============================================================= Lord Sakaki's Manor A plugin for The Elder Scrolls III, Morrowind version 1.28 (using Morrowind 1.2.0722) by James Clark http://neko.freeshell.org , jamez_c@yahoo.com (aka NekoNeko at MorrowindFiles.com) ============================================================= 1. About 2. Installing the plugin 3. Warnings 4. Location 5. Cool Things 6. How do I get in? 7. Hints 8. Other plugins by the author 9. Revision history 10. Uninstalling the plugin 11. Tribunal 12. Notes for script writers 13. Xbox 14. Thanks 15. Standard Disclamer 1. About ======== This plugin is the type that everyone makes when they discover the Construction Set; it started as a house. Don't run away just yet! I have tried to make it a little more entertaining than simply being a house. Please, take some time to explore it, it has quite a few secrets to discover. In particular, the main highlight of the mod is now the slaves/companions available within. I think you will find them very flexible. You don't need to use the house if you already have a place of residence, which is quite likely. But it is their home and they can teleport back if they get in trouble (or you lose them), and there are a few other advantages to stopping by once in a while. So basically, do what you want, the plugin caters for people who need a place to stay, people who just want a companion or two (or 11!), people who want to try and break into a vault, and people who want to summon long-lasting creatures. 2. Installing the plugin ======================== Couldn't be simpler. untar or unzip the archive file you have downloaded into the "Morrowind/Data Files" directory. When starting the game, select "Data Files", locate and double-click the entry called "SakakiManor.esp". Note: I've noticed a problem that often plagues plugins; if you apply the plugin that modifies an area that you are currently in, or have recently been in, it is still in your save game and can cause weird things like doors from the new plugin appearing but no building. Since this plugin creates a new building in the Caldera region (West Gash -1,2), please make sure you are away from Caldera before you apply the plugin. Otherwise you might not see my nice house ;) If you have a previous version of this plugin... hmmn. I'm aiming to get everything perfect this time around, so that there won't be any other versions of this plugin. Should the need arise, it may be best to uninstall the old one first but that may mean you have to re-aquire things. It may work to just use the new version instead of the old, but I can't guarentee things will look right if you start stacking versions of plugins on top of each other. 3. Warnings =========== You may get some warnings; just say yes. This can happen with all plugins, not just mine. There are two possible warnings: The first is if you have just installed the plugin and you are loading a saved game that did not have the plugin in it. Your saved universe does not yet contain the Sakaki Manor, so the game complains. Save again while using the plugin and this message will go away next time. The second message is a little trickier. If you are using a different patch version of Morrowind to the one I used to create the plugin, Morrowind will complain. Indeed, the game designers may have changed something in a recent patch that may cause my plugin not to work anymore. I shall try to keep up-to-date versions on my website. However, if you want a quick fix to get rid of this message, you need to open my plugin with the TES Construction Set, and save the plugin again using that. The warnings say to do this, but it is a little misleading to get it within the game, don't you think? anyway, that will clear the message. As of Morrowind 1.2.0722, you only get one of these messageboxes that covers all the plugins you are loading. 4. Location =========== The Sakaki Manor is located in Caldera. It is actually just outside the city walls, to the north-east of the city. There shouldn't be any clashes with other plugins (but let's face it there's bound to be someone else who wants to build there... please let me know if there's a plugin that collides with this one) There is also a little beach house in the Grazelands Region south of Indoranyon. These areas are the only exterior places modified. All else is inside the mansion, which goes deep into the hillside. very very deep. 5. Cool Things ============== I'm quite proud of a number of things in my mansion, which mostly revolve around the scripting that is possible with the Morrowind engine and the Companions I've made. Here's a few things to look at: 1. VERY interactive slaves/companions. Liked the Jessica plugin by UlfGeir? or the Boyfriend/Girlfriend plugin by Emma? you'll love this. All slaves in the Sakaki Manor are well versed in a few simple spells, massage techniques, local lore and much much more. While they do not get paid, they live very comfortably within the manor, and a few are strong enough to go out adventuring with you, and can make a very good party member. 