I'm sure this has already been answered, but I couldn't find the topic. First off, I want to introduce myself. My name is Chris and I have been playing Morrowind since it was released. One of the best games every created by far. I've been playing many different mods over the years and decided to try and figure out how to create a simple quest for starters and go from there. I've been going through some dialogue tutorials and have learned alot about the CS, but for some reason I always manage to mess up one thing. When I think I've finished creating my simple "Fed Ex" mod. I go and test it and when I talk to the NPC that I've created he says exactly what I want him to say.

For instance, "Hellow traveller, I need you to find my Dwemer Boots and bring them back to me." But for some reason, the words in bold don't trigger the quest. I don't know what I am doing wrong. When I go through the tutorials it works fine, but when I try and create my own quest it doesn't work. I've double and triple checked it many times, but the same thing happens. I know it's probably the stupidest thing that I'm doing wrong, but I just can't figure it out. Please, I need help. I really want to learn how to create mods, but I just can't get past this simple mistake. I'm hoping that this has been covered already and if it has, please just point me to the right topic or something. Thank you anyone for their help. If I didn't explain it better, then just let me know and I'll try to explain it better. Thanks guys...

Here is an image of what I am talking about

This post has been edited by camcdaniel: Jun 22 2008, 01:16 AM

in the results bar underneath you must put in somthing like:
AddJournalUpdate "Dwemer boots" 10
something like that I think

1. you should use your unique topics to avoid conflicts with already used topics (at least, if you don't want explicit interaction with already present topics).
So, name your topic "my dwemer boots" instead of "dwemer boots", which is already used by the game. The more specific, the better.

2. to have your topic bold/clickable, use the addtopic command. You could use it in the greeting result textbox, but if your mod is engineered to work with a Tribunal or better engine, you'd better use a global start script., which executes/stops itself at each game start/reload I.E.

When this has happened to me, it has been because of a typo either in the text or in the topics name (an extra space is also a typo).

I agree with Abot that you definitely should use the AddTopic command, and make the name of your topic as specific as possible, but...



Abot, BETHESDA didn't always use the AddTopic command! As a result, THEIR topics will vanish (i.e. not show up in bold blue) if you add a topic that include any of their topics names. (Been there, done that, learnt the hard way...) So, if Bethesda uses the topic "Dwemer Boots", and you add topic "My Dwemer Boots" you will have to use an Addtopic command not only for your new topic, but also for Bethesda's "Dwemer Boots" topic!

Somehow you lost me here... :S
Does that mean "Dwemer Boots" and "My Dwemer Boots" are not different names? *confused*

What I meant was that if there exists two similar topics and one of the topics *include* the name of the other topic, that topic will be 'overwritten' and never show up in blue (i.e. cannot be clicked). Not unless the topic is added by an 'addtopic'-command.

Say that Bethesda has a topic called "Dwemer Boots", and the devs never bothered to add this topic with an Addtopic command.

You then make a mod which has a topic called "My Dwemer Boots".

You meet the npc who talks about "My Dwemer Boots" already in Seyda Neen. Then the game engine 'register' this topic.

When you later on run into the npc who has the topic "Dwemer Boots", this will never get highlighted. (But the player can still 'force' the topic by calling up the console and type Addtopic "Dwemer Boots", so the text isn't gone or anything)

Not too sure I explained this as well as I wanted too :/

Can you create a hyperlink by using the hash (#) symbol: "#My Dwemer Boots"?

Emma, have you ever considered writing a dialog tutorial? I am sure it would be a big help.

This post has been edited by nikki: Jun 22 2008, 01:42 PM

Yes, a very long time ago, back in 2003 or so (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . But, english isn't my first language so i definitely hesitated to take on such a task. And then Srikandi, teacher and knowledgeable modder wrote a very good one which can be found here: http://www.tommyshideout.net/programs/guides.html (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


I have some information about dialog writing on my site though: http://lovkullen.net/Emma/tutorials.html

Thanks everyone for all the help. It's actually working better now. I am still wondering about something though. When I'm testing the quest before I've added Journal entries into the dialogue, the topic shows up just fine. But when I add the Journal into the dialogue, the topic looks just like the picture I uploaded before. When loading Morrowind a box comes up and says: Dialogue type "Journal" tried to become type "Topic." I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong in the Journal part of the dialogue. Are there certain words or names that you can't use if it matches the greetings or topics?

PS. I have been naming my Journals correctly to avoid conflict ie. CM_MyBlade... so I know that's not the problem.

