Yet Another Dialogue Question

[AndalayBay]

I have modified my NPC's GREETING topic so that I don't need to use AddTopic to have my new topic show up, but I notice that the rumours topic isn't available when I do that. (I'm pretty sure I could find a way to say the word "topic" a few more times if I tried...). How do you do this and still have Rumors as an option?Thanks...

[Dwip]

I'm ever so slightly confused as to what you've actually done here, but, and this is off top of my head so take it FWIW:- Make sure the NPC's No Rumors checkbox isn't checked;- Check to make sure that there are INFOGENERAL responses available to the NPC on the Conversations tab of their filtered dialogue list. Nothing there, you've got problems. It would be very strange if there weren't.Far as I know, that's the magic and all the magic, though it's been a while since I've dealt in rumors.

[Arthmoor]

You mean you used the "Choices" box instead? If so, that's why. When those get accessed, they're the only options available and the player will be forced to use one before being able to get out of the dialogue menu.

[Dwip]

Or that. The Choices box method of dialogue creation is a very fast route to sad pandaism, as partially explained in recent days here.I almost get the feeling after all these threads that I should sit down and write a dialogue tutorial or something.

[Hana]

Yes, you should. Save me from looking foolish trying to write one ... and I can plagiarize it.

[AndalayBay]

You mean you used the "Choices" box instead? If so' date=' that's why. When those get accessed, they're the only options available and the player will be forced to use one before being able to get out of the dialogue menu.[/quote']Yes, that's correct. Drat - I was hoping that the Rumors would still be available. The choices aren't mandatory!So that explains why Rumors aren't available from the Battlehorn Castle NPC's either. I've always hated the fact that I had to pick an awkward dismissive type response to stop dialogue with them.Is there anyway to add a Rumors topic in these situations? You do get a Rumors option if you use AddTopic in a script.The tough thing with a tutorial is hitting on all the unanswered questions. There are lots of tutorials out there, although not as many on dialogue, that's for sure. For example, the fact that your topics won't show up if you don't add them via script or alter the NPC's greetings. I guess the game engine does it this way to keep things manageable, but if you set up a bunch of topics for an NPC in your quest, it seems redundant to use AddTopic to make them actually appear. And then once you do get your topics to appear, not having rumors as an option if you used Choices on the Greeting topic to make your topics appear...In my case, the choices have conditions on them. So if I speak to the NPC in an area where the Choices on the Greeting topic don't apply, then the Rumors option comes up just fine, so everything else is set up correctly.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Just use "AddTopic [topicname]" in the script effect for the greating response, that'll fix you right up.@ Everyone else: See, I learned!

[Arthmoor]

The AddTopic box is for making a topic available in general. So that you can then have a topic with certain conditions on it to allow other NPCs to be able to discuss it. The only reason you need the script on the GREETING topic is because of the AddTopic bug.If you don't give an AddTopic method, and it's not part of a choice chain, your topic will never show up. There's nothing that can be done about that, so there's no sense in fighting against it :)There's also no way to get the rumors topic as part of the choices block. That's not what it's meant for. And I suspect attempting to force the issue there will result in more hassles than it would solve.

[AndalayBay]

I think part of the confusion here is that the word "topic" is used everywhere, along with "add topic".I didn't use the Add Topics box because I knew about the bug. I added my topics to my NPC. Now to me, this should be enough. I've already specified that these topics are only applicable to this specific NPC. So the first thing I find odd, is that I then have to "publish" those topics. Now to publish my topics, I can do so by using the addTopic function in a script somewhere or I have to add a new GREETING topic and either use the addTopic function in the result script (due to the bug) or add my topics as Choices on the GREETING topic.If you add your topic as a Choice, then that's all that will show up, so you won't see the Rumors. However, if you use the addTopic function in a script (and don't use the GREETING topic at all), then your topic will show up along with the Rumors. Next I'm going to try adding my topic using the addTopic function in the result script of the GREETING topic and see if that will allow the Rumors to show up as well.I've done this before, but forgot that when you use Choices, those are the only topics that show up - that was really the reminder I needed :grinning:

[Dwip]

Next I'm going to try adding my topic using the addTopic function in the result script of the GREETING topic and see if that will allow the Rumors to show up as well.

Sure will.

[AndalayBay]

Yep, it worked.Ok, so to sum it all up:- use the quest window to add your topics. (already covered in other tutorials).- you have to publish your topics for them to be available. You have a couple of options:1. Use addTopic in a quest script. If you add this function in the GameMode block, make sure you add a variable so that the topic only gets added once (this is covered in the Dialogue tutorial on the CS wiki already).2. Add a GREETING topic. You will have to add conditions so that only the appropriate NPC's say the greeting. After the NPC says the Greeting, you can use addTopic(s) to the result script to display your topic(s) or you can add your topics as Choices to the Greeting. If you add your topics as Choices, only your topics will be displayed.Have I missed anything? And this applies to all dialogue, right? What about if you give an NPC an ambush package? I'm guessing in that case, you'd definitely want to give them a GREETING topic, or add to an existing one, so that they would say the line as soon as they approached you.Thanks guys

[Dwip]

Yeah, what you'd want to do in the case of the ambush pack is to add the GREETING topic to a relatively high priority quest (generally the one you're working on), then give that NPC a response line or two, making sure to set appropriate dialogue conditions.There are also ways to use custom greeting topics to do the same work, but the circumstances in which you want or need to do that are very limited.