2. Through a lot of hard-coding, it is possible for them to wear (and remove!) any standard item of non-magical clothing or armour in the game. It is possible for you to give them an item, they will wear it, and if you don't like it they can change into something more comfortable ;) It is important to realise that this is better than doing it using bartering. All the other barterable NPCs, they will wear any armour or enchanted or special-plugin clothes that you give them, and you will NOT be able to ask them to remove these special items. My way means anything you can give them, you can remove. But it cannot work with player-enchanted or special-plugin items. That would be impossible. 3. Also, I found that with most companions, it is embarrasingly easy to lose them somewhere. The Morrowind AI tries it's best but sometimes people will get stuck and you won't be able to find them. Except with mine =) As long as you have found the rings, you'll never lose them. These companions shouldn't prove too unbalancing; any benefits gained from having them in your party are offset by the risk that they may be killed in battle. Bring too many and battle will get chaotic very quickly with friendly-fire all over the place. Thankfully, my companions will not hold a grudge against you over friendly-fire. But please be aware friendly fire still hurts. 4. ..and I just can't stop adding things! It is now possible for the slaves of the Sakaki Manor to gain experience from combat and the use of the in-house training dummies. They can then use this experience to boost their skills! oh yes! They level up too! 5. The bedroom windows. I'll say no more. 6. The swimming pool. Not much by way of clever scripts (just the one to get them swimming around) but I'm very pleased with the lighting there. 7. Deeper underground, the manor even has it's own small fighting arena. The Orc and the Argonian (or the Redguard and the Altmer) periodically do battle there for your entertainment. You will not get to see the other two fighters in honourable battle unless you do a small quest for them. It's worth it ;) 8. The assorted secret doors and all those traps in the Vault. Do not be afraid. Be very, very frightened. And then run away very very fast =) 9. The Magic Travel Bag. Before going on a big adventure, you may wish to get Wendy to bring her bag with her. Has issues due to Morrowind not saving bag state. That's what makes it magic! 10.If you ever come in from the rain, there's something so natural that it may escape your attention. See point 5. 11.Should a slave be slain, there is still hope. Find the Magic Chamber. It's not easy, though. 12.You can also summon things in the Magic Chamber. 13.If you've ever been trapped in a dungeon or corridor because the companions that followed you in won't move out of the way, I think you'll be very happy to know that mine will step aside if you try walking into them thanks to a little scripting. 6. How do I get in? =================== Because this is -my- (i.e. the player's) mansion, and it -is- owned by a noble bloodline of several generations, there are indeed a few valuables and some very useful things inside. All the really shiny, powerful, potentially game-unbalancing artifacts are stored in the Vault though, so you'll have to work hard to earn them. But the ladies, particularly my favourite, are quite powerful in their own right and could also be unbalancing. I don't want to unbalance the game, and as such, only a reasonably experienced character should be able to get in and claim the place as their own. So I've decided I will lock the outside doors with a pretty strong key, making sure that average players will need a little effort to be able to get inside. Expect to be at least level 16 or so. I can't judge precisely since it depends on how you intend to get in (lockpick skill or open spell or open scroll or somehow stumbling across the super-hidden exterior key that no-one should be able to find except by severe accident maybe I won't even make one). 7. Hints ======== Expect to be hunting for keys and other things. Come prepared. Check your map sometimes. If you want to get inside the vault, you'll certainly need the key, or be insanely skilled with a lockpick or spell. Once inside, you're on your own. Expect nastiness. 