This post has been edited by camcdaniel: Jun 23 2008, 01:15 AM

Thanks Emma. I know quite a bit about modding but have not had a lot of practice with dialog. Tutorials will spare me a lot of trial and error.

This happens when we place the journal command at the first line of the dialog resultbox. It is not a problem and not an error, it will disappear if you once again open your mod in the CS and just save it. So, no worries with that.



Are you sure the journal entries are correctly numbered (i.e. you haven't written Journal CM_Blade 100 in the resultbox while the correct number in the journal would be 10)? Now that you know that it's not the message about "Dialogue type Journal tried to become Topic" that causes the the link to vanish, maybe you will find that the reason is something trivial with journal numbers or journal names?

Ok, I'll go back and make sure everything is correct. But with this simple quest, I don't see how I could get the numbering sequence incorrect. All there is is Journal index 10 and 20. But I hope I did mess that up, cause thats an easy fix. Thanks again for the reply.

ah... very interesting! if I understand correctly, for instance
addtopic "Processus' Ring" would hide the topic "ring",
addtopic "crater citadels" would hide the topic "rat"
and so on?

The fix would be re-adding the hidden topic, right?
I.E.

Is it only when one of the things is 'AddTopic'd that this happens, or is it simply the creation of a topic containing another and then it coming up in dialogue (and thus being 'added' to the topic list)?

What I mean is, would simply 'knowing' the topic "crater citadels" remove the possiblity of "rat" ever being bolded? Or is it only if you have used the console command "AddTopic "crater citadels"" that rat becomes unbolded forever.

And does the fix (AddTopic'ing the hidden topic) actually let it be bolded again, or does it simply ensure its over in the topic list to be clicked on?

I don't think words inside of words count. For example, a topic called "Craters" wouldn't prevent "cave rat" from showing up. Now, if you had "big cave rat", it might prevent "cave rat" from showing up without an AddTopic. I've added a lot of new dialogue topics to a mod I'm working on, but haven't lost any of the old topics from Bethesda.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean!
Also, I believe that if you run iinto the topic "ring" before you run into the topic "Processus ring" you should still get both the topic. Whereas activating the topic "Processus ring" first would definitely hide the topic "ring" (unless you add it with an AddTopic command)




No, I don't think so. But, I'm a bit certain what happens if you have the topic "rats" :/. But words wrapped into other words doesn't prevent topics from showing up.



Yes. Be aware, though, that making an Add-all-topics-mod still wouldn't be a good idea, as Bethesda hasn't always filtered dialog for journal entries etc. (So if npc XX in Ald'ruhn has dialog about Processus ring that should only should up after you have talked to the original questgiver - who has the words Processus ring in his dialog - then XX will talk about Processus ring right from start, without the quest being initiated)




See above - it's if you activate the longer topic first. It doesn't matter if you have used the AddTopic command for the longer topic, so it's a good habit to always use AddTopic one way or the other (unlike Abot, I generally add it through dialog, but that's probably mostly a matter of what one prefers to work with; both ways should be equally good)



To be honest, I cannot recall if it will be bolded again or only in the topics list. I would have to test. I do *believe* that it will be bolded again, but I wouldn't bet my last coins on it. (Was a while since I last wrote a quest-mod)



Yes, I agree with you.

I have been reluctant to join in this discussion because I do not like offering advice unless I am pretty certain I know what I am talking about. Of course that does not always stop me in time of creating all sorts of confusion. But there is probably no harm that will come of it - when you see the length of this post, you will be reluctant to read it.

Over the years, modders have created a set of rules mostly based on anecdotal evidence (as near as I can tell, no formal testing has been performed). Some of those rules have been stated in this thread:

1. Use dialog topics that are more than one work in length.
2. Use dialog topics that are distinct from official topics to avoid breaking the official topic.
3. Use AddTopic with your new topics to prevent another modder from doing to you what you are trying not to do to Bethesda.
4. If you have to use a topic that 'umbrellas' an official topic use AddTopic to add the official topic.

The last one is problematic as has already been pointed out. It is possible that you will introduce a topic before it should be know to the player. Owing to Bethesda's weak filtering, it may be possible for the player to jump in to the middle of a quest before it had be officially started. If you are willing to investigate the consequences of AddTopic, feel welcome to use it, otherwise I think it a dangerous practice with official topics.

This also leads to one other controversy: whether it is better to use official topics or new topics for your mod's new content. At LGNPC we do not have much choice about having to use official topics, I have heard others regard it as a dangerous practice. To be certain, it has to be done with care, since it can introduce topics too early (as already mentioned), but it could break official dialog in other ways. However it is only by adding new topics that we introduce the potential for making official topics unavailable, so there! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Obviously it is sometimes necessary to add new topics, so let us see if we can better understand how that can be done safely.

