup it would be great to know - At the moment, I am assuming it is anything that takes too long to process, causing a slight delay which MQ101 cannot handle?
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Joe Alvarado
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:04 pm

When you added the player as an alias, was it a pointer to the unique actor, or a forced reference?

I can certainly attest to how sensitive MQ101 and also MQ102 are to being messed with. I think I've probably pushed on both about as hard as the game is going to let me get away with :)
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emma sweeney
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:06 am

When you added the player as an alias, was it a pointer to the unique actor, or a forced reference?

I can certainly attest to how sensitive MQ101 and also MQ102 are to being messed with. I think I've probably pushed on both about as hard as the game is going to let me get away with :smile:
Mine is a pointer to the unique actor ... all appears to be fine (fingers crossed and all that). MQ101 and MQ102 (indeed, MQ anything) I just leave well alone ;)
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Lisa
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:31 am

Yeah, that's what I did too. Pointer to the unique actor.
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Dean
 
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Post » Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:37 am

Yeah, sorry to confuse everyone. I meant to say the Player as an Alias with a Script that runs during the prologue missions. I still have the player as an Alias in my mods from the get go but I prevent all Scripts (those in the Quest and those in the Alias) from running. I have the Alias pointing to "Specific Reference" instead of to the "Unique Actor". That's probably also a factor.

But yeah, best leave well enough alone until after the prologue mission.
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Marcus Jordan
 
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Post » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:16 pm

It would be interesting to test whether there is a difference between a Unique-Actor alias and a Forced one ... If I get chance I will change mine to see if it has an effect.

I do run a script at game-start ... not on the PC, on an Actor - But that quest does fill a player alias.
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lolli
 
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