8. Other plugins by the author ============================== I'll leave a list of the other plugins I make here, in case you see something you like. Go visit my website. So far, only 2: bugfix_Ahnassi.esp SakakiManor.esp 9. Revision history ==================== 0.90 Going to release this soon. Just need to finish the vault. I have to work on a thesis too, y'know? 0.91 A number of improvements. Split the Dining Hall off from the main house, the polygon count was getting too huge. 0.92 Oh no. Don't know what did it, but I've managed to break the dressing code. The usual "EXPRESSION in xx.. infix to posfix." bah. 0.93 Aha! Eureka! the reason was I had added one more variable in the script. And breached another limit of the Morrowind scripting engine. Deary me, I must stop pushing it so hard, ne? See the script writing notes for details. 0.96 Well, hurray! Thesis done. worked a lot more on the mod, especially the Vault. the final trap looks nice =) 0.97 Final vault doors in place. Filled vault with goodies. Extra rooms for staff and arena fighters. Got Travel Bag working =) 0.98 Damn! Travel Bag not working as well as I hoped. It doesnt work if you reload the game to a point where you supposedly had it; the bag doesnt get saved in the savegame. damn. might not be able to fix this. 0.99 Cool! FINALLY managed to get the window light working (touch wood) perfectly. it doesn't accidentally illuminate moving objects and the lightning finally works again. Moved some of the menus around for extra speed in the Anything menu. The Resurrection Ritual now works... but shhh it's a secret. 1.00 Added a lot of code to try and prevent slaves from attacking player (and themselves) due to friendly-fire Added a cool cursed item - the Staff of the Dead... proud of the script on that one. Beginning some code to be able to summon some creatures in the magic chamber 1.01 Testing new and improved dressing code. It's tricky but if it works, things can get a LOT more flexible. might be able to do armour as well. 1.02 More improvements to new dressing code. It will be able to do all standard clothes (non-enchanted) and all standard and slightly exotic armour (again not the enchanted stuff) Also made a cool item for novice adventurers - the Safety Belt - which can auto-cast Almsivi Intervention scrolls that you have in an emergency. 1.03 I think the dressing code is as sophisticated as it can be for now. Began work on the training system (yes! Slaves of the Sakaki Manor can gain experience, and then use that EXP to boost their skills! yes!) 1.04 .. groan, lots of restrictions of morrowind hindering training code. Did you know, you can't use MessageBox with a global? And TESCS complains about the dialogue results if you run the checks, yet morrowind doesn't. However, things working now, that's all that matters. Will put the rest of the skills in next. Maybe even levelling. 1.05 All combat skills and levelling up are in there now. 1.06 Fixed up the text colours in the thesis books. 1.07 Things set up to allow creatures to be summoned in the magic room. 1.08 Can summon undead and various wildlife creatures! Also made the Signet Ring have the same functionality as all 11 slave rings. now you won't have to carry all of them around if you don't want to. Most cool. 1.09 Summoning atronachs. Fixed a bug where slaves would stop following when crossing outdoor boundaries - shouldn't have put so much code in the CellChanged checks. Fixed bug on "Magic Mantra" scrolls. Can open portal in Magic Chamber to surface (outside Caldera) to make herding summoned creatures easier. ...looking back at my notes for 0.90. "Going to release this soon" I said. LOL. 1.10 Moved the Anything submenus into the main dialogue, for speed. Also made the rather cool Combat Spells menu, so you can tell people what spells to use (i.e. not Greater Fireball coz it keeps hitting friends too) 1.11 Companions get a new spell on level-up. Summoning Daedra. 1.12 Had to move the Greeting 4 dialogue down to Greeting 2, coz otherwise vamp/criminal/naked PCs don't get much interesting to talk about. and don't get me started on naked vampire criminals. 1.13 Level-up adds 5% HP and MP. probably. not tested yet and could easily be fatal. also preparing to give Jajuka more functionality. but it's 3:30am. 1.14 Ok, done some of the histories, Jajuka fixed, the HP/MP thing seems to be working. Shortcut out of the vault. Extra dialogue. More vault goodies, more vault traps. Wanted to dust off my old Locator ring but it's not working and that really gets on my nerves. Also magic mantra scrolls are infuriating me for not working from within inventory; they've gotta be put down first. Also made a shrine that can restore attributes for an entire party. 1.15 Vault doors continue to infuriate me by not remembering their angle. Added an ugly hack that hopefully will take care of this situation; doors will reset on savegame load, so they can open again properly if they were supposed to be open. Yes, this happens even for Activators. 1.16 Misc polishing, maybe I can get vault doors working properly this time... 1.17 apparently, no. GetPos is also being stupid. now what? 1.18 FINALLY fixed the doors. Was able to use ForceSneak as an indication of savegame load. yaaay all done. 1.20 Moved house exterior, fixed one or two path grids. Cleaned with TESAME. 