I have some experience with the issue of breaking ('losing') official topics, but I have had a difficult time trying to make any sense of the information I have read or discovered first hand. At times it seems contradictory suggesting that there may be engine inconsistencies or other confounding information that had not been recognized. To be honest, I have avoided close scrutiny mostly because I regard this issue of mods introducing new topics that break official topics as the single scariest aspect of dialog (and there is much that I fear about dialog). But hiding one's head in the sand in a cowardly act of hoping that the problem won't be a problem is not a very responsible act for a modder, so this is what I have learned.

LGNPC Ald'ruhn breaks the main quest of Tribunal.

We have received a number of bug reports that Almalexia's topic 'task' is not hyperlinked nor listed, preventing the player from advance the main quest from that point forward. Upon my suggestion to one victim that he/she open the console and type: AddTopic "task" I was informed that did not help. I have tested that myself and discovered that while it does not reestablish the hyperlink in the dialog, it does add 'task' to the list of topics available. I suspect that the player did not notice this since task is near the bottom of the list and might not have been visible.

The culprit in this crime of stealing an official topic is LGNPC Ald'ruhn. It adds the topics 'final task', 'first task', 'task for you', and 'tasks for you'. Not very bright just on general principles, but I did not design the quest to which these topics pertain. If I had, I flatter myself that the quest would not have been so stupid. So I had no problem disabling the quest and thereby severing dialog links to these offending topics.

In hindsight, I can see that just making it so the topics cannot be displayed is not going to solve the problem, but in my mind (and perhaps in the minds of others) I supposed it was the establishment of the hyperlink - the reference - that was the source of the problem. I was wrong and that did not eliminate the bug, as subsequent users informed me. It is a function of the makeup of the dialog database - when that changes so does the outcome of these conflicts.

My next attempt to permanently eliminate this bug was to clean the topics entirely out of the mod, and that seemed to resolve the problem.


Today I have run some tests starting with a review of LGNPC Ald'ruhn and its numerous evolutions.

No mod installed:
Topic 'task' is both hyperlinked and listed - the quest works.

Ald'ruhn version 1.00 (quests and topics in tact):
Topic 'task' is neither hyperlinked nor listed.
If AddTopic "task" the topic is not hyperlinked, but is listed

Ald'ruhn version 1.10 (quests and topics disables):
Topic 'task' is neither hyperlinked nor listed.
If AddTopic "task" the topic is not hyperlinked, but is listed

Ald'ruhn version 1.12 - not yet available (topics cleaned out of mod):
Topic 'task' is both hyperlinked and listed.
If this version is installed with a saved game of an earlier version, there is a warning (because of the topics that were cleaned), but accepting the warning the game loads and both the topic is hyperlinked and listed.

It is important to note that if I run the game without any mods and visit Almalexia, she will greet me with the topic hyperlinked and listed. If I then save, plug in one of the broken versions of LGNPC Ald'ruhn and then load that save, the hyperlink is broken, but the topic is still listed.


First let me say that I do not understand all aspects about how the dialog database works. Computer programmers (and you are welcome to chime in any time) might be able to explain this much better, but here are a couple of my early conclusions:

1. The game keeps a record of the topics encountered (in fact we know this is true since one can look up the text of specific dialog entries through the journal).
2. The process for creating a hyperlink is different than just 'knowing the topic', since the topic may still be listed as available.
3. More to the point: it would seem that AddTopic does not create in unto itself create a hyperlink.


If one examines the list of topics in the editor, you will notice that Bethesda appears to break the rules we have established for ourselves.

Here are a couple official topics: 'armor repair' and 'armor repair debt'. Neither is introduced with AddTopic, presumably both work fine (the latter does not void the former). There are many such instances in the dialog database.

The dialog database responds just like every other aspect of the game when a mod is loaded, it updates it. Just as there is an order the dialog database is searched for an appropriate response, the date stamp (load order) determines what changes made by two different mods will prevail. The very definition of a mod is to alter the original content, so the dialog database uses the most current information.

Within a single master file (and presumably this is true for a mod) all the topics are 'available' - one does not preempt another (e.g. 'armor repair debt' does not prevent 'armor repair' from being hyperlinked or listed). They are on an equal footing. The database looks for a perfect match, not a partial match. However when a mod adds a new topic that includes the phrase that is an official topic, the new topic is found first before the next layer (by date) of the database is searched.

