[Question] How to get dialogue working with Sure AI's ESM

[Woverdude]

A while ago I downloaded Sure AI's Master File used for creating new worlds. Since then I have been working hard on a mod. By now, I have managed to complete every part of the mod except the dialogue. Yet, for some reason I cannot get the dialogue working. Now, I now that there are many issues with the dialogue system, so let me try to explain what I've done so far to try to figure out the problem.

So far I have gone through every good tutorial and explanation of dialogue that I can find. I have used all of the workarounds and bugfixes that I can find. I have generated the SEQ, recompiled all of the Papyrus scripts, tried the Save/Load trick, ensured that I had voice acting files even though they were just a few seconds of silence, remade the dialogue quest twice to make sure that it is designed properly, and tried everything that I can think of to get the dialogue working.

The issue with the dialogue is that it doesn't appear. When I activate the Talking Activator which the Quest is supposed to give the dialogue to, absolutely nothing happens. So, I tried using an Actor in case it was an issue with TalkingActivators. That didn't work either.

I've worked on this mod for five months and have put hundreds of hours of work into it. But if I can't get the dialogue working then I will have to cancel the whole project. I have been able to add dialogue in a previous mod, so I know the ideas behind dialogue creation, though it's been a while since I last did it. There's of course still the possibility that I've messed something up. I know how hard the conditions are to get correct, but I think they are right. The only thing that I can think of that could be wrong is that the Sure AI Master File is missing something that the vanilla Skyrim.esm has which is keeping the dialogue from working. Other than that, except for some blunder on my own part which I'm not finding, I can't find anything else that could be wrong.

Did you guys have any issue adding dialogue when creating Enderal? If so, how did you fix it? If not, do you have any idea what I am doing wrong?

I apologize for bothering you guys and taking time from the development of Enderal, but I'm pretty desperate. I really don't want to abandon months of work, but I if I can't get this working then I will have to.

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Thank you for any time you can spare to help me,
Woverdude

[Nicolas Samuel]

Hi Woverdue,

We had the same problem - There are two things you might try, which worked for us:

- Never set the quest containing the dialogue to "Start Game Enabled"
- Specify a start-up stage (Very important!)
- Start the Quest via Script. Before the quest isn't started, the dialogue won't work.

Does it work with these tricks? It did for us. I hope it'll for you, too.

All the best,

Nicolas Samuel

[Woverdude]

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. It's encouraging to me that someone else has encountered this problem. I felt like I was either going crazy or messing something up which I could not find, because nothing that I tried worked.

Those tips are interesting. I assumed that specifying 'start game enabled' would be the main part of the solution. I guess not. Is this because of the SEQ requirements and the 'start game enabled' changes that Bethesda made in one of their updates? From what you are saying, it sounds like the best way to get it working is to create a Trigger that starts the dialogue quest with Papyrus.

I will try this and post my results here. The earliest I will probably have the chance to test that out is on Tuesday, when I am off-work. Would you mind subscribing to this topic so that I can ask for help if that does not work? I do not want to bother you or take up too much time, but I very much appreciate your help.

Thank you,

Woverdude

[Nicolas Samuel]

Hi Woverdude,

Okay, I'll do my best. I know the CK can be very frustrating in terms of dialogue implementation - For us, however, the dialogue is working fine now. And since Bethesda won't release any more updates, we're optimistic that it'll stay that way.

I'm looking forward to hearing your results!

All the best,

Nicolas Samuel

[Woverdude]

Sorry for the delayed response. I thought that I had posted a reply already, but when I checked I realized that I forgot to submit the reply. Sorry.

With your help and advice, I have managed to get the quests to initiate and the dialogue to appear. Thank you for your aid.

I am having some other trouble, but I'm not sure whether it's an issue with the ESM or just my own ineptness. A Quest seems to be having some trouble with switching Stages. I have a Quest that has Stage 0 and 10 that determine whether the player has been to a place. Another quest is switching the stage from 0 to 10 to make sure the dialogue changes to recognize that the player has been to the place.
Then the original quest has a dialogue line that takes the player back from the place and switches the stage back to 0. But for some reason it is not switching the stage. I'm wondering if for some reason it is related to the difference between the SetStage() and SetCurrentStageID() functions. Do you know what the difference between those is? I cannot seem to figure out what they do differently. I wonder if maybe the issue is that it won't let a stage be repeated, but the 'Allow repeated stages' option is checked in the the Quest Data tab. This is not related to the original problem (I think), but do you have any advice for solving the issue?

Thank you for your help in getting my dialogue working. And good luck with Enderal! I am looking forward to playing it when it is ready.

[Woverdude]

Regarding my issue with Quest Stages, I have found a workaround that uses a Global Variable to determine dialogue rather than the Quest Stages. It's not as efficient, but it does work. Regardless, thank you for the help that you have provided me with. I look forward to Enderal.