I wanted to post about what I'm doing regarding the previous poll. I guess it was a bit too obvious that Continue the Main Quest (Curse Progression) is what most people want, but there are still enough votes to show what people find "more important/interesting" for the mod. I guess all options help improve the mod, but the option to have more new wenches is the least voted, so adding new wenches from time to time, like with the Christmas patch, should be enough. That being said what's next?
Tweaking how the archetypes work.
I think most people actually like how this works, the perks and the dialogues, but when playing, I also found an issue with the dialogue options, which is that it feels a bit "forced" and limited to choose the archetype you chose. For example, usually people have two options: either being the archetype dialogue tagged, for example, [Guardian], or/with a neutral one. I think people just use the tagged one, ignoring the other, so it may as well not be there. The neutral option was added just in case some interactions happened when the player was not cursed, but I still think it should be a valid choice.
I think some limited dialogues, like some for a "pervy guardian" and a "good Deviant" could actually be the same. The idea of the archetype dialogues was to prevent showing options to the player that don't really go with the character they are trying to play. For example if you consider your player character a Knight you probably will choose the guardian and you wouldnt want to even see the dialogue options to let Yuriana fuck beggars lol, it would feel weird to even get that dialogue option enabled just as it could be weird for a Deviant to get some dialogue options saying he will protect wenches honor or something similar unless its sarcastic I guess, you get the point, but as mentioned before, some dialogues could work for several archetypes and increasing options would be better overall.
Therefore, to give a simple example of what I mean, the difference is as follows:
The one without the tag feels more natural and as it fits the player character, not "forced" like with the one with the [curse] tag that it should feel somewhat "forced", the objective of the [curse] tag is more to present options where the player is being influenced by the curse and he has the choice to refuse the curse or just "give in" and choose it for whatever reasons. In this kind of dialogue I think it makes sense to tag the dialogue since it has a meaning behind it.
So I'm editing the dialogues to reflect this. This kind of thing needs to be decided and set before adding more, since I would like the archetypes to affect the slave training as well.
I will also make some tweaks related to the perks, and making them compatible with other mods as reported.
Continue the Main Quest (Curse Progression)
The "Main Quest" now works more in a "horizontal" way. I guess it could be said that the other quests, plus the curse progression is what it is about. In a previous post, I mentioned I wanted to make a continuation of Tigra's quest, and this will push the "Main Quest" too. I still will consider it Tigra's quest, but it will be related to even the post-credit video, so there will be a bit more "answers" or info about some stuff, you will know when it's available :P
"New Save required"
One of the main problems with Skyrim modding is how everything related to a quest is saved to your savefile once a mod is enabled, people usually comment that because they didn't start a quest, it means their game is "clean" of it but that's not the case, once people installa mod all properties or values related to a quest are already saved to your savefile, that's why uninstalling mods, specially with some quest involved is never recommended.
I mention this because I actually would like to try to "fix" this, I kind of tested this with the christmas patch and I think overall it was fine, the new quest added there was completely new so even if people used an old version of the patch, the properties of the new quest are safely saved into the savefile, since they are completely new, so everything works as intended. If you played the Christmas patch, when you give the gifts to the wenches, if as if you got them. I removed any trace of those subquests so I could add them later, since adding unfinished quests or constantly tweaking quests is what requires the new save.
Things like new idle dialogues, or some other tweaks not related to a quest, usually don't require a new save, or just a simple disable and enable on the character affected is enough to refresh that.
This is related to the previous post of adding new quests and progressing the story of the mod, and not requiring a new save. The new quests have to be finished and working when updating the mod. I guess some minor bugs could still be found here and there, but nothing that a command shouldn't solve instead of requiring a new save. This may be better for everyone, but the updates will take more time for sure.
I think the current version is stable enough to hold a bit. But let me know what you think about this, since maybe some people just don't mind me uploading unfinished stuff that will require a new save always, pretty much as before. Maybe those could be labeled as such, so people know when it could be safe to update, but this could also confuse people. So at least trying this could be a good way to check :P
Buxom Replacer -Jolene-
I made this quick Buxom Wench replacer for the priestess of Dibella, added with Interesting Npcs mods. It was annoying for me to see her in the usual vanilla outfit they use, so I made this :P Other than her appearance, I didn't touch much on how she works since she is just an "Interesting NPC" and part of what that mod does, so if you use that mod, maybe you would like to use the replacer too. This obviously is not part of the usual Buxom Wench Replacers patch since it requires the Interesting NPCs mod. I will leave it as an attachment to this post ;)
AI Usage
This is something I'm wondering about since I'm not sure what people think about it. In the last updates, I used AI to fix the wording of the dialogues since people usually complained about my bad grammar :P and how that broke immersion or just made the mod feel bad, or even buggy.
I think letting AI fix some wording is fine since it keeps the tone I want to set for dialogues, but also helps me keep it more "Skyrim friendly." I would like the wenches to feel that they are part of Skyrim, and that includes making the grammar and dialogues fit them and Skyrim as well. I think this usage is fine and is helping the mod; even using AI voices for the dialogues helped the mod a lot.
I dunno if I should try to make the AI images fit Skyrim, or maybe just go with a "realistic" or "rustic" style that could fit Skyrim. I do wonder if that is possible since there is not really a "style" to follow like an ingame picture or something, maybe there is, and I don't know.
Like in this pic for a potential SFW poster replacer for Yuriana's current poster, I kind of tried to make it seem as if something that could be made in Skyrim, but I do wonder if it's possible to get to that.
So I just wonder what people think, maybe some people don't even like posts that include any AI images :P I do wonder if I should try to make some kind of story with these as well.
Some people suggested maybe making main menu replacers or just wallpapers to use. More images of the wenches seem to be preferred since people suggested adding the AI images they shared on Discord to the mod, similar to how it was done with the drawings.
I personally like the anime style, but I do wonder, even if it doesn't fit Skyrim, maybe adding cards could be fine as an optional thing. In any case, let me know what you think about this, whether positive or negative, so I can know.
I didn't include mentions of the current Known Issues since is something I need to fix but I would like to note that I will most likely move: "Jack still has dialogues about Yuriana being captured" as somewhat of a "minor issue" mainly because it will require a good amount of work to tweak this so I better leave this as is, that for now work and then focus on it when more important issues are dealt with.
There are several things discussed here, and I would like to know what people think, so don't be shy to share your thoughts, since I do want to read them O.O
Thanks for the support, and as always, feel free to ask questions or provide feedback ;)
P.D: Still learning about this so feel free to ignore some minor issues in the pics :P