I have tested this with the new topic 'armor repair stupid', introduced by a greeting from Eldafire in Seyda Neen. I was optimistic that the topic 'armor repair debt', would display properly, and it did. But I expected that 'armor repair' would be broken - it was not. Whether I first spoke with Eldafire to introduce my new topic or not the result was the same. I tested with the Orc smith of Suran, Garothmuk gro-Muzgub. 'My trade' introduces 'worn armor' which introduced 'armor repair' that was both hyperlinked and listed regardless of how I tested. AddTopic was not used at anytime (although I was prepared to do so).

I am not certain why the topic 'armor repair' was not 'hidden' under the topic 'armor repair stupid'. It is not because the topic was not available to Garothmuk gro-Muzgub. The topic 'first task' was not available to Almalexia, but that still prevented the topic 'task' to display when it should have. This is an example of the sort of erratic outcomes that have long frustrated any attempt to be a real handle on this issue.

I was preparing to take it to the next level with 'armor repair, stupid', but there seems little point in it now. I know that some of you are very disappointed.


The question had been raised about how the database handles fragments of words. I expect that we have all seen something like this while playing: "blah, blah, blah armor repairs…". I am confident that 'crater citadels' will not bury the topic 'rat', but there is enough room for doubt to justify some further testing.

Building on the data already gleaned from troubleshooting LGNPC Ald'ruhn, I created the topic 'tasks' that I has the trusty Altmer Eldafire introduce in her greeting. Upon speaking with Almalexia thereafter she had no problem pronouncing the work 'task' and even hyperlinked and listed it for me. No problem with parts of words.

Then I tried 'task for you' - a topic from Ald'ruhn that I introduced in my smaller test mod. This has exactly the same result that it did with the LGNPC mod. The topic 'task' was unavailable at all (neither hyperlinked or listed) until it was introduced with AddTopic, and then it was only listed. This outcome is the same whether or not I speak with Eldafire first.

Next I tested 'tasks for you' - another topic from Ald'ruhn. Note the subtle difference with the uses of 'tasks' rather than 'task'. I rather hoped that this would work for the same (be heretofore unknown) reason as 'tasks' worked in my earlier test. It did. That is to say the topic 'task' was available from Almalexia both hyperlinked and listed regardless of whether I spoke to Eldafire first.


So what can we conclude from all this? Well, first of all if you are still reading to this point you are as compulsive as I am. Sadly, I do not know that we are very much closer to understanding the dynamics of how these new topics interact with the old - there are still too many confounding examples.

My hypothesis is that the newer plugin data is consulted and if a match is made then it hyperlinked. If filtering conditions prevent it from displaying but it is otherwise a valid topic, the engine does not search any further for a variation on the topic in earlier time-stamped mods or master files. Obviously one of my tests showed that is not necessarily the case, but it might be generally true. AddTopic will always allow the topic to be available (listing with available topics if the filtering conditions are satisfied), but not necessarily hyperlinked. Changing the root topic word slightly e.g. 'tasks' or 'task' or 'repaired' for repair might not result in broken hyperlinks. However, we begin to problems when the original word is included as part of a new phrase.

It is also possible that single word official topics (such as 'task') are subject to this problem while multiple word official topics (such as 'armor repair') are not. The latter was exempt in my tests. It may have something to do with the space linking the two words that cause the search to see it as one new word and therefore a harder match. As modders we know the importance of making our new topics as unique as possible. Think of it as a complex brand that a rancher devises to make it harder for a cattle rustler to over-brand. But that is as far as I will take the cowboy analogy.

I suppose that I should test that last hypothesis a bit more, and perhaps I will, but I am very tired of this exercise right now and I need to do something else for awhile. Of course, and of you are welcome to test it yourself.

What is the solution while we wait for a definitive understanding of the situation? Avoid using one-word new topics, try to avoid including single work official topics in your new topic multi-word phrases. If in doubt (and I know that I am), check in-game to see if the official topic is still available, and an adjustment if necessary.

Edit: A couple of clarifications.

This post has been edited by cyran0: Jun 25 2008, 03:27 PM

I think the hyperlinks look for a topic word or words that match and then hyperlinks them. So: armor repairs is hyperlinked because there's an armor repair topic. Tasks is not hyperlinked because while there is a task topic, there is no tasks topic. Do a new task would hyperlink the task because of the task topic. In regards to the programing aspect, I think the engine uses variables to track when a topic has been introduced, but I could be wrong.

Great thread for nasty problems (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . Many thanks to everybody contributing, and a special thanks to cyran0 for the great post.