I'm having trouble defining aliases in a quest. The main idea is that when the player picks up a note, a quest starts and a random innkeeper around the world is selected.

I'm using a player additem event node to start the quest, and the quest starts fine, the trouble comes with the aliases. I have a first location alias with condition "LocationHasKeyword" that searches for "LocTypeInn". This alias seems to fill correctly, as the quest starts.

The second alias I have is a reference alias with fill type Location Alias Reference pointing to the first alias. I couldn't find any way to reference an npc directly through this, so at the moment I have it set as optional to allow the quest to start anyway. I think I read somewhere that I can't reference an NPC which isn't in a loaded cell or isn't persistent. I thought I could go around this by just using the first location reference, and once the player enters the specific inn, then advancing the quest one stage and then referencing the innkeeper. If someone knows how to reference the innkeeper directly, this would be great.

The third alias is the marker alias. It's again a reference alias with conditions GetInCurrentLocAlias pointing to the first location alias, and condition GetIsId "MapMarker". I need the marker to find my inn, as it should be randomly selected. The problem is that this alias never fills. In the wiki it doesn't say anywhere that I need a real marker for this, so I thought that it might be created on runtime at the location alias, but I'm not so sure about this anymore. The GetIsID : MapMarker condition is coloured in the CK, does this mean something?

So, resumed, my questions are:

1. Is there anyway to reference an innkeeper in a cell which isn't loaded directly?

2. Do I need an already existing map marker to reference it, or is it created on runtime?

3. If I do need an existing marker, what would be the papyrus command to create it? And if I don't need it, why is the alias not filling and/or how to fill it correctly?


Thanks in advance for any help!

Hey, I am trying to find how objects ownership works and a while ago was checking some stuff about locations and read something that I related to your questions.

It seems cells have location objects assigned to them, and locations have locations ref types. If you read the Use part of the location ref type wiki it says:

http://www.creationkit.com/Location
http://www.creationkit.com/Location_Ref_Type

Hope it helps.

Thanks a lot, Shana.

With this info I could figure out that I can reference the innkeeper as 'boss'. I tried specifying it by adding a condition to filter only references in the 'JobInnKeeperFaction', as in some inns there are more than one boss, but this didn't seem to work. Leaving all conditions out and only searching for bosses fills the alias though, so I'm leaving it so at the moment.

I still have the problem with the marker. I just can't get my head around it on how to fill the marker alias nor how to make it show on the map.

A MapMarker is the type of marker that you can FAST TRAVEL to.
Map markers are not dynamic - they are placed in the cell inside the CK. So it is most definitely pre-existing when the alias fills.
And you can use an alias referencing a map marker to, for example, make it appear on the player's map if they haven't found the location yet.
There are many quests that reference a map marker for this purpose - have a look if you can find one of them.

A quest marker is the type of marker that shows you where your objective is - those have to point to an alias and are set up in the quest objectives tab.