1.21 Important recent additions; companions will now step aside if you're trying to walk past them (great in those narrow imperial corridors) and you can talk to the guy in the arena to suspend the fights if they seem to be too buggy or you just want some peace and quiet. 1.22 Drawback of the step-aside code; it makes it slightly possible to leave a following companion behind when going through a teleport door. Did some fine-tuning to minimise this possibility. 1.24 Okay, one or two extra things. Worked around what appears to be a bug in Morrowind causing companion magicka not restoring to correct maximum when player rests. Added a few things people would expect to have, such as "Hey! Wait for me!", and Water {Breathing|Walking} spells. 1.25 Hopefully fixed xbox compatability issue 1.26 Nope. Seems like AddTopic is broken on xbox. 1.27 Maybe fixed xbox, can't test yet. Made little beach house. 1.28 Allrighty, a few lighting bugs but they're worked around, also Wendy wasn't wearing bad light armour because her Unarmoured skill was too high. fixed. Are we ready yet? 10. Uninstalling the plugin =========================== Now why would you want to do a thing like that? Oh, okay. Make sure you leave the manor, and drop (or at least unequip) any special items you got from inside. Save and quit. Re-run Morrowind, but change the Data Files so that SakakiManor.esp is not loaded anymore. Load your game and you will get a few complaints, just say 'yes'. Check everything's okay. If so, save and you won't get the messages again. I'd save a backup first, if I were you. Just to be safe. 11. Tribunal ============ I don't have tribunal and as such you can be assured that this plugin does not need it to play. Nor will I ever make plugins that will only work with tribunal; I think it is extremely unfair that Bethesda is not releasing a patch for "vanilla" Morrowind to give it the new scripting functionality found in tribunal. That said, some people do have tribunal. And from what I've heard, there's this thing called a "Share" menu or something that works like the Barter window except for free. Good for companion and slave npcs, etc. From what I've read, it's possible to allow for this in my plugin without making it incompatable with Normal Morrowind. You just add a short local variable for the npc called "companion" and set it to 1. Because people will ask for it anyway, I have enabled the use of this menu. Even though I am against tribunal-specific script things. But it's not active by default! no, I'm going to make you do a little teensy bit of work to get your fancy Share menu. First of all, you shall send a little email to bethesda saying that you do not like them making people pay for fixes and updates to the Morrowind engine, and that they should release a patch for normal Morrowind's scripting commands so that plugins can be developed for Morrowind without forcing people to buy more software. Once you've done that, you can (in game) pull down the console using ~, type StartScript sakakiTribunalPatch , press enter and ~ again to remove the console, and you're done. That -should- enable the Share menu you so desparately desire. But if it doesn't, don't blame me; I don't have tribunal! Also: VERY important, such inventory sharing can often interfere with other inventory management scripts of ANY companion plugin. Because you, the player, will be able to fool around with items that the npc would normally keep hidden from you. SO: If you use this tribunal thing, you do so knowing full well that if things mess up it's your fault. Understand? 12. Notes for script writers ============================ An interesting little thing I discovered; while it is perfectly legal to write an enormous if statement, and the compiler does not complain, you may find that the last few lines are getting run anyway. I have deduced that this is due to a limit in the compiled code, presumably the size of a conditional jump is limited to some small value. To fix it, you'll have to split it into a couple of if statement blocks, with the same condition. I really want to get teleportation to work properly. What I want is for each slave to have their own mark/recall style ability, or at least be able to 'mark' more than one location. But after many attempts, I have to conclude that this is impossible. The main problem is that the ->SetPos & ->Position method don't like being given variables as parameters, also I can't ->Move NPCs and moving a TravelMarker has no effect on the travel destination. So, I'll have to settle for the slaves being able to teleport back to the manor (a fixed location, so works fine) in case you lose them or things are getting dangerous. How did I do the Travel Bag thing? well, you must surely have tried calling ->Activate on a special container you've made, to try and pop it's window open anytime you want. And like me, you probably found it wouldn't work. Oh well. But then I realised that Activate will work in cases where you are checking OnActivate as usual and want to stop/allow the activation. What's up with that? Eventually, I figured it out; you can only call Activate on a container once the player has already tried to activate it themselves. I theorise that this is because the action that Activate should do is only worked out once the player touches them. Therefore, to get my lovely Travel Bag working, the player is forced to touch it first in order to give it to Wendy. After that, I can ->Activate them whenever I like. ... and yet, things aren't that simple. It works fine, for one session. If you re-load a game, the Activate ability is reset and you have to go back and touch the bag again to prime it. The bag isn't saved in the savegame either; it reappears back on the shelf. ara ara. I've almost got the new-style dress code working. It even does armour! but there's a slight problem. I've discovered that while you can ->GetLocked on a persistent chest that is far away, you cannot ->Lock it or the game crashes. If you start a script running on an object like something->StartScript bounceUpAndDown, and the script later stops itself after doing whatever was required, and you later start the script again: be warned that all the local variables do NOT get reset to 0 as you would expect. you have to reset them by hand at the end, before you call StopScript. Putting scripts in Dialogue Results is always a little problematic. That's what I find anyway- especially as the "Check Results" button sometimes seems to find more errors than are actually encountered when you run it in morrowind. MessageBox has all sorts of limitations, but one of them seems to be that you can't use globals for % substitutions. Oh and you can't have more than 10 buttons. You can run into real trouble if you try teleporting a character to your location when you haven't ever met them yet (that is, have never been in the same cell as them yet), because their dialogue hasn't been set up and if you talk to them you get a CTD. CellChanged checks even work outside, when you change from one region to another. So be careful when you put code in your companion to Follow on CellChange, or they can have a habit of being left behind across these boundaries. I found that out the hard way =) You can't SetLevel with a variable, even though some other Set/Mod/Get things work. Level just goes down to 0. sigh. If you need to find out NPC's max health/magicka, you can't, because GetHealth returns the current value only. But you can take a copy of the current health level at initialisation, which should be the correct max. It's incredibly annoying. I had my vault doors designed to slowly rotate open; fair enough. But upon savegame load, they would be back in their original positions, but still believe that they were open (thus trapping poor me inside vault). Naturally, I thought this was because they were Door objects, not Activators. So I changed them. Still same problem. It seems while Activators will happily save their position in a save game, they won't store their rotations. To make matters worse, GetAngle is broken; it will return the last angle you SetAngle'd it to, yes, but will not account for any Rotate commands done on it. I had hoped DontSaveObject might help by resetting all the variables on savegame load, and yet this doesn't seem to be happening. sigh. Finally found a decent way of detecting savegame load. Get an npc, call ->ForceSneak on them when you initialise. Because ForceSneak isn't saved, if you check GetForceSneak and it's == 0, the player must have loaded and you should re-initialise whatever saving hack you've made. hurray. 13. Xbox ======== Some of you may have noticed the extra .esp file called SakakiManor_XBOX_patch.esp. Think of this as an unsupported feature for those of you who are lucky enough to have a modded xbox and morrowind for xbox. it's basically an esp that should be loaded after the main file, which tries to fix a few things that are broken in xbox morrowind (no AddTopic for example). like i said, unsupported. 14. Thanks ========== Thanks to: Bethesda, for the fine games and editor. DracoX, for testing and xbox. 15. Standard Disclamer ====================== I do not accept responsibility for any damage or anything whatsoever happening to your saved games, computer, dog, cat, or any mental anguish or deep long lasting scars in your psyche, as a consequence of using or abusing my plugin. Write your own, you'll learn better that way. The code contained in my plugin is (c) Copyright James Clark 2003, and you may not use it for your own plugins without my permission, and giving me credit for it. That's all I ask. Have fun.